Steel Is Booming In Arkansas — So Why Are So Many People Still Struggling To Get By?

OSCEOLA, Ark. — The religion was initially told to hole for 20 people. But successful nan extremity astir 100 show up, mostly Black men, to perceive astir nan Arkansas alloy mill offering six-figure jobs. As newcomers trickle in, a deacon goes successful hunt of much folding chairs.

“When you get paid this amount, we conscionable can’t springiness it to anybody,” says Robert Potter, a supervisor astatine Hybar, nan section alloy institution hosting nan event. He warns that nan jobs tin beryllium basking and dirty. “We’re looking for nan champion group for nan champion job.”

Hybar needs 154 labor for its caller mill opening adjacent period — engineers, information guards, cafeteria workers — but galore of those jobs were already filled earlier nan religion event, which was billed arsenic a profession readiness workshop.

Sterling Winston, a man successful his precocious 30s and wearing a shot cap, speaks up during nan Q&A. He has already interviewed doubly astatine nan works without getting hired, he tells nan room.

“But I’m still here,” he says. “I ain't giving up.

For Mississippi County, Arkansas, nan booming alloy manufacture is an economical lifeline. In nan past decade, billions of dollars person flowed in to grow mills aliases unfastened caller ones, and it’s often hailed arsenic nan apical steel-producing region successful nan country. Last year, a $3 cardinal mill came online, employing hundreds, nan largest backstage finance successful Arkansas history. And arsenic President Donald Trump seeks to reshape nan United States into a “manufacturing powerhouse,” immoderate industry groups opportunity alloy is poised to support growing. But for galore residents successful this region of astir 38,000, nan committedness of nan alloy roar is still retired of reach. In nan protector of nan caller alloy plants, a 4th of residents here unrecorded successful poverty, much than double nan nationalist average.

Osceola Mayor Joe Harris says portion of nan problem is that excessively galore workers are present only temporarily — they’re building workers hired to build nan mills aliases higher-paid steelworkers who unrecorded retired of municipality and commute successful for portion of nan week. They compete for scarce affordable housing and excessively often walk their net extracurricular nan county.

“If you travel present and make your money and leave, that’s not bully for our city,” he said.

For Harris, nan roar has been a blessing but not a panacea. “I don’t want to beryllium a small municipality pinch billion-dollar industries astir it and still suffering.”

Osceola’s downtown betrays nan town’s struggles. It’s dotted pinch aging ceramic buildings, immoderate pinch doors boarded pinch plywood. On a precocious Saturday morning, isolated from an errant building crew, it was practically deserted.

The downturn dates backmost to nan 1990s, erstwhile nan Eaker Air Force Base closed and took thousands of residents pinch it. Other mill closures followed. “We mislaid 9,000 jobs successful nan ’90s. We’re conscionable opening to make those up,” said Clif Chitwood, president of nan Great River Economic Development Foundation, who spent decades moving to enlistee caller industries to Mississippi County.

Hybar sees itself arsenic portion of nan solution. Wearing a achromatic difficult chapeau astatine nan soon-to-open mill, CEO Dave Stickler gestures beneath to a worker connected nan basement level attending to a maze of piping wherever hydraulic fluid will flow.

“This was thing but soybean fields 22 months ago,” he said. Now his investors are looking astatine opening 2 much mills, including 1 successful Osceola.

Joe Wilkerson, 51, who oversees attraction successful Hybar’s melt shop, remembers chopping fabric arsenic a 12-year-old truthful he could bargain apparel for school.

“All I wanted to do is activity because we didn’t person anything,” he said. He tin spend much for his ain 2 children, and precocious bought his girl a caller car.

Wilkerson lives successful nan county, but galore different workers are conscionable passing through.

John Romine, 39, lives adjacent nan Louisiana statement but comes to nan region seasonally pinch his relative to find work. “They sewage nan money and we sewage nan tools,” he said. To get to nan Hybar mill, he drives to a parking batch adjacent nan works and boards a schoolhouse autobus that transports him to his pipe-fitting shift. Then he returns to his home, a camper successful an RV parkland successful Blytheville, different portion of nan county, astir 17 miles away. Almost each batch successful nan RV parkland was occupied erstwhile NBC News visited him there, pinch licence plates from Tennessee, Virginia, Missouri, Texas and Mississippi.

Lisa Willard, who runs nan Mississippi County Union Mission, a bum shelter, said nan presence of impermanent and displacement workers has made it harder for longtime residents to find affordable housing.

Though nan alloy mills person been charitable, Willard said, nan county's dichotomy of affluence and poorness reminds her of visiting different state connected vacation.

“On 1 broadside you spot nan beautiful resort; nan different broadside you spot nan villages,” she said. “We person nan awesome alloy mills. We person this different broadside arsenic well.”

Outside an Osceola crockery kitchen, nan luncheon statement moves briskly. Visitors return their nutrient — successful this lawsuit a luncheon of Ro-Tel tomatoes and chiles mixed pinch spaghetti — to go. Lee Mosley, 48, an electrician, is 1 of them.

“By nan clip you salary your rent, it’s difficult because you ain’t sewage nary money to salary nan ray measure aliases immoderate different measure aliases spell market shopping because you’re collapsed from nan bills,” he said, opinionated outside, sheet successful hand.

Between 2015 and 2023, nan astir caller information available, median rents present roseate by astir 30%, according to nan U.S. census. The number of short-term rentals successful nan region has astir tripled from May 2024 to May 2025, according to information from AirDNA, which tracks listings from Airbnb and akin services, arsenic landlords progressively cater to alloy manufacture workers.

“Housing is simply a immense need,” said Blytheville Mayor Melisa Logan.

“I utilized to opportunity a ‘housing desert,’ but now I’m successful a lodging crisis.”

Logan said she’s tried to find solutions to these lodging woes. She said she spends clip networking pinch developers and builders, hoping they mightiness bring projects to Blytheville.

She’s besides encouraged by steelmakers’ efforts to incentivize full-time labor to enactment local. “If you spot america to travel and gain your living,” Logan said, “you should spot america capable to raise your family.”

Roughly half of nan county’s steelworkers unrecorded extracurricular of Mississippi County, according to Chitwood, of nan Great River Economic Development Foundation.

A caller programme called “Work Here, Live Here,” sponsored by Big River Steel Works, Hybar and different companies, will springiness alloy manufacture workers who stay in their jobs for astatine slightest 4 years up to $50,000 to build aliases acquisition caller homes successful nan area. One 100 and sixty 3 person already signed up.

“You get these families in. They make nan schoolhouse districts better. They bring successful restaurants, hotels,” said Dan Brown, vice president and main operating serviceman of Big River Steel Works. “The organization starts building up.”

That’s not nan only effort to thief Mississippi County reap nan benefits of nan boom. The companies opportunity they are eager to enlistee section workers.

Stickler talks openly astir trying to diversify Hybar’s ranks. He said he wants nan mill to "look very akin to Osceola” erstwhile he walks done it.

At nan section organization college, Arkansas Northeastern, students tin gain a “steel degree” aliases study different trades pinch thief from scholarships.

On a caller Friday, workers from a Little Rock-based alloy fabricator, Lexicon, were successful a organization assemblage classroom, practicing really to decently align alloy mill machinery. The college’s president, Christopher Heigle, looked on. He’s fond of telling precocious schoolhouse students that they tin commencement making $80,000-$100,000 wrong years of graduation.

Stickler knows he can't prosecute everyone, but he thinks anyone who wants to should astatine slightest person nan opportunity to question and reply astatine Hybar. That’s what nan religion shop was about.

As Pastor Cleveland Cain stood up to adjacent Saturday’s event, dozens of heads bowed. He thanked God for nan opportunity.

He prayed that it would travel to pass.