We Have to Make It Here In America If We Are Going to Make It!
A multitude of daily choices we make impact more than ourselves and our families. They impact our community and our country. Manufacturing is the answer. We need to put Americans back to work!
When a factory closes, the dominos start falling. Every manufacturing job creates 15 jobs outside of the factory; the gas stations, the stores, the restaurants, the electricians and plumbers who maintain the factories, chefs, hair stylists, insurance agents and many more. When the factory goes, those jobs follow. When only one job is lost at a factory, 15 jobs in the community are at risk. It impacts everyone. Buying American recirculates money in our own economy and gives other Americans opportunities to prosper.
We need to understand, as a country, that we must protect and support our manufacturing jobs. We must fight to put Americans back to work! Consumers have amazing power in a country, and we can change our country, ourselves… now, without waiting for politicians. It’s really quite simple. Every time you buy something, make sure that it was made in America.
According to a Gallop poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans are willing to pay a premium price for products made in America. Some say twice as much. The good news is that we don’t have to. In fact, with overseas labor rates rising at a faster rate than they are in America (China 10% – 15% annually) many items made in America already cost less!
Not only can Americans do the work, but we can do it with better quality, we can do it faster, and we can do it at a lower price!
Economists state that if we all spend just 5 percent more on American made products; we will create a minimum of 1 million more jobs for Americans! We have to believe that Americans can compete. With the growing overseas wage gap and subsequent cost of goods produced quickly closing, it’s increasingly impossible for manufacturers to justify the other costs associated with offshoring including shipping, delivery delays, and the overhead that comes with maintaining large inventories.
When doing the math, as many as 1 million jobs would come back to the USA if companies would recognize the mathematical common sense for themselves and reshore their manufacturing processes.
Although domestic manufacturing jobs have been on the decline since the 1960’s, massive job losses in the U.S. began at the Millennium. Between 2000 and 2009, more than 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost due to ‘outsourcing’. That’s a fancy word for, ‘you’re fired’! Multiply that number by the 15 jobs outside of the factory that were also affected, and that quickly explains why Detroit (where 70,000 buildings lie abandoned), Philadelphia, Allentown, and dozens… hundreds of other U.S. cities are in the state of disparity, depression, and extreme disrepair. Today, it’s hard to find anybody who hasn’t been adversely affected. In reality, the great recession has touched all of us. We all know someone who has lost a job, their home, or their entire life savings.
So, were those 5-plus million manufacturing positions that we lost truly that great? Were the jobs that were lost really better than the jobs that have replaced them? YES!!! Since the 1960’s, manufacturing has always paid substantially more than the minimum wage. Even today, the manufacturing jobs that remain pay an average of $20.17 an hour. That’s nearly three times the federal minimum wage. It’s enough to vault a worker out of poverty and solidly into the lower middle class.
Manufacturing is at the center of the economy; it’s highly connected with most other sectors such as transportation, retail, mining, utilities and business services. Manufacturing companies also account for about 77% of what the private sector spends on research and development each year. If it weren’t for manufacturing, there would be very little innovation in the United States.
American manufacturing isn’t dead by any means. But the loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs has devastated the working class and made achieving the American dream increasingly difficult. Technological advancements and the rise of low-skilled manufacturing in China and other developing nations mean that fewer Americans work in factories, just as technological advancements 100 years ago meant that fewer Americans worked on farms.
The solution is not the politicians… it’s you and it’s me, the American consumer. Together everyone achieves more. Together we unite and together we buy American. In doing so, we support America and we support Americans… our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, our nation’s founding backbone. We all rise together!
