Job Cuts Threaten Retirement Hopes

Donald Betlan never imagined he'd have to drive a cab after he turned 50.

The former General Motors engineer works two jobs. One of which is driving a cab on the 6 p.m. to midnight shift in Detroit.

Betlan tells CBS News correspondent Trish Regan he made close to $50,000 a year with General Motors, but now, he doesn't even make half that amount.

Betlan is one of hundreds of thousands of displaced manufacturing workers, struggling to make ends meet in this changing economy. Jobs in traditional industries, the ones that helped build this country, are slowly disappearing.

Economist Dana Johnson says companies are under pressure to raise profits and that comes at a cost to the workers.

"They can't pay these wages, they can't pay these benefits and be profitable and stay in business," Johnson says.

Forty-six-year-old Randy Richardson, an electrician at a manufacturing plant, lost his wife four years ago to cancer and is raising their four children on his own.

"She lived for a year and a half after she was diagnosed and I've been doing everything I can do to keep a hold of this house," Richardson says. "It would be hard to give up."

But he may have no choice. Delphi, the company he's worked at for 28 years, wants to slash his pay: from just over $30 an hour to $19.

Asked if he could still pay his bills with a 40 percent salary reduction, Richardson says, "I would have to sell my house. I would have to downsize.

"I may not be able to get all the things that I want for my girls, but there's...You'd be surprised what you can do when you have to," Richardson says.

Betran is proof of just that. He had hoped to retire soon, chances of that are slim.

He says an imminent retirement is, "Not likely. I think I'll probably be working as long as I'm physically able; just trying to survive."