US Manufacturing Is At A Peak...So Where Are The Jobs?

Published: Aug. 24, 2016, 3:30 p.m.

b"With Ylan Mui, The Washington Post financial writer covering the federal reserve and the economy,\\xa0 \\u201cWhat Republicans and Democrats Get Wrong About American Manufacturing\\u201d

Ask the man on the street about manufacturing in America and chances are he\\u2019ll say the US doesn\\u2019t make anything anymore, and all our jobs have gone to China and other countries overseas.
Ylan Mui, who wrote a recent article for The Washington Post entitled, \\u201cWhat Republicans and Democrats Get Wrong About American Manufacturing,\\u201d tells us the facts don\\u2019t support this perception.
The surprising reality is that we manufacture two and a half times as many products now as we did back in 1970 and \\u201cour industrial production\\u2014what economists call the output for the manufacturing industry\\u2014is near peak level, and it's increased dramatically over the past forty years\\u201d
The misperception instilled in the mind of the man in the street, however, is largely the result of the types of manufacturing jobs lost to overseas concerns and to the very real drop in the number of workers employed in US manufacturing today. Heather points out that while China has taken over in the production of steel, toys, many electronics, and apparel, for instance, we in the US are making a different category of products\\u2014pharmaceuticals, heavy machinery, cars and trucks, being among the most notable. The cause of the decline in jobs from nineteen million in 1979 to twelve million today is technology and automation; it simply takes fewer people to produce an item and that leaves about a third of the previous workforce unemployed.
Although, says Ylan, \\u201cthere have been multiple proposals throughout the years and certainly very good efforts to retrain workers for new industries\\u2026 finding another place for these workers is a lot more difficult than we thought.\\u201d\\xa0 Often, when a company that had employed large numbers closes, it takes the town with it, leaving behind an area in serious decline. So even with training and new skills, some of these workers will have to relocate in order to find new jobs. Often they\\u2019re either unwilling or unable to do that for a variety of reasons, one of which could be a housing market that went into decline along with everything else. One bright spot, says Ylan, is that real estate has improved making it easier for many people to sell their home and make that relocation to an area of greater opportunities.
In spite of what the candidates may be promising about bringing jobs back to America, \\u201cit\\u2019s very hard to stop the march of technology\\u201d and as for bringing most of these lost manufacturing jobs back home, it\\u2019s about as likely as getting Colgate back into the tube.
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Steve Pomeranz: The candidates may be right about one thing.\\xa0 It's a fact that many people have lost their jobs that they've had for many years, and for many, there isn't an obvious alternative for them.\\xa0 However, the explanations both candidates give for this issue are more suited to getting votes than they are to adhering to the real facts.\\xa0 It's the real facts that we really want to get to on this show.\\xa0 To get to the point, I've invited Ylan Mui.\\xa0 She joins me from The Washington Post where she's a financial writer covering the federal reserve and the economy and she penned a recent article titled \\u201cWhat Republicans and ..."