As I understand it, a lot of manufacturing jobs were lost, especially in the rust belt states, due to globalised manufacturing. Much of that area had traditionally voted Democrat, but felt betrayed when factories started closing, and now mainly vote Republican.
Trump and Biden have both tried to reinvigorate manufacturing, with some limited success. A notable point is that many jobs in the manufacturing industries now require high-level qualifications, mostly to do with coding, but subsidies and other investments in these high-unemployment states have boosted other kinds of blue-collar jobs, and wages for manual work have improved too.
So, what’s the future of manufacturing in the US? I read somewhere else there’s a drive to build Fabs in the US as well as Mexico. In terms of jobs, the blue-collar factory worker seems less in demand than coders and robotics specialists, or other tech jobs.
This should be available without a subscription (gifted article):
America’s “left-behind” are doing better than ever
But manufacturing jobs are still in decline
econ.st
The U.S. reached an economic peak in WW2 and the years following. At the end of WW2, better than half of the world's manufactured goods came from the U.S., but now, it's somewhere between 7% and 8%. Some might see this as a significant decline.
Of course, much of that was due to the fact that most of the industrialized world had been devastated from the war, so the U.S. enjoyed a distinct advantage for a couple of decades before the rest of the world could rebuild. The Cold War was also a significant drain on the economy and resource base.
I suppose if the U.S. had been totally selfish and chose not to help Europe or Japan rebuild after the war, we might have been able to keep more for ourselves and would have far less competition in the world today. That's also been a criticism I've heard throughout my life, that America is too generous for its own good. There is a common belief that our government gives too much away to the rest of the world while leaving Americans in the lurch.
The complaints about outsourcing aren't always about the loss of American jobs - though that remains a significant complaint.
It's also about the manufacturing base and the growing dependency on imports, reducing America's ability to remain self-sufficient.
A good early example of the consequences of this was the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74, producing crippling fuel shortages, rationing, and long lines at the gas stations. This wasn't because the U.S. didn't have enough oil. It was because the U.S. grew dependent upon cheap foreign labor which could extract oil and ship it to the U.S. cheaper than it could be produced domestically. That's the vulnerability that outsourcing puts us in. It was also similar during the pandemic and post-pandemic period when there were numerous "supply chain" problems because it was often dependent upon goods coming from far off lands.
Another side of this, looking at the current state of geopolitics in the world today, it would appear that the nations of the world are not yet mature enough for an integrated global economy among a cooperative family of nations.
I recall 30 years ago, a lot of people thought that, by bringing the world together economically, it would ensure harmony among nations and bring about world peace.
People were hopeful about China's apparent direction towards capitalism, believing that it would bring them closer to a democratic system of government. By investing in each other, the idea is that they wouldn't go to war because it would undermine their own investments.
Unfortunately, the world situation didn't turn out as once hoped for by the myopic optimists of the 1980s and 90s who set the tone for U.S. policy and brought us to the point we're at now. (They also said NAFTA would significantly reduce illegal immigration, if not eliminate it altogether, but that didn't turn out as expected either.)
As for who is "doing better" or "doing worse," I guess it just depends on who you ask. As for America as a whole, we have a lower credit rating and far less global prestige than what we once had. We've lagged behind the rest of the industrial world in math and science education.
I suppose one could say that America is doing worse than expected, but that doesn't mean that it's overall "bad."
Fact is, the U.S. was doing fairly well under the post-WW2 Keynesian policies which were in the spirit of FDR's New Deal. Reagan and his ilk acted as if they needed to "fix" something that wasn't even broken. Overall, they insisted that these globalist policies would make the U.S. economy even better than it already was. Since this did not pan out as expected, it's normal that some people would see this as an economic decline.
Another aspect which feeds this perception is that there was no real effort to replace what had been lost. The "rust belt" got its name because the old factories and equipment were still there - sitting and rusting. The remnants of "what used to be" are still visible and add to the overall perception of decline. Boarded-up storefronts, declining city centers, defunct amusement parks, etc., appear to be not just an economic decline but a cultural decline as well.
Of course, Walmart and McDonald's are always hiring, so nobody has to ever really be out of work. There are still jobs available and most people will find ways of surviving somehow. So, it's not like the country is dying or anything that severe. But we are in a somewhat weakened state which would suggest a need for restructuring our economic system and re-evaluate America's current role in the world and our economic relationships with other governments.
