Heavy spending and a dependence on manufacturing jobs has put some Amish men in Indiana in a bind, the WSJ reports today.
As we and others have reported, the Amish community is slowly being pushed from its rural fastnesses into something like suburbia. In Northern Indiana, the WSJ reports, the Amish have: “edged into the conventional economy, lured by the high wages of the recreational-vehicle and modular-homes industries. And they wound up experiencing the same economic whiplash millions of other Americans did.”
By 2007, more than half of Amish men in these parts were working full time in manufacturing, and earning, on average, $30 an hour, says Steven Nolt, a professor at Goshen College in Goshen, Ind., who studies the community.
The great increase in discretionary income spawned a `keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality,’ says Mervin Lehman, 39, an Amish father of four who says he was making more than $50-an-hour and working up to 60 hours a week as an RV plant supervisor before he was laid off in November.”
The economic recession and fears of greater hardships ahead led to a run on the Amish trust, an Amish-only community lending organization, the WSJ reports. In November, the trust suspended lending, according to the paper.
