The "used to haves"

Today's issue of The New York Times looks at something beyond the "haves" and the "have nots" in America - - the "used to haves." They're people like highlighted in this "American Album" story in small-town Tennessee who used to have good jobs and now are just having to make do.

Left behind were thousands of people who once had a piece of the American middle class, including Mr. Rackley. The million-square-foot factory squats empty in a green pasture, like an elephant in the death field. The only reminder of Don Rackley’s 28 years there are the salt and pepper shakers collecting dust on the cafeteria table where he used to eat lunch.

And later :

Mondays at the unemployment office are like an Irish wake: middle-aged people telling worn-out stories, laughing through their circumstance. The place has an Orwellian name: Tennessee Career Center. James Hash, standing in line with a ball cap pulled over his eyes, put it like this: “Here you are standing in an employment line at my age. Nobody wants you no more.”

“You’re left out. You’re not American no more.”