Kokomo, IN was saved by the stimulus. Home to four Chrysler plants and a Delphi facility, unemployment has gone from roughly 20% to 14%.
…in Kokomo, the Recovery Act and Obama’s auto bailout have jolted Kokomo back to life — keeping big industry from fleeing and attracting newcomers as well.
“We wouldn’t be standing here,” said Brian Harlow, a 32-year Chrysler veteran who grew up in Kokomo and now is based at the company’s headquarters outside Detroit. “It would have been a ghost town.”
Chrysler, which had idled 3,500 hourly workers in Kokomo a year and a half ago, recently announced $350 million in new investments that will make the city the hub of North American manufacturing for its next-generation transmissions. All those people have been put back to work, and 700 others have been hired.
Auto parts manufacturer Delphi will use an $89 million stimulus grant to retain 100 manufacturing jobs and make 100 additional hires at a facility building parts for hybrid vehicles.
And a Colorado solar company plans to use $300 million in stimulus funds to hire as many as 900 workers at an old Daimler auto plant south of town that will make products to export to Europe.
