Trade Worries Led Wisconsin Mill Town to Trump. It’s Still Uneasy.
“For a long time, trade hasn’t been fair,” said Jeff Lamia, who started work at the foundry earning
$5.35 an hour, fresh out of high school nearly 40 years ago, and now makes $27 an hour.
“If Neenah Foundry has to pay millions for emissions controls
and China doesn’t have to, then they should have to pay more to export to the U. S.,” he said.
Almost a third of Wisconsin’s 72 counties flipped from blue to red,
and like most of them, Winnebago is heavily dependent on manufacturing, whether in gritty blue-collar towns like Oshkosh and Menasha or in Neenah, which is home to both factories and corporate offices downtown.
