Making It In America

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China Currency, U.S. Jobs

The decision by China to keep the value of its currency artificially low has a direct impact on jobs in the United States. But that's just one of a host of issues the Obama administration and Congress must address to rebuild America's job base and reestablish its global competitiveness. We're calling on the administration and Congress to call out China on its currency manipulation—and to forge an industrial policy that strengthens our economy.

» Find articles and resources on our China Currency Showdown page

... read more »

Why We Need To Revive American Manufacturing


For more than three decades, we have been shedding factories and manufacturing jobs—as well as the suppliers, contractors, shippers, trainers, managers and other jobs that go along with them. Here are some basic facts you should know about the state of American manufacturing, as well as the outlines of a progressive approach that will create new jobs for a 21st-century economy.

ALSO Read Scott Paul on the urgent need to revitalize American manufacturing.... read more »

The Facts

Our Worsening Technology Trade Deficit

Tech trade deficit with China costs US 627,700 jobs 2001-2008, could exceed $90 billion in 2010

What Members Of Congress Say About Unemployment Benefits

What Members of Congress Who Support Unemployment Benefits Say

"When the economy turns down, there's a compact that we have, that there's unemployment insurance for people who, through no fault of their own, lose their jobs." read more »

The News

Roger Hickey on MSNBC, The Dylan Ratigan Show

By Terrance Heath
March 9th, 2011

TARP expected to cost U.S. only $25 billion, CBO says

By OurFuture.org Staff
November 30th, 2010

The Case

The Human Disaster of Unemployment

The American economy is experiencing a crisis in long-term unemployment that has enormous human and economic costs. In 2007, before the Great Recession, people who were looking for work for more than six months — the definition of long-term unemployment — accounted for just 0.8 percent of the labor force. The recession has radically changed this picture. In 2010, the long-term unemployed accounted for 4.2 percent of the work force. That figure would be 50 percent higher if we added the people who gave up looking for work. Long-term unemployment is experienced disproportionately by the young, the old, the less educated, and African-American and Latino workers. The result is nothing short of a national emergency. Millions of workers have been disconnected from the work force, and possibly even from society. If they are not reconnected, the costs to them and to society will be grim.read more »

If Governments Weren't Firing People

One of my pet issues, as you may recall, is the things the Republicans are doing to wreck the economy intentionally, and one of the main things they're doing, in my view, is enforcing these massive budget cuts to states and localities that in turn force large layoffs. I wrote a column about this last week, but the computer ate it. But now comes fresh information that I didn't have last week that is more dramatic than even I expected. The Wall Street Journal has done some cyphering and arrived at what the unemployment rate would be if there weren't such huge public-sector layoffs.read more »

Latest from our Bloggers

may
22
2012
2:34 pm

American Manufacturers Ask President To Address Currency In Trade Agreements

By Dave Johnson

A number of groups representing American manufacturing companies and industries have asked the Obama administration for clear language that bans currency manipulation to be included in any new trade bills. read more »

may
18
2012
2:47 pm

Will Conservatives Support American Companies ... or Chinese?

By Dave Johnson

Which is better for an economy: millions of future jobs and trillions of future dollars, or a few people making a quick buck today by selling out their country? For decades America's 1%-backed conservatives have chosen the latter course, and we can see the results all around us. read more »

may
11
2012
12:01 am

The Trade Deficit Keeps Draining Money From Our Economy

By Dave Johnson

Another month and another terrible trade deficit report. Why is it that DC elites who profess to care so much about deficits say so little about our worst deficit? The trade deficit drains money from our economy, lowers our wages and forces us into an ever-lower standard of living.

Trade Deficit Rises 14%

read more »

may
8
2012
2:38 pm

Trade Alert! Is Another Job-Killing Trade Agreement Heading Our Way?

By Dave Johnson

The trade agreements we have entered into over the last few decades have greatly enriched the already-wealthy 1% but not worked for the benefit of most of us. They have created massive trade deficits that drain our economy. They have cost millions of manufacturing, textile and other jobs. They have empowered huge, multi-national corporations to break unions and force pay and benefit cuts. read more »

may
4
2012
3:30 pm

We Have More Parasites, Looters And Moochers Every Day

By Digby

The unemployment rate is now officially higher than it was when President Obama took office. That's a slow recovery, but still good. Here is the bad news.read more »

may
3
2012
2:53 pm

Snapshots of Austerity: Detachment

By Terrance Heath

What's end of the line for austerity? We've gone through despair, desperation, and indifference. The latter feeds the first two, creating what Robert Reich calls "a tinderbox society," as "those collecting capital gains" demand austerity, resulting in "rising frustration over the inability of most people to get ahead. That frustration, Reich notes, is fanning the flames of public anger in Europe, fueling student revolts in Chile, and could plunge China into turmoil.

Where austerity goes, violence and unrest follow. The danger lies in the unpredictable nature of public anger, once ignited. When sparks fly, there's no telling where they catch fire or who will get burned.

It's a combustible concoction wherever it occurs: Increasing productivity, widening inequality, and rising unemployment create tinder-box societies.

Public anger and frustration can ignite in two very different ways. One is toward reforms that more broadly share the productivity gains.

The other is toward demagogues that turn people against one another.

To borrow a line from Bonnie Tyler's 1983 hit single, austerity means "we're living in a powder keg, and giving off sparks.

Except there is no more "we," anymore. As austerity-engineered scarcity makes day-to-day survival, people see their fates as divorced from one another. Solidarity gives way to detachment, an "everyone for him or herself" becomes the general , if you want to survive.

read more »

may
1
2012
1:29 pm

We Can So Easily Create Jobs, Cut The Deficit And Revitalize Our Economy!

By Dave Johnson

The path to creating millions of jobs is so easy and obvious. Hire people to modernize the infrastructure and to retrofit buildings to be energy efficient. Millions would be paying income taxes instead of receiving unemployment or food stamps. The companies that supply the materials and steel would also be hiring and paying taxes, and the companies that supply them ... read more »

apr
25
2012
12:49 pm

GE Shareholder Meeting Disrupted

By Dave Johnson

(Note - updated with audio of meeting and video of protests taking place outside, at bottom of post.) read more »