As long as this country has been around there have always been opportunistic politicians willing to take advantage of unemployed citizens for political gain. Wedge issues may come and go but this one is constant, regardless of the political party in power – “We’re losing our manufacturing base!” But are we?
Americans make more “stuff’’ than any other nation on earth, and by a wide margin. According to the United Nations’ comprehensive database of international economic data, America’s manufacturing output in 2009 (expressed in constant 2005 dollars) was $2.15 trillion. That surpassed China’s output of $1.48 trillion by nearly 46 percent. China’s industries may be booming, but the United States still accounted for 20 percent of the world’s manufacturing output in 2009 — only a hair below its 1990 share of 21 percent.
“The decline, demise, and death of America’s manufacturing sector has been greatly exaggerated,’’ says economist Mark Perry, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “America still makes a ton of stuff, and we make more of it now than ever before in history.’’ In fact, Americans manufactured more goods in 2009 than the Japanese, Germans, British, and Italians — combined.
American manufacturing output hits a new high almost every year. US industries are powerhouses of production: Measured in constant dollars, America’s manufacturing output today is more than double what it was in the early 1970s.
It’s true that fewer Americans work in factories. It’s also true that fewer Americans work on farms. In both cases it’s because we’ve become much more efficient. In 1960 the average U.S. farmer grew enough to feed 26 people. Today he feeds 155 people. It may be hard to pick up a plastic toy and not see “Made in China” stamped on it. But who manufactures a Boeing 777?
A vast amount of “stuff’’ is still made in the USA, albeit not the inexpensive consumer goods that fill the shelves in Target or Walgreens. American factories make fighter jets and air conditioners, automobiles and pharmaceuticals, industrial lathes and semiconductors. Not the sort of things on your weekly shopping list? Maybe not. But that doesn’t change economic reality. They may have “clos[ed] down the textile mill across the railroad tracks.’’ But America’s manufacturing glory is far from a thing of the past.
I expect politicians will continue to stir up populist sentiment by claiming we’re “shipping jobs overseas”. The best thing they can do for the American worker is to negotiate equitable free trade agreements with other nations, then just get the hell out of the way and let American ingenuity and efficiency do the real work.
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