Seattle Under Siege: The Troubles of a Company Town

In this bitter winter of high national unemployment, Seattle has the unhappy distinction of leading Americas major metropolitan centers with a staggering unemployment rate of 10.9%--almost double the national rate of 5.8%. Seattle's troubles largely have their origin in the troubles of the Boeing Co., which at its peak employed 1 out of 12 people in the Seattle area. But the effects ripple out to touch nearly everyone, as TIME Correspondent Karsten Prager reports:

THE facade is deceptive: busy, brightly decorated city streets, department stores full of holiday shoppers, the freeway humming with traffic. The Seattle SuperSonics are drawing sizable crowds at the Seattle Center Coliseum in the shadow of the Space Needle; their record is soso, but they are making money and their attendance is fourth in the N.B.A. M*A*S*H. now in its eighth month at the downtown Coliseum Theater, is still pulling them in at $2.50 per seat. All over town, station KIRO-TV's billboards ask, HAVE YOU HEARD A GOOD ONE LATELY?--part of a good-news campaign that has triggered hundreds of calls since its inception last May.

But good news is the individual incident, not the general reality in Seattle. Under the veneer, it is a troubled, uncertain city, its crisis real. It is a town that has had its downs before, but never quite to this degree: out of an area population estimated at 1,400,-000, more than 71,500 are out of work; 66,000 are on county welfare rolls; 72,000 on food stamps. In little more than two years, Boeing employment has plummeted from 101,500 to 46,800. By the end of 1971 it will probably sink to 32,500. It could go as low as 25,000 if the U.S. Senate goes through with its threat to cut off funds for Boeing's SST development program, a project that still employs 4,800 workers. The company has already sold one plant, closed another, auctioned off surplus equipment and furniture, consolidated assembly lines, cut its 747 jumbo-jet production from 7 1/2 a month to 5. sb The Boeing cuts have given Seattle unemployment a rather unique texture: a large pool of highly skilled technicians, many of whom have never been out of work before, and for whom prospects elsewhere are hardly encouraging. Cal Lowe, 45, a former flight test engineer, has been luckier than many of his colleagues: from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve he played Santa Claus at a downtown department store. He and another former engineer were picked out of ten men who applied. Despite the fact that the Seattle Times printed ten times more help-wanted classified than situations-wanted last month, good jobs are hard to come by. Most of the ads offer either overseas work, low-paying jobs or commission deals.

Whenever something acceptable opens up. the lines are long: 280 men recently took examinations for 20 police vacancies. Sometimes the Boeing label can actually hinder. "Saying that you've been in aerospace around here is like having a wart on your nose," says Lowe. To counter that, some 100 unemployed have come together in a group called Talent Plus Inc., with the aim of finding new jobs partly by helping each other to write resumes that stress as much nonaerospace background as possible. A few jobs have opened up.

For most others it is the weekly trip to the Unemployment Compensation Services office on Taylor Avenue North, where the queues form well before 8 a.m. in the early-morning gloom. Business has been so heavy that the agency had to take more office space earlier this month. In the beginning of the crisis, many people who had lost employment moved away: the demand for U-Haul trailers was so great in May and June that rental agencies ran out of equipment. But thousands are still hanging on, unwilling to give up life near Puget Sound and the now snow-covered Cascades. For all its woes, Seattle remains one of the most attractive urban areas in the nation. -

The downturn in the economy, accentuated by a sagging forest-products industry and a steady net decline in secondary employment, has caused fallout virtually everywhere, from city finances to car sales to housing. As early as last summer, Wes Uhlman, 35, the personable mayor of Seattle, decreed a 5% expenditure cut for the second half of the year in an already conservative budget. A selective city job freeze went into effect, and summer park programs closed a week early. There is virtually no growth in city tax revenue now, reflecting the stagnant economy. Uhlman has already weathered a frightening bombing spree and a police scandal last year, and he says: "There are days when I wonder why I couldn't have picked another time to become mayor." The budget squeeze also troubles the schools. For every child in the free-lunch program in 1969, there are now more than 50, and Superintendent Forbes Bottomly is deeply worried that a special school levy in March might not be passed by the voters. If it is not, a $98 million school budget will have to be cut by $20 million the first year, another $20 million the second.

Automobile sales and housing are in bitter straits. "We are losing our shirts," laments the manager of one large car dealership. Auto sales are off by anywhere from 30% to 50%, and more than a dozen dealerships have gone under in recent months. Where one agency had ordered 400 new cars by this time in 1969, it now orders 115. A newspaper campaign comes complete with $400 discount coupons for a new car. It brings a limp reply. A brand-new 1970 Barracuda, which would normally sell for $3,000, goes on special sale at a mere $1,495--and draws no takers. Housing is not much better off. Apartments stand vacant everywhere; in some suburbs the vacancy rate reaches 40%. Many landlords have cut rents by as much as a quarter; others are offering such incentives as a free month's rent on a one-year lease, or the use of a color TV, a stereo or free cable TV.

When will it all bottom out? Probably not very soon. Says William P. Jeske, chief economist for Pacific Northwest Bell: "The real day of reckoning is still before us--and the community is not prepared for it." It may very well be, as some Seattleites claim, that the 89% of the people who are working are making more money than ever before. But somehow--perhaps because they are afraid--it seems that they are not spending as much as they might. What is more, in the next two months another 10,000 people are expected to join the unemployment rolls, and thousands of others will run out of their 39-week unemployment benefits. The Washington State legislature will probably extend benefits, but that will not go to the root of the problem. Already, a church-sponsored volunteer organization called Neighbors in Need is distributing free food, as is a small commune of the left-wing Seattle Liberation Front. Says Mayor Uhlman: "There is a lot of tragedy all around. The only hope we have lies in our people. They are rugged and resourceful, and eventually we will perhaps come out all the stronger for this."

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