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.
Nation Adds 117,000 Jobs; Jobless Rate Dips to 9.1 Percent
The nation gained 117,000 jobs in July while the U.S. unemployment rate dropped slightly from 9.2 percent in June to 9.1 percent last month, according to Department of Labor data released this morning. Analysts had predicted jobs would grow by about 90,000 in July.
The unemployment rate has topped 9 percent in 10 of the last 12 months. The decrease in the jobless rate last month was entirely due to the increase in the number of unemployed workers who stopped looking for work and are no longer counted in the government’s figures, says Heidi Shierholz, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Companies hired 154,000 new employees last month while some 37,000 jobs were lost in the public sector. This rate of a rate of job growth “keeps us firmly in low gear and on track for persistent high unemployment,” Shierholz says.
Health care employment continued to grow, adding 31,000 jobs in in July. Manufacturing employment also increased in July by 24,000.
Today’s jobless report shows the U.S. economy is not close to getting back on its feet, says Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).
Job creation is still below a level necessary to bring the unemployment rate down in any substantial way, and the manufacturing index released earlier this week shows that the industry may face some tougher times in the months ahead.
Some 25 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed or have stopped looking for work, and wages are essentially flat. Yet Congress passed a budget bill that did nothing to address the nation’s jobs crisis.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the slwo pace of job creation puts our fragile recovery “in jeopardy of stalling altogether.”
While Congress spent weeks fussing over a politically manufactured debt ceiling crisis, our economy continues to flounder from the jobs crisis. And any Tea Partier or presidential candidate who says this is a reason to further destroy our nation’s safety net should spend some time studying Herbert Hoover.
The American people want their government leaders to focus on jobs. Some 56 percent of those surveyed in a recent poll say Congress and the president should work on jobs this year and 48 percent say those jobs should be in manufacturing.
When asked whether Congress and the president should focus on the federal budget deficit or jobs, 67 percent say jobs, according to the poll conducted by the Mellman Group and Ayres, McHenry & Associates for the AAM.
Meeting this week in Washington, D.C., the AFL-CIO Executive Council announced an America Wants to Work mobilization to
focus on jobs that gives voice to the jobless, including unemployed veterans, students who cannot find meaningful work as they enter the labor force and communities of color that have been especially hard hit by the recession and the refusal of corporate America to invest in job creation.
The mobilization will kick off on Labor Day, building to a National Week of Action in early October that focuses on the demand for good jobs and demonstrates in communities all across the country that America Wants to Work.
White House Advanced Manufacturing Plan Good Start, More Needed
In another effort to create quality jobs and help revitalize American manufacturing, the White House last week announced the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a joint program of universities, private industry and government.
The program will invest $500 million in federal funds over the next several years to jumpstart existing innovative technology/next-generation programs and proposals being conducted with federal support.
Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance of American Manufacturing, says the partnership is promising, but must be coupled with other key reforms and policy changes:
America has been falling behind in manufacturing while the rest of the world aggressively supports its industry. The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership shows a lot of promise, but the effort will be futile unless our manufacturers also have a solid foundation of support for challenges like unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, developing a skilled workforce, and a more efficient infrastructure.
Currency Manipulation Should Top U.S.-China Talks
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China’s currency manipulation should be the main focus of talks this week between high level U.S. and Chinese government officials, says Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).
The meetings in Washington, D.C. May 9 –10 provide an important opportunity for the American delegation—led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner—to back up the Obama administration’s tough talk on the Chinese government’s undervalued currency with strong action, he says.
If the administration will not get tough and demand that China play by the rules, Congress will have no option but to once again pass tough legislation to counter the artificial advantage China enjoys on trade.
ABC Series ‘Made In America’ Features U.S. Products
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Check this out. ABC World News this week is spotlighting products that are ”Made in America.”
Recognizing the connection between a strong industrial base and a vibrant economy, the feature on American-made products asks, “how we can bring jobs back to the U.S.?”
To focus on the importance of buying Made in USA goods, ABC is attempting a reality show-style experiment: “Is it possible for an all-American family to live life with only all-American products?”
Record Trade Deficit Shows Need for Currency Legislation
The U.S. Commerce Department announced today that our trade deficit reached $497 billion last year, including a new record $273 billion deficit with China.
Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) Executive Director Scott Paul said a record trade deficit with China “does not put us on a path to win the future.”
It will be hard to get our unemployment rate down if our trade deficit keeps going up. And while I am all in favor of doubling exports, it is a meaningless benchmark unless we also bring down our trade deficit. Instead, our global trade deficit is growing at an alarming and unsustainable rate.
One way to reduce the trade deficit is to pass the bipartisan Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act of 2011, introduced yesterday. It is the same legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last September by a 348-79 margin. Read our post on the currency legislation here.
What Do Packers and Steelers Have in Common?
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What do the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers have in common–besides playing in the Super Bowl Sunday? Both teams are named after the major manufacturing industry in their towns. Both cities were built on manufacturing and enjoy a loyal following built on the middle-class, blue-collar jobs supported by these industries. The Packers’ middle-class fans are also the team’s owners–the only team not owned by a super-rich person.
This is not the first Super Bowl with both teams hailing from proud working class communities. The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) has launched the first-ever Super Bowl Manufacturing Index, which shows how many people were employed in manufacturing at the time of each working class Super Bowl. The index shows that in 1967 when the Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, there were 17.9 million manufacturing jobs. This Sunday, there are only 11.7 million. Read the rest of this entry »
Economy Adds Only 39,000 Jobs; Unemployment Rate Jumps to 9.8 Percent
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Today’s news that only 39,000 jobs were created last month lifting the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent should be sounding alarm bells all over Capitol Hill, where congressional Republicans are blocking restoration of unemployment benefits for long-term jobless workers. More than 890,000 people (and counting) have lost their unemployment benefits (UI) since Dec. 1.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said of today’s report:
The disconnect between Washington and working families is dangerous and alarming. We need to get serious about investing in job creation now and we need an immediate, one-year extension of jobless benefits. Without dramatic action to invest in America and create jobs, our economy will not see the robust and sustained recovery we need to put millions of Americans back to work.
Creating Jobs Takes Center Stage at ‘Keep It Made in America’ Tour
With the midterm election just four weeks away, all the polls show the economy and jobs top the list of voter concerns. The question everyone is asking is “How do we turn the economy around?” The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) has one answer: Keep It Made in America.
The non-partisan group is taking that message around the country with its 2010 “Keep It Made in America” tour. The tour kicks off with a town hall meeting Oct. 12 in Hartford, Conn. In more than two weeks AAM will hold town hall meetings in 12 cities in 10 states. The meetings will give voters the chance to hear directly from candidates and elected officials where they stand on such key issues as unbalanced trade with China and rebuilding U.S. manufacturing for the global economy.
Commerce Flubs Currency Decision, Now It’s Up to Congress
The AFL-CIO is disappointed the U.S. Department of Commerce today rejected arguments that China’s undervalued currency acts as an export subsidy.
We agree with Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) Executive Director Scott Paul, who said in a statement:
It’s now up to Congress to pass legislation to strengthen and modernize our trade laws so that the devastating impact of currency manipulation can be factored into penalties for subsidies and dumping. Our workers and businesses were promised a level playing field. Unless the mercantilist policies of China and other nations are challenged at every level, we will continue to pile up trade deficits and job losses.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that China’s currency manipulation and the trade deficit it creates cost 2.4 million U.S. jobs between 2001 and 2008. Congress is expected to vote as early as next week on two bills, H.R. 2378 in the House and S. 3134 in the Senate, that would give the government broader powers to act against China’s currency manipulation. The House Ways and Means Committee also has scheduled a major hearing on China’s currency on Sept. 15.
