The workers in the old lumber town of Bonner, Mont., expected bad news late last month when they were told to shut down their machines one morning and meet on the factory floor.

Their plant, which made high-end trim and siding for homes, was a vestige of the wood industry that once dominated western Montana. President Trump promised a “golden age” for American industry, when the sawmills and copper mining industries that built Montana would roar back. But nothing felt golden that morning. The 104 workers at the UFP Edge factory were told that their plant was shutting down. They would all be laid off.

“They gave up on us,” said Troy Fisher, who spent 40 years working for different mills and lumber companies in Bonner-West Riverside, an unincorporated community of 1,400 tucked beside the Clark Fork River, not far from the college town of Missoula.

The arguments over the demise of the UFP Edge plant have a familiar ring to them, dating back decades, through Democratic and Republican presidencies alike. The powers that be in Montana, now all Republican, say that jobs are plentiful in a state where the unemployment rate is just 2.8 percent, compared with 4.2 percent nationally. The siding plant’s closure was unfortunate, but the workers will be fine, they say.

The workers aren’t so sure. They say that many available jobs pay less, as their cost of living — especially their housing — soars. Several Bonner workers said they had applied for jobs that pay $5 an hour less than the $20 to $25 they earned at the siding plant, without similar benefits. The elites are doing great in a Montana buoyed by technology and tourism, they say, but blue collar workers are slipping farther behind.

“As far as the lumber industry, I don’t see much opportunity for any of us,” said Mike Brush, 40, whose layoff derailed his plans to buy land and build an off-grid cabin.