In the 1970s and 1980s, labor’s forward march slowed and then halted. The ostensible cause was the fiscal crisis in state and local communities, which politicians, the mainstream media, and many economists ascribed to the disparity between rising public-sector labor costs and restricted tax revenues. Since this was also the period when many manufacturing facilities began migrating from the Northeast and Midwest to the American and global South, many cities and towns, in the vain hope of reversing or slowing down capital flight, scrambled to offer tax advantages, subsidies, and infrastructural concessions to business interests. Meanwhile, school budgets were slashed, some hospitals were closed, and local street and highways remained unrepaired.