Stephanie Mencimer

Up an unpaved driveway, inside an antebellum house turned job-training center in Soul City, North Carolina, Sam Jefferson is tapping a white-sneakered foot on the floor. He is fidgeting his way through this morning's "spirit up" seminar, led by an impeccably dressed evangelical woman who is here to elevate the self-esteem of a dozen or so unemployed workers.

Jefferson, 48, was laid off in March from Harriet & Henderson Yarns, a large family-owned textile company in nearby Henderson that filed for bankruptcy this summer. He had worked there for 30 years, having started while in high school to help put food on his family's table. A single parent ever since his 14-year-old son was a baby, Jefferson had seen hundreds of his colleagues at the mill pink-slipped over the past two years. But he always figured a company that had come through the Depression would survive this recession -- at least long enough for him to put his two teenagers through college. "This is the first time I've ever been on unemployment in my life," says Jefferson. "It doesn't feel good at all."

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