The Challenge

Our great challenge in the global economy is to develop a strategy for building a shared prosperity. How do we ensure that the blessings of trade and productivity are widely spread? How do we end the proverbial race to the bottom that has characterized the global economy, with foreign competition being used to undermine worker rights, wages and benefits, and to roll back environmental, consumer and other protections?

Solutions are not easy, and they won’t come on the cheap. Edgy Wall Street bankers, concerned about the growing reaction against our current trade strategy, have begun advocating a patchwork of remedies: an expansion of “trade adjustment assistance” to workers whose jobs are shipped abroad, easier access to training, even “wage insurance” to help in the transition from a good job to one that pays less with fewer benefits after the good job gets shipped abroad. There is no sign that these advocates are prepared to invest anywhere near the resources needed to actually meet this task, but even if they were, mitigating the losses is not an adequate answer.