Source: The Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-amish20-2009apr20,0,5794881.story
The Amish are defined by their religious beliefs, shunning automobiles, insurance and electricity in their homes.
But some in hard-hit northern Indiana realize they can no longer avoid one modern idea: unemployment checks.
The Amish church frowns on government aid, but it relented on unemployment checks after a wave of layoffs stung laborers in this settlement about 90 miles south of Indianapolis. Church leaders justified the decision because workers are collecting on the unemployment taxes they paid into the system.
"No one says go out and do it," said Eli Miller, 72, an Amish bishop who also prepares income tax returns. "But when they have to feed their families, we thought it would be OK to accept some of it, even though we would rather not."
The March unemployment rate in LaGrange and Elkhart counties, where much of Indiana's Amish population is concentrated, stands near 19%, about 4 percentage points higher than in Wayne County, Mich., home to Detroit and the American auto industry.
More than half of all Amish men here work in factories, a trend that accelerated over the last two decades, according to an analysis by Steven Nolt, a history professor at Goshen College. Increasing land prices and a growing population made it nearly impossible for farming alone to sustain the Amish community, so the men found steady salaries in assembling recreational vehicles, an industry socked over the last year by high fuel prices and then the credit crunch.