Dean Baker: Auto Manufacturing Gives Big Boost to Jobs Growth
We asked economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), to expand upon recent reports that show a marked improvement in the nation’s jobs picture. In January, 243,000 jobs were created and unemployment dropped significantly for some of the hardest-hit workers. Baker’s intepretation of the data presents a still-mixed economic picture, but one bright point stands out clearly: President Obama’s support of the U.S. auto industry has been key to improving job creation for America’s workers. Be sure to pick up a copy of Baker’s latest book, The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive.
Q.: As you’ve noted, the January drop in unemployment was especially sharp for African American and Latino workers. The jobless rate for black workers fell by 2.2 percentage points to 13.6 percent, the lowest level since March 2009. For Latino workers, the jobless rate dropped by 0.5 to 10.5 percent, the lowest since January 2009. What’s behind this good news?
A.: My best guess is that much of this is a statistical quirk. These numbers are always erratic and can and do jump around month to month. However, part of the drop is probably real. I suspect that with the African American population much of the story is related to the increase in manufacturing and construction employment, which is likely clustered in the Midwest. These are sectors that disproportionately employ African American workers.
The improvement for Latinos is less easily explained. Of course, many Latinos are employed in construction, but more in the West and South than Midwest, which has seen the biggest gains.
Anyhow, I suspect that part of the improvement in the employment picture is weather related. We had unusually warm weather across the Northeast/Midwest in December and January, which means that construction and manufacturing were not disrupted as much as usual. That would make it appear that we are adding jobs.
Q.: Employment in manufacturing and construction also showed strong growth in January. You attribute the construction job hike to unseasonably warm weather. But what about manufacturing? It’s been one area of job growth for several months now. What’s behind its resurgence and can it continue? Read the rest of this entry »
This Is So Cool!
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You’ve got to check this out…it’s meant for kids, but, really, how can you go wrong at a website that rocks noisy engine revs, animated potato chips and full-color awesomeness?
It’s a new site, ManufacturingIsCool.com, and it’s the definition of fun-while-learning.
Produced by the Society for Manufacturing Engineers, the site uses an interactive “desk” to send kids on a journey through everything from how paper, Pringles and bike helmets are made, to the ins and outs of building a concept car—and way, way beyond.
Our friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) sent us the link, and we agree—it’s great to get kids excited about manufacturing. AAM is a partnership of the United Steelworkers and a group of leading manufacturers with a mission to strengthen manufacturing in the United States.
Trumka: Obama Showed He Hears People Not Heard by 1%
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address tonight made clear that he hears the people who aren’t being heard by the 1 percent, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Obama’s speech showed he “listened to the single mom working two jobs to get by, to the out-of-work construction worker, to the retired factory worker, to the student serving coffee to help pay for college.”
By laying out a vision of an America that can create jobs and prosperity for all instead of wealth for the few, Trumka said the president “voiced the aspirations and concerns of those who are too often ignored.”
Obama also made clear that the era of the 1 percent getting rich by looting the economy, rather than creating jobs, is over.
“Now it’s time for Congress to stop standing in the way of rebuilding our country and act,” Trumka said.
President Obama presented Congress a choice, Trumka said, between Obama’s vision of the need to invest to achieve stable, long-term prosperity for all and the vision of presidential candidates squabbling over how much further to cut the taxes of the 1 percent.
Obama “spoke to the confidence of working people that if we are determined and committed, we can revitalize ‘Made in the USA.’ That commitment to American manufacturing, made possible in part by enhanced enforcement of trade laws being violated by China , is welcome news to the too many productive, hard working Americans sitting idle unnecessarily.”
Trumka praised the President’s powerful insistance “on a more humble Wall Street subject to a thorough investigation of the misconduct in the mortgage markets that wrecked our economy,” and applauded the creation of a new mortgage crisis unit to be co-chaired by New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman. Read the rest of this entry »
Trumka Dissents from Jobs Council Report
The 72-page report, issued yesterday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, makes many solid suggestions for how to address our nation’s jobs crisis, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. But Trumka says the fundamental focus is so flawed that, as a member of the council, he issued a dissent to the report. In sum, Trumka writes:
I believe the report downplays the need for a proactive role for the U.S. government in many of these areas; fails to address the significant additional revenues needed to address the challenges identified on an appropriate scale; and in many cases erroneously identifies the root causes of the underlying structural problems.
While agreeing with the report’s support for a vibrant and growing manufacturing sector, Trumka says the report does not address the fact that “our government’s own policies with respect to trade, taxes, and currency have created enormous competitive disadvantages for American-based producers.”
And while Trumka shares the report’s goal of attracting more investment and good Read the rest of this entry »
Aim High: A Strategy for Changing Times
The following is by John August, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. Read the full version of his column at L&M Partnership.
It’s no secret that our economy is changing profoundly for millions of workers. But a Dec. 30, 2011, New York Times article, “Factory Jobs Gain, but Wages Retreat,” deserves special attention. Reporter Louis Uchitelle writes, in part:
Manufacturers are hiring again in America, softening a long slide in factory employment. But for a new generation of blue-collar workers, even those protected by unions, the price of employment is likely to be lower wages stretching to retirement.
Widely Cited Report on U.S. Manufacturing Obscures Firm’s Offshore Agenda
A new exposé, published by Remapping Debate, lifts the veil on how the anti-regulatory, anti-labor line finds its way into media coverage of business, all under the guise of objectivity.
When the Boston Consulting Group, one of the nation’s largest consulting companies, issued a report on U.S. manufacturing in August, it earned a full-page story in the Financial Times, and uncritical mentions in the New York Times and Washington Post. But the report’s cheerful title, “Made in America, Again: Why Manufacturing Will Return to the U.S.,” belied its underlying agenda, say experts interviewed by Remapping Debate’s Mike Alberti—an agenda steeped in a low-wage, anti-regulatory ideology.
In fact, the report actually lauds the declining working conditions endured by employees of U.S. companies as a good thing and a harbinger of why companies may want to consider moving operations back to the United States—particularly to southern states, where anti-labor practices too often reign and living standards are lower than in the rest of the country. From “Made in America“:
The conditions are coalescing for another U.S. resurgence. Rising wages, shipping costs, and land prices—combined with a strengthening renminbi—are rapidly eroding China’s cost advantages. The U.S., meanwhile, is becoming a lower-cost country. Wages have declined or are rising only moderately. The dollar is weakening. The workforce is becoming increasingly flexible. Productivity growth continues.
America’s Future: Making the Contract for the American Dream a Reality
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Dave Johnson, a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future, sends us this.
The Take Back the American Dream conference opened Tuesday with a discussion on the “Contract for the American Dream.” Deepak Bhargava of the Center for Community Change began by saying that there is a movement in America today and it’s not the tea party—it’s the American Dream Movement. People are working to build a huge movement that can meet this huge moment.
Our political system captured by powerful interests and angry voices. The American Dream movement is an effort to knit together the grassroots organizing that is already going on around the country and spark and inspire more. Reaching out to thousands of people through house parties and other events.
Justin Rubin of MoveOn described how the Contract for the American Dream was created by millions of Americans. First, dozens of organizations such as MoveOn and the Center for Community Change asked people what should be in a Contract for the American Dream.
Trumka: America Faces Historic Decisions that Will Shape Our Future
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America is facing historic choices that will shape our economy, our society and our democracy for decades to come, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today.
Speaking at the prestigious Brookings Institution, he said, “Our nation does not have a debt crisis. We have a jobs crisis.”
America isn’t broke. Our nation’s basic promise—an ever-rising, ever-widening prosperity—is being broken.
It is being broken by three decades of a contradictory economic strategy based on low wages and consumption, he said. As a result, the rich have gotten much richer, the poor have gotten poorer and those left in the middle are struggling to hang on. U.S. trade policies have decimated our nation’s manufacturing base and our tax policies promote inequality.
Report: Trade Deficit with China Costs 2.8 Million Jobs
The U.S.-China trade deficit has eliminated or displaced nearly 2.8 million jobs, mainly in manufacturing, following that country’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, according to a study released today. View an interactive map of jobs lost throughout the United States here.
“Growing U.S. trade deficit with China cost 2.8 million jobs between 2001 and 2010” by Robert Scott, EPI’s director of trade and manufacturing policy research, finds that all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico suffered jobs lost or displaced as a result of the growing U.S.-China trade deficit.
The report cites illegal currency manipulation as a major cause of the trade deficit. Unlike other currencies, the Chinese yuan does not fluctuate freely against the dollar, but is artificially pegged in order to boost China’s exports.
‘Made in Missouri’ Jobs Package Moving Through Legislature
AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Cathy Sherwin sends us this report.
In too many of our state legislatures, the start of the legislative session means the start of another round of attacks on workers. That’s been true throughout the Midwest and across the country, but the Missouri special session has the potential to be a major exception. There’s a great opportunity for elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, to make an investment in the kind of good jobs that are so hard to find right now.
The Missouri Senate passed the “Made in Missouri” jobs package this month with strong bipartisan support. It would be a major step toward revitalizing manufacturing in the state, putting Missourians back to work: making things, and in the process making our economy stronger.
Here’s what the jobs package will do:
