Story from the Wall Street Journal
In recent years, men without college degrees, who found it difficult to get the factory jobs that sustained their counterparts in decades past, have turned to construction work to climb into the American middle class.
Now they are falling from it. Neal King, 41 years old, is one of them. He entered the Army after high school, held one hourly job after another and eventually moved his family to this booming Gulf Coast city from Alabama in 2006 upon hearing there was work in construction. Steady work on highways and condominium projects for about $10 an hour, plus frequent overtime, catapulted the family into a four-bedroom rental, a point of pride for Mr. King.