Coming Home to a Michigan County Where Life Has Shifted

As the primary in Michigan looms, a return to Bay County finds residents wrestling to make ends meet. Many plant jobs are gone. Getting by can be a juggling act.

Photographed for the New York Times

Robby Lamas, who works at the GM Powertrain Bay City Plant, poses for a portrait in his Chevrolet Equinox. By working or GM, Lamas followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather but considers himself lucky to have the job. He’s the youngest person at the Bay City plant by ten years.

Few cars are parked in the GM Powertrain Bay City Plant lot after years of significant cuts in staffing.

Erin Sitkowski waits tables at Coonan’s Irish Pub. To cover her expenses, Sitkowski also works in sales at a printing company and has taken in a roommate.

A customer left a tip under an empty beer glass at Coonan’s Irish Pub.

Jeffrey Bulls, who has worked in security at various auto industry sites in Saginaw for the past 23 years, washes the dishes at home on his day off. Bulls currently works for Nexteer, which GM sold to the China-based Pacific Century Motors in 2010.

A shoe store had a liquidation sale before closing in downtown Bay City.

Bills litter the floor of a closed storefront in downtown Bay City, Michigan.

Kim Matula poses for a portrait at home with her daughter Gloria Ana Ovalle, 16. Ovalle said she hopes to become a phlebotomist. Matula works as a cook at Coonan’s Irish Hub where she makes $15 an hour, one of the better hourly wages available in Bay City other than at the GM plant.

Brian Johnson works on fertilizer tank at Johnson Farm Co. Johnson recently took over operations and grows a variety of crops, including corn, soy and dry beans.

Raymond Johnson poses for a portrait in the shop at Johnson Farm Co, which he helps run with his son Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson recently took over operations and grows a variety of crops, including corn, soy and dry beans.

Arianna Whisman, a 23-year-old college student at Saginaw Valley State University, works as a part-time manager at Coonan’s Pub, as an in-home care worker for a girl with special needs, as a subsitute teacher and as a part-time theater director at a local high school. She works to pay for her schooling and rent.

Two blocks down from the GM Powertrain Bay City Plant, neighbors Damon Norton, 12, at right, and Dion Smith, 8, play basketball on an unusually warm early March day. While GM used to be a major employer in the city, neither said they had family members who work at the plant.