For inner-city families without the luxury of a private education, an Illinois manufacturing job is and always has been the first rung up the economic ladder.

More than 1,300 Illinoisans will be laid off in coming months, according to notices filed in accordance with the Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN. Among the cuts listed in the August WARN report are 418 jobs lost in conjunction with Hostess Brands’ shuttering of its Twinkie factory in Schiller Park – the...