Trade and Jobs

                            Trade and Jobs
The current administration has linked the loss of manufacturing jobs with the trade deficit. This is extremely difficult because the world economy is not a level playing field and one circumstance in one area can not necessarily be applied elsewhere. Textile jobs in Vermont will not compare easily to sweat shops in Asia. 
Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. have fallen since the mid-70s and, during the same period, the trade deficit has risen. But, contrary to superficial thinking and politicians--not always the same because the politicians always have an extra mendacity card to play--, the two are not necessarily related. There may be a cause and effect relationship or it may be entirely coincidental. Or, like cats and the Plague, it may be a very complex relationship. 
While the percentage of Americans today employed in manufacturing occupations is indeed about half of what it was in the mid-1970s (14 percent today compared with about 28 percent back then), the decline in manufacturing jobs as a percentage of all American jobs started way back in 1945 (when it was about 44 percent of all jobs). Because for most of the period between the end of World War II and 1977 America ran annual trade surpluses, it is illegitimate to read the data as simply that trade deficits reduce manufacturing employment.