New Republic = Mother Jones Lite.
Was the town's government corrupt, stupid, incompetent, or some combination of the three? Yes.
Is the temp agency shuffle to do robotic jobs sucky? Yes.
Did the article half-heartedly mention that the people ostensibly had no jobs since 1980 before the distribution centers? Kinda.
Any chance the article might give a fair shake to the fact that just one of these mega-logistics and big-box retailers like Wal-Mart save predominantly lower income Americans as much as 50 billion dollars a year in the form of lower prices? Nope.
Is some lefty big-government/socialistic redistribution going to make things better? Of course it won't.