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I’ve lived in Rochester, New York, for 72 years, and I’ve watched it fade from a bustling hub to a shadow of itself. Once, Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb employed tens of thousands, offering steady wages—$60,000-$70,000 a year in today’s dollars—without a college degree. Families thrived; the middle class anchored neighborhoods like Maplewood and Charlotte. Today, those factories sit silent or scaled back. Since 1990, Rochester’s lost over 50,000 manufacturing jobs, its poverty rate has climbed to 30%, and violent crime—19.8 incidents per 1,000 residents in 2023—outpaces national averages by fourfold (FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2023). Drive through, and you see it: boarded-up plants, kids on corners, a city priced out of the global market it once dominated.
Labor costs are part of it—U.S. workers earn $30 an hour versus $3-$5 in Mexico or $2-$4 in Vietnam (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024)—and consumers like me chase $20 toasters over $50 local ones. But New York State heaps on pain: a 7.25% corporate tax (plus local levies), a $15 minimum wage (rising to $16.50 by 2026), and a regulatory thicket—environmental reviews, permitting delays—that stalls new factories. Kodak didn’t just lose to digital cameras; it lost to cheaper shores and a state that didn’t adapt. Sure, not every job fled because of taxes—some, like film photography, died when technology moved on—but policy made staying here harder than it had to be.
The Thruway’s Hollowed Spine
Rochester’s not alone. Drive the New York State Thruway—Buffalo to Schenectady—and it’s a graveyard of the Empire State’s glory. Buffalo’s steel mills, once employing 40,000, now limp along with a few thousand jobs. Syracuse lost Carrier to Mexico; Utica’s textile plants faded decades ago. Statewide, manufacturing jobs dropped from 1.1 million in 1990 to 440,000 in 2023—a 60% plunge (BLS, 2023). Poverty stalks these cities: 28% in Buffalo, 31% in Syracuse (U.S. Census, 2023). Crime follows: Buffalo’s murder rate triples the U.S. average; Rochester’s car thefts soared 70% since 2020. The Thruway mirrors a national loss—7 million manufacturing jobs gone since the late 1990s (Economic Policy Institute, 2024)—and New York’s high taxes and regs (49th in regulatory freedom, Mercatus Center, 2023) speed the decline.
New York State and the National Mirror
New York’s fall reflects America’s industrial erosion. Once the Empire State, with 25% of its workforce in manufacturing in 1980, it’s now at 6% (BLS, 2023), trailing a nation hollowed out by globalization—China’s WTO entry, NAFTA, and cheap labor abroad. The U.S. middle class, like Rochester’s, has shrunk, with median incomes stagnating ($74,000 nationally, $40,000 in Rochester; Census, 2023) as costs rise. New York’s woes—high taxes, overregulation, job flight—could engulf the country.
Trump’s tariffs -10 % on 180+ countries, up to 104% on some goods, launched in April—aim to reverse that, pushing firms to build here for our market, with our workers. It’s a bold bet: short-term pain (Wall Street’s 5% S&P drop, April 3, 2025) for long-term gain. First-term tariffs added 3,200 steel jobs (EPI, 2020); a 2024 White House study projects a $728 billion boost and 2.8 million jobs. Critics—Democrats and economists like Joseph Stiglitz—warn of inflation ($2,500-$5,200 per household, Center for American Progress, 2025) and retaliation. Fair points: Higher prices hit hard, and trade wars could backfire. But doing nothing’s a choice too—and it’s left us with empty factories.
Governments Must Clear the Road
Tariffs need help to work. New York’s a cautionary tale: Taxes topping 10% with local add-ons, high Real Estate taxes, and suffocating regulations drive firms to Tennessee (Nissan) or Georgia (Kia), where jobs grew while New York’s tanked. Cut the corporate rate to 5%, shrink permitting from 18 months to 6, and Rochester could snag a chipmaker. Red states show it works. Albany’s tied to $100 billion in tax revenue (NYS Budget, 2024)—slashing it’s tough, but clinging to the status quo keeps us a has-been.
Federally, it’s crunch time. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts—corporate rate to 21%, small business relief—expire in January 2026. If Congress doesn’t extend them, rates jump to 39.6%, deductions vanish, and investment stalls (Tax Foundation, 2024). New York’s high-tax trap goes national—firms bolt overseas, not to Buffalo or Rochester. Pair tariffs with a permanent 15% rate, halve regs, add reshoring credits, and U.S. labor competes. Automation’s a wrinkle—robots, not just regs, stole some jobs—but tax hikes won’t fix that. Without action, America’s Thruway spreads coast to coast.
Crime, Education, and the Jobs Lifeline
Rochester’s decline isn’t just economic—it’s social. Where factories stood, crime festers. Kids see no future: high school graduation rates limp at 65% (vs. 87% nationally; NYSED, 2023), with dropouts highest in job-scarred spots like the Crescent. Past generations had Kodak or GM—$60,000-a-year gigs that kept families whole and teens in school. Now, with median incomes at $26,000 in Rochester’s poorest ZIPs (Census, 2023), kids drift. Each 1% manufacturing drop lifts crime 0.2% (NBER, 2019); Rochester’s juvenile arrests, 60% gang-related in 2024, prove it (Rochester PD, 2024). No jobs, no hope—crime’s the fallback.
Education’s hit too. Why grind for a $15-an-hour gig when dealing pays $200 a day? A 10% blue-collar job loss doubles youth disengagement—skipping class, dropping out, joining gangs (Urban Institute, 2022). The Thruway’s the same: Buffalo’s at 76%, Syracuse 70% (NYSED, 2023). Manufacturing’s fall killed purpose, not just paychecks—nationally, 7 million lost jobs could mean millions more kids lost. Unions pushed wages up, sure, but globalization and automation hit harder. Tariffs and tax cuts could revive factories—500 jobs at $50,000 a year in Rochester or Utica might steady families, guide teens, cut crime 5% (Journal of Labor Economics, 2018). New York and the feds must act—or the Thruway’s fate goes national.
Conclusion: The Empire Strikes Back—or Fades Away
Rochester’s shuttered factories and rising crime aren’t just a local tragedy—they’re a national alarm. The Thruway’s ghost towns, from Buffalo to Schenectady, scream what’s at stake: a middle class gutted, kids lost to gangs, a state—and country—priced out of its own future. Trump’s tariffs aim to flip the script, luring factories back to build for Americans, by Americans. But tariffs alone are a shot in the dark—New York’s sky-high taxes and red tape could choke the revival, sending jobs to red states while the Empire State rots. The feds can’t sit idle either; without slashing regs and taxes, we’ll stay a nation of cheap imports and broken dreams.
This isn’t just about jobs. It’s about kids in Rochester dropping out because school leads nowhere, about crime spiking as hope fades. Bring back manufacturing—cut the roadblocks—and you rebuild lives: $50,000-a-year workers lift families, teens see a path, streets quiet down. Ignore it, and the Thruway’s fate spreads nationwide—a hollowed-out America, coast to coast. New York was the Empire State once; it can be again. So can the U.S. But it’s now or never—clear the way, or kiss the middle class goodbye. I don’t know if Trump’s tariffs will bring jobs back, but at least he has a plan. I’ve suggested my plan here. What’s your plan?
Mark Gianniny
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Much of this is accurate, but other important factors are excluded, and some are wrong. Actual corporate taxes paid were nowhere near 39% before Trump. Musk, Amazon and oil and gas and more paid almost nothing, and in their worst years paid less tax than their CEO salaries. There is no move to stop greedflation, which was about 50% of the post Covid inflation. Many CEOs admitted as much under oath in Congressional Hearings. Prior to Nixon corporate taxes were reduced on profits by expanding and hiring. Every dollar spent on wages, benefits, infrastructure, R&D and more was taken off profits to lower taxes paid. Spending billions of profits on stock buy backs was illegal and did not reduce tax liability. The return of jobs in manufacturing will not build a significantly larger middle class. That has only happened with 25% or higher union density and strong unions. Trump is destroying unions and worker rights as I write. Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan have two to three times our union density and most pay higher wages and better benefits. Trump wants to penalize them because they do not have for profit health care, at twice the cost per person, on their exports. If the price of a comparable foreign vehicle goes up $4,000, American CEOs will raise their prices $3,000 and make billions more. Without regulation the lack of competition will enrich mainly the top, see Smoot-Hawley. See also white flight and redlining, destroying the investment in a home, the biggest asset most workers have. Blacks were condemned to stay in the poorest neighborhoods as the tax base crumbled and the schools went down. As recently as a decade ago M&T Bank pleaded nolo contender to redlining and paid a million dollar fine. We are not global victims as Trump claims. The global system was designed by American corporations, bankers, and the politicians they own on both sides of the aisle. See neo-liberals. Updated figures only from REPORTED wealth on tax forms shows it is a $70 trillion transfer of wealth since the late seventies from 90% of Americans to the richest 10%, with the one percent grabbing the biggest share. Most of that wealth would have been subject to Social Security taxes and at least another $3 trillion in SS. Entire books have been written about what you exclude. See Joel Stiglitz, once on the world economic forum and a Nobel Prize winner in Economics. Too much to be addressed here.
Mark-how are you feeling the pain? This is all conceptual. I believe you are an affluent property owner and a member of the privileged class in Rochester. Talking about Federal policies dismisses the poor governance and systems in place in NY State and Rochester. And, I dare suggest that developers and other big donors are complicitous.
What do you suggest we need to do in Rochester to make our neighbors who don’t enjoy the comforts we do? I try to put up…therefore, I don’t shut up.
Let’s get stuff done!
Not sure this is a plan but certainly a solution approach: Make Monroe County’s priority to educate our City schools children! Have County Executive Bello sign an ‘executive order’ taking over the City Schools District. Fire the Teachers, Administrators and Schools Board. Start totally over! Engage and enable the Charter Schools leaders, Bob Duffy, Danny Wegman, Hillside Work Scholarship Connection and others to Educate the City Schools children. It can be done! With the 26,000 (+/-) students focused on learning we will have an educated workforce force! An educated community! Educate students early on jobs ( manufacturing, construction, marketing, computer skills, police, fire, etc) and secondary education ( college, trade schools, entrepreneurship, etc..). Our City School students need to see the potential of a bright future in 5th grade thru 12th!
So that’s what I got!
Do you have any solutions that can be realistically implemented? Something that makes a dent rather than deliver a peace, love, and understanding for all of humanity?
You have been drinking the Republican kool-aid. Tariffs are taxes. On us. They reduce our earning power, and shift the taxation ability to the executive branch instead of the congress where it belongs. When your iPhone which cannot possibly be produced in the US – ask Apple the CEO says it literally can not – goes up 104% in cost let me know how that’s an advantage for you. There are also things other than manufacturing we buy overseas. Do you like strawberries in winter? Forget about them. Do you enjoy out of season vegetables? Forget about them too. They are all grown in other countries. Do you like all the electronics that require rare earth metals we don’t have here? China just said they’re going to completely restrict trade in those. Good luck making something electronic without them.
Tariffs cause all sorts of bad side effects. While you are concentrating on raising money from us by excess tariff taxes, those other countries are making other deals (while at the same time telling Trump to pound salt). The US has become persona non grata with EVERY country including allies and partners like Canada. Which means…. they’re all doing deals with China and each other instead of us. Which will vastly DECREASE exports. While we may decrease imports, decreasing exports at the same time is a no-win.
And if you think the added inflation from tariffs will eventually go down – you’re also dreaming. Making the same thing in the US costs more than making it overseas – so the inflation created is permanent, not temporary until “manufacturing can be brought home”. You know how long it takes to make (for instance) a chip fab? 3-5 years.
All that this tariff nonsense has done is to start a trade war with the ENTIRE WORLD. You know how many people and consumers are in the US? About 350 million. There is a customer base of 8.2 billion out there in the world. We make up 4.22% of the entire world’s population. They don’t need us.