At the beginning of 2018, Vice President Mike Pence said that “manufacturing is roaring back.” Here’s some figures from Factcheck.org
The economy added 196,000 manufacturing jobs in 2017, President Trump’s first year in office, for a total of 12.5 Million manufacturing jobs in the USA, still 1.2 million fewer than in 2007 before the recession. So far, in 2018, we have added another 95,00 manufacturing jobs in the first five months.
In President Obama’s last year in office, 2016, the economy lost 16,000 manufacturing jobs. To be fair to Obama, from 2011-2014, the economy added 200,000 manufacturing jobs every year.
But President Obama did not support the concept of making it in America. In fact he claimed that many manufacturing jobs had left and weren’t coming back and in his last two years in office, manufacturing jobs in the USA declined and did what he said they would do—leave America.
Economics professor Gordon Hanson, from the University of California San Diego, noted that the U.S. economy lost almost 6 million manufacturing jobs from January 2001 to February 2010, the low point for manufacturing jobs during the recession. There were 17.1 million manufacturing jobs in January 2001, but only 11.5 million by February 2010, according to the BLS.
Under President Trump, we are making progress and jobs are coming back. Some of those jobs were in Granite City, Ill., when 500 jobs came back when the Granite City Works U.S Steel plant reopened. The reason? Tariffs placed on steel imports help increase demand for domestic steel.
African-American unemployment dropped below 6% for the first time, and the Hispanic unemployment rate is at it lowest since the 1970’s. And remember that for every American manufacturing job, there are 1.5 indirect jobs created to support the manufacturing plants.
Here are the top 15 US Cities with a large manufacturing base. If you don’t believe that these jobs help the local economies, think again. N. Atlanta GA 168,600, San Diego CA 168,600, Troy MI 160,700, Phoenix AZ 127,100, Grand Rapids MI 115,700, Oakland CA 97,400, Louisville KY 82,000, Salt Lake City UT 58,400, Orlando FL 46,500, Miami FL 43,800, Raleigh NC 35,000, Omaha NE 34,000, Albany NY 26,600, Las Vegas NV 23,400, West Palm Beach FL 20,000.
Most of these communities are in the south or sun belt. One city, Albany, NY is in my home state. Overall, it is very difficult to get the people in New York City and the suburbs to think about manufacturing jobs, because most are gone.
I’ve still got 20 workers at my Elevator Manufacturing plant in Queens NY. And my steel costs have gone down, not up, since the imposition of tariffs.
Trillions of dollars in oversees profits of American Corporations are now coming home. Yes some of the profits are being used to boost the stock price of that corporation, but some of the profits are being used to open factories.
The name of this website, and my goal, have not changed over the past 10 years. We need to bring our jobs home, and we have millions more to go. It is being done, it can be done, it will be done.
We now have divided government in Washington for the next two years. Let’s hope that as both sides fight and bicker, they stay out of the way of our economy and let it grow. Another million manufacturing jobs in the Midwest might just be the ticket to re-election for President Trump.
Frank Spotorno is the President of Bring Our Jobs Home, an organization committed to supporting existing American jobs and companies and working to bring some of the millions of manufacturing, and call center jobs back to the USA.
