In a article in the Seattle Times on Friday, September 29th it was reported that a study by the Economic Policy Institute has concluded that as many as one million jobs have been lost in the US since the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA.
According to the article by Times Business writer, Alwyn Scott, ”"We've lost jobs because of growing trade deficits" with Mexico and Canada, said Robert Scott, an EPI economist and a co-author of the report. Since 1993, the cumulative trade deficit with the NAFTA partners has grown to $107 billion, the report said.
Scott estimates that the rise in U.S. exports since NAFTA created 941,000 U.S. jobs. But the larger rise in imports from NAFTA partners displaced 1.9 million jobs that would have been created without the trade deal.
The net total of 1 million jobs lost includes 659,000 in manufacturing and hit hardest in industry-heavy states like Michigan, Indiana, Mississippi and California.
Washington State gained an estimated 14,688 jobs due to the rise in U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico after NAFTA, according to the study. But jobs displaced by rising imports cost the state 31,203 jobs, for a net loss of 16,515 jobs, or about 0.6 percent of the state's job base.”
Some folks take issue with the analysis of the job losses however. For instance ” (Gary) Hufbauer (of the Institute for International Economics) said the growing U.S. trade deficit wasn't caused by NAFTA but by larger economic forces — the U.S.'s high budget deficit and low savings rate.” Well that’s nice but (and maybe it’s just me) this only addresses the cause of the trade deficits. Mr. Hufbauer does not seem to dispute the existence of the trade deficits and their effects on job losses; only the cause of the trade deficits.
My favorite explanation for the cause of job loss in the country though has to be this, ” The number of factory jobs in the U.S. has plunged in recent years, but many economists say more productive U.S. workers are the cause, not trade.” Yep, that’s it – Save your Job; Slow Down!
Then there is this totally non-biased assessment of the situation, ”Bill Center, president of the Washington Council on International Trade, said that by blaming trade, the EPI study misses the real predicament for U.S. workers — a lack of education, training and government assistance for moving from manufacturing to other jobs.
"They're letting the politicians off the hook," Center said. "Politicians should fix health care, fix education ... Those are the kinds of things we should be addressing. Not trade."
Actually Bill, the “real predicament” for U.S. workers is the lack of secure family wage jobs.
Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue
Mike's Blog Round Up
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2 comments:
Chad,
Hey, this relates to something I've wondered about for a while, and since you're on the other end of the political spectrum, I'd like to hear your thoughts about it.
We've been hearing more and more about outsourcing of jobs over the past several years, especially in manufacturing. The union movement did a lot of work in the 20th century raising wages for manufacturing workers. From my point of view, that work is largely done -- and that's one of the reasons that unions have been declining so severely over the past few decades.
Now, here's the part I wonder about: instead of spending huge amounts of money to elect Democrats to state legislatures, Congress, and the White House, wouldn't union money be more effectively spent on unionizing in those countries where low wages are sucking jobs out of America? Wouldn't that be the most beneficial thing for workers in the USA?
Hope things are great where you are,
Allen
Allen,
Again I apologize for the long delay in response. You know, comon sense would tell you that we shouldn't have to be concerned about the labor movement in this country. But then again common sense would tell you that the President of the United States would not fire air traffic controllers either.
The facts are that since the Reagan Revolution there has been a full out assault on America's Labor Movement - aided and abetted by the Clinton administration and its abandonment of fair trade policies.
If you would examine the so-called Free Trade Agreements that we have entered into under the Clinton and Bush administrations (fully supported by the likes of Rick Larsen and Maria Cantwell) you will see that the only labor standards we hold competing nations to are the one they currently have in place. In some cases that means imprisonment or even death for union organizing.
The real irony of union membership in this country is that the largest and fastest growing union in the country is the SEIU which, if memory serves, is a Service Industry union.
Under NAFATA/CAFTA/OFTA the race to the bottom is on - and the US is winning.
Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue
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