No Economic Patriotism, No Recovery
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This year’s political ads and the rhetoric emanating from candidates running nationwide tell us that the four letter word of the year is “j-o-b-s.” If the 1992 presidential election was about the economy, then the 2010 midterms and the 2012 presidential election will be about jobs, jobs, and more jobs.
According to the National Conference of State Legislators, the current unemployment rate in the nation for July 2010 was 9.5 percent. This is not good considering that the Obama economic team was optimistic in early 2009 that the passage of the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package would hold that unemployment figure below 8.5 percent. The public’s concern with the unemployment rate is obvious as 38 percent told an early July CBS News poll that jobs and the economy are their top concern with the next closest issue trailing by 31 points.
What’s holding back the recovery? Where are the jobs? Why can’t we seem to get out of this economic funk even though we spent hundreds of billions to stimulate the economy? Let’s trace the problem to its source: the free trade at all costs mentality that has inflicted the United States with massive industrial and manufacturing job losses. Quality, family sustaining jobs for blue collar workers and young people coming out of high school and college have gone the way of the dinosaur. The policies put in place by our elected officials have turned America’s industrial and manufacturing base into something that our citizens read about in history books instead of help wanted ads.
International economist Robert Scott says that 2.4 million American jobs vanished between 2001 and 2008 because of our increased, most favored nation trading status with the Chinese. Scott also notes that California dropped 370,000 jobs to China while Texas, Illinois, Florida, and New York have lost 100,000 each in those seven years. Meanwhile, the Alliance for American Manufacturing reports that 40,000 manufacturing facilities have shuttered in the United States since 1999.
China isn’t the sole recipient of American jobs. A 2006 study by Scott, Carlos Salas, and Bruce Campbell showed that 1,015,291 U.S. jobs were affected by NAFTA since 1994 and that NAFTA is responsible for displacing over a half million Americans who hold high school degrees or less education into lower paying jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that 11 states have lost between 30,000 and 124,000 jobs because of NAFTA, including Pennsylvania,…
