October 16, 2019
It is amazing how reporters and many economists feel the need to deceive the public about the reason for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the last decade. The number of manufacturing jobs was little changed from 1970 to 2000. From 2000 to the end of 2007 (before the Great Recession) we lost 3.4 million manufacturing jobs as the trade deficit exploded.
Fans of logic and arithmetic might think there is a connection there, the AP’s Fact Checker apparently does not. It tells readers:
“On trade
ELIZABETH WARREN: “The data show that we’ve had a lot of problems with losing jobs, but the principal reason has been bad trade policy. The principal reason has been a bunch of corporations, giant multinational corporations who’ve been calling the shots on trade.”
THE FACTS: Economists mostly blame those job losses on automation and robots, not trade deals.
So the Massachusetts senator is off.”
Here’s the picture as of a few years ago (sorry, I’m too lazy to update it).
Apart from the huge falloff in the years from 2000 to 2007, which continued with the Great Recession, it is also interesting to note that manufacturing employment stabilized, and has risen modestly in the years since the Great Recession. So the economists AP relies on as sources much believe that robots and automation stopped displacing workers in manufacturing some time in 2010. Alternatively, we might note that the trade deficit has stabilized in the last nine years.
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