Please stop calling it the trump tax cut. That tax cut belongs solely to the Republican party and corporate America. trumps ONLY contribution was his signature.
15
Trump in PA this week braying that HE is responsible for the new Shell cracker plant in Pittsburgh.
This plant,which will employ thousands of workers to build, and about a payroll of 600 when built, was proposed, approved in about 2012, and preliminary work was in progress in early 2016, before Trump was elected.
The plant was widely covered in Pittsburgh media since 2012.
This is not a pie in the sky project like the one Trump brayed about in Wisconsin ( Foxconn-which is virtually dead in the water).
Obama was in office in 2012, and the audience of Trump supporters KNOW this because the plant was in the media for YEARS before this liar Trump took office.
What is WRONG with these people??!?!?!??!
23
Bringing jobs back won't happen until investors have confidence in a stable and sensible economic policy framework. As the necessary conditions for achieving that do not and will not happen under the current Administration, few jobs will be coming back regardless of tax and tariff policies. If anything, the country's fiscal policy is stimulating growth at the cost of increased public debt and investors know this is not sustainable. When economic policy is in the hands of TV economists and charlatans, the confidence needed to induce a sustainable growth of bricks and mortar investment will not be there.
11
American companies are not really American, but multi national companies that only owe their allegiance to their own stock holders.
16
According to the same source -
“Alan Tonelson reports that, according to the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank manufacturing report, “Many more companies that reported net negative impacts from tariffs were responding by replacing imports with domestic production, not with non-tariffed foreign products. See Trump’s Trade Wars Winning for America.”
3
It takes vast amounts of time, planning and capital to create a supply chain for any new manufacturing. Political and economic uncertainty and this guy managing the country by erratic tweets is helping the situation.
8
It's too bad that so many supporters of Mr Trump haven't noticed that manufacturing is going the way of agriculture and the other base industries. Machines are replacing humans.
Agriculture was the first industry to mechanise, which led to huge increases in productivity, cheap food, and the depopulation of rural communities. When one person on a $500,000 combine can do the work that was done by a travelling threshing crew of a several dozen men, there's no reason to keep those men on the payroll.
Social, economic, and political changes are driven by our inventiveness. The changes we (often rightly) deplore are the unintended results of our technical ingenuity. The rate of change has accelerated, and that's why the disruption is so much more painful than it was in the past.
It takes time to adapt to change. It also take money, and the smart money these days focuses on the quick profits to be made from plundering the wreckage instead of the slow profits from rebuilding and adapting.
15
Those jobs didn’t go overseas in two years so don’t expect them to come back quickly. Michael Moore made his doc about Flint and GM in 1989 Tariffs seem to be the answer, look how the market reacts.
4
Bringing jobs back to America. One more Trump lie.
14
It's still cheaper to produce stuff abroad. The corporate tax cuts were given with a hope corporations will be altruistic. Instead they reinvest that money into their own companies or to their stock holders. So far Trump made lots of promises that have not been realized. He still wants us wait until after the election for his health care plan. His $1.5 infrastructure infusion never happened. I think the tariffs he wants to impose on China's goods is a way to force companies to make their products here in the U.S.
7
We have been shipping our former middle class jobs to the lowest bidder over seas for decades. They have been replaced by low paying go no where jobs. The race to the bottom has devastated the middle class. It is also bad for the environment as most of these manufacturing jobs have gone to places that don't protect workers or the environment, not to mention all the junk we buy from over seas has to be transported here. Anything that can reverse this trend is a good thing. A viable economy needs to be more than software and hamburgers. With all his faults trump has done more than most who simply say "those jobs are gone, forget about it losers".
3
Would like to see how many companies relocated to U.S. & also, how many new jobs were created.
The "Head Liar" is not know for his honesty & or his actual knowledge.
14
Part time jobs are plenty. higher wages are almost non existent.
So what new 40 hour jobs have been started with a wage over 15 dollars an hour?
15
We ended up in this pickle for a myriad of reasons- thanks to both parties selling out the working ( and now, increasingly, middle) classes. Which candidate do you trust to do his/ her best to get us back on track - or on a better track? I can think of one; maybe two.
4
@Ellen... Andrew Yang for one!
2
The 2017 tax bill was one of the worse pieces of legislation ever - it created a huge deficit during an economic surplus while helping corporations buy back their shares and increase dividends. The premise that companies don't invest because of taxes is ludicrous - if there's a demand for product, they will invest.
But the real reason the US does not create more jobs (relative to overseas) is the American worker. Our workers, in general are less educated, have worse work ethic and feel entitled to top wages and benefits. I've worked in China - in general the workers there are incredibly hard working. My colleagues there have their children in school 6 - 7 days a week and the prep for the top universities starts in kindergarten. They are grateful for any benefits. I was speaking with the owner of an automobile dealership - he can't find any mechanics that were able to deal with the sophisticated technologies now in cars - regardless of wage. Sorry, but it's just better to make things abroad, from a corporate perspective.
18
Delaying certain tariffs until after the holidy buying season is tacit admission that the US consumer is indeed paying for Trump's snit fit- not the Chinese.
27
Federal sales tax!
2
This may be one more time Trump made a promise he hasn’t kept, and his tariff tiffs are not helping. However, we are moving to a time where most jobs will be done by robots, and our leaders had better do some serious thinking about how to handle 23% employment. Consumerism as an economic engine won’t work like it did for Henry Ford. Marx’ codes to find life’s meaning through work—“species being fulfillment “—will be a sad joke on mankind when our labor-saving devices make life an utter bore.
I imagine he’ll do all he can think of to make the problem benefit him and his pals, but Trump can’t be blamed for the rise of artificial intelligence.
3
He promised "millions of high-paying jobs will come flooding back to the U.S. from overseas". I hope the Democratic nominee reminds him of that. Why would any company go through the cost of relocating jobs just because of tariffs which are transitory? They need a stable environmental to make long-term decisions like that. And in many cases, we no longer have the supply chains to support those jobs even if they existed. That train has left the station and isn't coming back.
34
On the whole, it is better when Trump's uninformed decisions have minimal effects, since most of what he does tends to destroy things rather than fix any problem.
22
Ask Walmart why. They know.
9
Manufacturing jobs aren't going to come back to the US. Here is the math that explains why. Net manufacturing margins are about 10%, give or take a bit, meaning costs consume 90% of revenue. Of those costs, about 1/3 each are consumed by labor (including benefits), raw materials and overheads (plant and equipment). A manufacturing employee earning $60K/year costs the company about $75K/year once benefits are added in. That translates to about $39/hr., or a finished product cost of about $117/hr., meaning the selling price, at a 10% margin = $129. Labor costs in China, Vietnam, literally dozens of countries, are 20% of ours and overheads, due to limited if any regulation and much lower taxes and land and construction costs are often 50% of ours. Added together, manufacturing costs in labor intensive, often basic materials (think clothes hangars for example) can be as much as $60/hour LOWER than those in the US. Even with higher transportation costs an overseas manufacturer can undercut a comparable American manufacturer by as much as 1/3 and still deliver an acceptable margin. No American consumer will pay that much of a difference for comparable quality, and no amount of posturing or even tariffs will make enough of a difference to bring those jobs here. They may very well move out of China, but they will relocate to Vietnam, Cambodia or some other place not on our tariff radar.
37
@Mike Nice to see some numbers. Retail is brutal. I run a small retail operation as a retirement pastime, and my net margin is 5 to 10% before taxes. Enough to pay for itself and keep me occupied. :-)
3
Having Trump in charge of the economy is like giving a teenager the car keys and a bottle of whiskey. (Credit to P.J. O'Rourke for that word picture).
28
The digital economy doesn't need as much stuff... we jettison the physical to stream the bits.... what was expended to make "things" and pay people to manufacturer it is better kept with the investors...people are a liability :-)
3
Manufacturing jobs were a small part of the economy even 30 years ago. The U.S. once had a vigorous manufacturing economy in electronics (televisions, radios, "hi-fi" systems, early computers, home appliances), but that off-shoring process began almost 40 years ago and has continued unabated.
Think of all the classic brands that went away...Fisher, Heathkit, Allied, RCA, Zenith, GE, Philco, Magnavox, Admiral, Emerson, Harmon Kardon...there's no way you could ever build TVs and stereo systems on these shores again.
Yes, there are a few outliers that cater to high-end enthusiasts, like Macintosh. But they're the exception to the rule.
11
@hdtvpete
Macintosh is an apple, or an Apple.
McIntosh is an audio company based in Binghamton, NY.
2
@Bruce Forest
We all know what he meant
3
As long as it is perfectly legal to outsource jobs abroad, that is exactly what will happen. Trump talked on the campaign trail as though he planned to penalize companies for outsourcing, but he never did anything of the kind. Tarriffs don't do that. A company that plans to shut a US plant should forfeit the plant, the workers should get title to the plant and the brands and trademarks associated with it, and the company should be banned from importing the former US products from abroad. No more empty talk about jobs losses! No more blaming other countries, when it is our homegrown capitalists who are closing our factories!
18
Most everything our president says comes with an asterisk, meaning that his talking points may be faulty. And they most assuredly were in this case. This administration is simply continuing the economic boost we saw during the Obama years, and the job benefits he claimed are wishful thinking.
However, he will call this new reporting “fake news,” and his fan club will swallow every word. One life lesson that not enough people follow: Never trust the government to tell you the truth.
9
@Peter ERIKSON
And the core problem? Inadequate education. We're not teaching students to think, question, and probe for the truth.
POTUS is woefully ignorant of economics, among other things. But boy, does his mouth ever move!
17
@Peter ERIKSON I would amend that to never trust an ignorant, corrupt real estate guy who says he makes decisions by his gut. There are experienced, hard working professional experts in every government agency. Trump has relentlessly made it harder for them to do their jobs. Amd he doesn't believe in facts, evidence, experience, or expertise. He has crippled research in the CDC, EPA, Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Energy, and other agencies, as he couldn't care less about finding out what's true and what isn't.
26
Trump isn't aware how he's being played by investors. Or maybe he just doesn't care beyond the headlines, as long as his supporters believe it.
For a perfect example, read how Terry Gou, the billionaire owner of Foxconn, "conned" Trump and then-governor Scott Walker into believing that he would build a Generation 10.5 LCD TV manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin; way back in 2017.
Since then, little has been built, and it's likely the state will never see the 13,000 jobs Gou promised. The facility will more likely be a research center that may hire (at most) 1500 white-collar workers. That's if it ever gets built.
So, why did Gou make the deal? Most likely to avoid tariffs on the multitude of products he makes in Taiwan and China and imports directly and indirectly (through Apple et al) into the United States.
Anyone who understands the LCD display panel manufacturing business knows that this venture would never be successful and would never be built in the first place. The finished price of the panels would be way, WAY above those coming out of China. It was all done to score political points.
Too bad for Mount Pleasant, which borrowed something like $300M for infrastructure improvements and which may not be needed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/business/foxconn-tony-evers.html?searchResultPosition=2
13
The 2.5% GDP figure in the 3rd paragraph of this article is incorrect. That is the 2017 growth. 2018 growth was 3.1%. See 17th paragraph of https://www.bea.gov/news/2019/initial-gross-domestic-product-4th-quarter-and-annual-2018
1
@Steven Zeske
You're working with old data. The July 26 BEA announcement dropped the 2018 growth estimate to 2.9% in a revision. https://www.bea.gov/system/files/2019-07/NIPA-AU19-Summary-of-Results.pdf
9
Unfortunately for Trump and the country, he is completely unaware and evidently doesn’t care that he doesn’t know anything and is destroying this country in every way possible. Mr Tarif Man is another term for snake oil salesman.
16
If one looks at the US accumulative job growth over the last 10 years (https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate) one finds that after the initial drop in 2009, the consequence of the great recession, the jobs stabilized to essentially zero growth until 2013, the aftermath of this near-depression economic catastrophe. Then starting in early 2013 there is a strong upward break, a positive slope increase that remained on average the same until today. The data has, as expected its small ups and downs or noise, but the average slope is strictly linear. Interestingly there are no further breaks in the subsequent data since 2013. There is no evidence of an uptick following Trump's 2016 election, nor one after the late 2017 big tax break for industry and the rich. The employment momentum starting under Obama in 2013 carried over into the Trump administration. Neither his self proclaimed economy-boosting-election nor his major tax legislation were a factor in the employment growth, which like his promise to bring back manufacturing jobs were empty boasts. I wouldn't be surprised if later this year his "easily winnable tariff wars" will show a drag on both the economic outpu and employment growth.
21
@Rudy Ludeke
In fact, the latest economic recovery is the weakest on record, of the last 7. That takes us back to the post wwII period. As you point out, there is no data to support any assertion that Trump's efforts have had a meaningful effect.
Except downward, in the long term, as his tariff imposition starts to erode economic vitality.
8
@Rudy Ludeke There is a clear pattern in which Trump blames anything bad on Obama, but takes credit for any improvement Obama made in anything. Trump has reached the astonishing number of 12,000 lies in 928 days, on average a dozen lies per day. That's the area in which Trump is immensely productive. Everything else is hit or miss, and usually messed up.
15
My friend, an accounts payable clerk for an airline company, is losing her job. A considerable chunk of her company’s Accounting Department is being exported to the Philippines. Another friend, an insurance company processor, just lost her position to an overseas info tech center in India. While this administration is disturbing world order by its own vain glory attempts to stem the loss of manufacturing jobs to other countries, there have been no signs that it has even recognized the steady flow of white collar jobs abroad. While it has promised all out efforts to repatriate jobs back to America, its own reporting agencies can only reliably count 30,000 jobs for their well-touted efforts. Tariffs and other saber-rattling playacting of American superiority on the world stage are both vapid and stupid. We must credit the American belief in democracy and capitalism as a source of our world power. We must also recognize that present global economy will reward countries that are able to produce high quality goods and services at the most reasonable cost. If our leaders do not understand these verities, we are in serious trouble. New products, new industries, new smarter ways of producing established products, and, bold commitments to educate and train cadres of motivated workers are key. National planners and business leaders—- more dedication to national well-being, more smarts and less talk, please.
19
@Demopublican from New York: It's particularly disheartening when jobs that don't require much overhead (accounting or customer care, vs. manufacturing) are shipped overseas.
I realize that the core issue -- cheaper labor -- is the same, but somehow this just feels even more wrong, in part because companies now know how dire the employment outlook is for so many in this nation, whereas maybe in the 1980s they didn't (or it wasn't quite as dire because we hadn't yet lost so many jobs to other nations and to automation).
I'd love to see a prohibitive tax slapped on such companies -- large enough to make outsourcing not-so-profitable. I'd love to see business return to a model in which shareholders' concerns were counterbalanced by an understanding of the company's responsibility to society at large, which grudgingly translated into policies that worked for employees.
Won't hold my breath for either. But also wouldn't grieve too much if all of the disaffected gun-toters started directing their ire where it belongs: toward sh1thead CEOs rather than on blameless festival attendees, shoppers, students ...
4
It’s simply not going to happen. Manufacturing plants for low wages aren’t returning to the US now, or ever. Yet another misguided folly from Trumpalito.
16
@Dan I have to guess also, that contrary to Trump's vision, coal mining will not be the leading industry of the 21st century. Trump's real effort will go into trying to convince his fans that loss of manufacturing, mining, and other jobs is all Obama's fault.
8
Color me shocked the greedy financiers used the tax cut windfall to finance stock buybacks and not invest in America. Capitalism continually seeks the lowest wages and regulations to obtain highest return on investment. Vietnam and Mexico are gonna be winners in this battle, not middle America. The fact these companies would rather pay Mexican wages vs mississippi wages speaks volumes.
And once all the illegals are removed from the country the evangelicals can go back to scrubbing toilets, digging trenches and harvesting crops.
Amazingly I've never heard a maga supporter in flyover country complain about losing a job picking crops or processing meat because of an illegal. They think they are supposed to work in highly-automated white glove auto factories where robots do all the work and they only have to push a reset button once a week.
So rumponomics is not working, stay tuned, more to come...
26
@Snarky. Well said Snarky. Those that followed and believed the conman/grifter will soon have a very rude awakening. And those evangelicals are NOT going to be the ones to do all that back breaking labor. It doesn't jive with their image of themselves.
6
@SamZ The Trumplings will hold out as long as they possibly can to the fantasy that all economic problems come from the coastal egg heads and Obama, and will cling to the fantasy that Trump cares or has any idea how to fix any of their grievances.
7
Sure, Trump's jobs policies have failed, but when he speaks to his supporters and tells them he has turned job water into wine, they don't fact check him. Trump is relying on lying his way through the election season by claiming he has met his promises. I'm sure all of his campaign social media ads and administration media representatives will also reinforce his lies about his so-called achievements. All Trump is aiming for is votes, not actual job creation results. He's a charlatan and a huckster; that's what they do.
28
@me Trump's bond with his fans was never really about economics. It is primarily about fear, anger, and resentment, and targeting of convenient scapegoats for their problems. He hates the same people his fans do. Trump is the product of GOP manipulation of voters, going back all the way to Nixon.
10
Why not try a positive spin.
Trumps efforts to help the American working class should be lauded and news articles should offer support. By constantly attacking President Trump the Times is in turn attacking the middle class and Americans who voted for and support the President.
1
@John Gildsy, this article isn't an attack on Trump. It's simply an attempt to separate the "spin" that constantly comes out of the White House to facts on the ground.
The founder of the Reshoring Initiative is certainly encouraged by many of the actions taken to stimulate the economy, but the cold, hard reality is that many manufacturing and white collar jobs that left the U.S. will never come back.
And a net gain of 30,000 jobs a year and a half after the tax cut bill was signed isn't anything to brag about. Nor is the relatively small amount of repatriated capital, which isn't being used for investment but more often than not goes to shareholders as dividends.
18
@John Gildsy Someone has to point out that most of Trump's decisions as president have harmed the very people who voted for him. He will never admit to making any mistake. I believe Trump does not understand or really care about any of the issues he rants about. He is not motivated to learn the facts or history of immigration, health insurance, Iran, climate change, manufacturing, etc. He just looks for topics he can use to get votes. He has done nothing that helps the middle class, and he is striving to harm the poor as much as possible. Is it infrastructure week yet?
8
Trump basically campaigned on a platform of tell "them" what they want to hear regardless of the challenges, consequence or other.
Trump will go down in history as the greatest con man in politics ..that is after decimating rules and regulations governing our society, well being and social structure. He only cares about his brand. I and millions of others only hope there are sealed or to be sealed indictments against Trump et al in which we all can watch the last scene in this tragic show called Trump era politics...
21
@RH I am keeping my fingers crossed!
2
@RH Trump has expanded the con that the GOP has been using since Nixon.
4
@RH: I don't think I can take another 17 months of this; I would really rather have President Pence, even with all of the hypocrisy and hatred that entails -- at least he isn't a self-aggrandizing serial liar.
2
Along with the famous "Unity" headline, this one seems off too. The article mostly points out that the job return efforts are a bust or started regardless of any Trump initiatives. "Limited results" seems to indicate that there were at least some substantive results, but the numbers I see here are anything but substantive. Why don't they just tell it like it is?
7
“We are pleased with the over 50 percent surge in reshoring jobs announced in 2017 and the record number of companies announcing reshoring jobs in 2018,” said Mr. Moser, whose group advocates measures to bring back five million factory jobs.
But he said efforts to draw investment and jobs to the United States were less successful in 2018 than 2017 because of a stronger dollar, which makes American products more expensive in foreign markets, as well as “uncertainty from the tariffs, dysfunction in Washington and the increasing skilled-work-force shortage.”
It is laudable to try to bring back five million factory jobs but I see no evidence that there are five million skilled factory workers or apprentices to fill those jobs. U.S. manufacturing has been losing jobs for at least four decades. Some lost to offshoring and some due to technological advances.
I'm in the tool and die/mold trade. It takes at least five years for an apprentice to become proficient in programming, setting-up and operating a computerized machine tool. Once skilled, this apprentice, with ten hours of overtime per week will easily make over $100K annually. We have a very difficult time finding a skilled toolmaker or an apprentice. Bringing back manufacturing is not going to happen very quickly. I'm sure Harry knows this..I don't think Trump does.
16
Deregulation, drastic reduction in corporate taxes and tariffs on China made goods haven't brought back jobs.
What does it take to bring back the manufacturing jobs and make the US the factory of the world - just like China?
2
It’s pretty simple: as long as wages in China (and Vietnam and ...) are substantially lower than in the USA, not many jobs will come back here.
(I just googled it: Minimum monthly wages range from almost $400 down to $150. Monthly. Why would a company want to pay us $30-40 per hour—-$5000 monthly?)
3
@Rick Weiss Then how come the C level executives in the US are getting paid sky high remuneration as compared to the Asian execs, and still able to keep their jobs?
By the way, the Germany has a robust high value added manufacturing, and German workers are paid fairly well as compared to the Chinese.
4
"Trump’s Push to Bring Back Jobs to U.S. Shows Limited Results"
"From tax cuts to relaxed regulations to tariffs, each of President Trump’s economic initiatives is based on a promise: to set off a wave of investment and bring back jobs that the president says the United States has lost to foreign countries."
It was never going to work as Trump promised. Just like his promise to bring coal back for the coal miners. His promise is just hot air.
Trump's attempts to claim credit for our current economy are more just untruthful boasting. Our economy and the great increases in new jobs coming open began in the Obama Presidency. Trump has not added a thing.
The Trump and republican Welfare For The Rich and Big Business tax cut, for all their promises has indeed fallen flat on it's face. What little tax cuts that got through to the middle class have been more than eaten up by huge increases in cost of living for items like food, medical and car insurance, rent and housing increases, to name a few.
24
@RetiredGuy
Now, now, all is not lost on the coal mining front! Coal mining employment is up by about 1500 people since Trump took office. That's the number of jobs added in California in 2 days.
16
Very nice detailed analyses of many economic factors. However any intelligent economist was predicting this well before the idiotic tax cuts.
14
The give, give, give to the wealthy and corporations so they can trickle, trickle, trickle down to the rest of us is the biggest economic con of our democracy and the main reason why at the end of every GOP Presidential cycle the middle class waste away in a dead calm, while the "tricklers" sail full speed ahead.
23
Let's see reporting on all those native-born Americans lining up to work at Mississippi meat processing plants.
46
They would if they paid a living wage with benefits, including health insurance.
As a nation, we need to dramatically reduce our meat consumption-- it's a major contributor to global warming and the hunger crisis.
9
@Foosinando That will be the day!
1
Well color me surprised. No one actually thought it would work did they.
15
Big box companies, demand for low cost clothing, electronics, and consumer goods are the reason jobs stay overseas. That couples with the inability of many Americans to do the fine motor control assembly and work for low pay add to the problem. Big pharma buys drugs in low wage India, has them formulated in Eastern Europe then makes huge profits! No incentive to return. Food processing? Work Americans refuse to do so big companies hire undocumented immigrants to do the work and can pay them low wages - would love to see the books! The companies are never prosecuted because they supposedly can’t verify identify. Absolute rubbish!!! I know that the process is more than thorough and just an example of the government’s winking at employers. They know there will be more poor workers and the scam continues.
22
big box stores like walmart are open invitations for killers to come in and shoot up the place as we just saw in el paso. the stuff sold in those stores is poor quality and the help no better. everyone is looking for a deal that isn't there and the stores have all but destroyed the local businesses. the shoppers who were killed for no reason are the collateral damage that has to be paid for by greedy investors that systematically destroyed what this country had going for it--mobility and the reason to live, and they are still at it. They're paying for 4 more years of Trump and loss of life--disgusting people.
3
@Barbara They are NOT going to be prosecuted because then you would have to include trump...
2
The factual headline would be
Trump’s Push to Bring Back Jobs to U.S. Shows Results
The "limited" is Mr. Tankersley opinion - and therefore this piece should be in the Opinion Sections.
1
@John
I don't think the reporter actually composes the headline. In any case, this is one of those glass-half-full/glass-half-empty situations depending on how you look at it. The results are limited in the sense that some of the numbers have been better in the past as the article states or are not as good as promised or expected.
3
@John:
imagine you decide to go campaigning for
an issue you attach much importance to.
your aim is to collect 100 signatures on your first day.
you return home with 19. would you say your effort
showed results, or limited results?
6
Hey, give the President time! The environment can't be ravished for the sake of jobs all in one term.
18
This country has believed in the myth of elite education for so long, that they believe that the legacy people working in the white house have an understanding of technology and its impact on jobs and economics.
These "smart" people could never get a position in a real Presidential administration. They are completely incompetent . Failed politicians who there own GOP would put out to pasture or ship to Fox News.
If the democrats cant win all GOP seats and the in 20/20, we have turned into a nation of second graders.
So democrats leave your egos at the door, get smart and realize that the whole world is watching.
I wonder who is working in the chicken packing companies in Mississippi, to replace the people who were targeted by Mr. Hater, who is doing the work. Haven't heard the outcome from the hiring fair. We all know the answer without being told
9
I’ve yet to hear of any jobs created because of Trumps tax cuts. All the money went to stock buybacks. Anyone with a brain can look at the numbers.
15
There is NO "Trump push" to "bring back jobs"!
That's right out of the Trump propaganda ministry statement! Saying falsely (i.e. lying) that your policies are trying to bring back jobs and then doing exactly the opposite is another variation of Trump's ongoing Big Lie! (i.e. that he's a "populist" working for the "little people," when in fact ALL his policies benefit the .001% and/or he and his family!
WHY does the media keep repeating such blatant misstatements as if they have any validity at all?
To do so, merely gives them a legitimacy that they clearly do NOT have!
18
It took the better part of three decades for offshoring to gather full force, it will take time for the course to be reversed. Right now capitalism--always on the search for sweat-shop labor--is in the "let's wait until 2020" mode. A victory by the Democratic party's orthodox multi-nationalists will end this little experiment.
For the NYTimes, deep into its work of "contextualizing" the news, to run this kind of hit-piece is a betrayal of good sense and a conscious misread of any real "context." Maybe the forces of capitalism are too much for one, isolated man to turn around. But give him some small credit for trying.
5
@richard cheverton you are assuming the stock market holds strong. If it craters all bets are off.
1
Please continue to have articles that show how the current administration has HURT his base. Include lots of simple graphics that can be used by TV news to educate swing voters.
20
Trump only exacerbates the reasons not to build factories in the US.
7
Careful account of a failure, basically. Mexico's going to pay for that wall never was realistic. For Japanese investment to be lower than during President Obama's second term would be galling to Trump were he to pay any attention. This article isn't addressing the rise in the deficit, another consequence to the enormous tax cuts for the rich and for corporations.
And now Senate Republicans are attempting to transfer $5 billion out of the education and health budgets to Trump's wall. You're not likely to increase good jobs in the U.S. without R&D spending and without educational investments, particularly in tech areas since manufacturing is increasingly computerized and robot based.
19
This is the right economic metric to talk about.
Trump campaigned in 2016 on the promise of bringing the jobs back.... Not on the stock market gaining 5,000 points (or whatever the number is).
Trumps economy is good for the rich people, who ignore his destruction of American institutions and values for a few extra bucks that make no difference to their lifestyles.
It’s not good for the people who voted him into power in MI, WI, and PA.
Democrats: Don’t cede the economy argument to him. Keep attacking Trump on the economy. Especially now that his trade wars are hastening an economic downturn.
29
According to WAPO - Trump has told an outright lie or told a fib 12,000 times since taking office. 13-20 a day...depending on the number of statements made in a time period.
And its now become normal. We have a POTUS that is a pathological liar. Period. He's that!
"Trump often cites repatriation figures as if they reflected direct investment in the United States. That’s wrong, said Brad Setser..."
This is the main way we read, or hear about a Trump claim. Trump-claim, followed by "that's wrong." Over and over and over...and over and over...and over..."
To infinity and beyond!
Now imagine what its like inside the WH, within ear-shot of Trump all day. How many added lies and falsehoods does he spew? The eye-roll factor must be off the charts!
Imagine what his youngest son Barron (the older ones are lost souls) must be hearing on the few occasions his dad talks to him directly? What must that kid hear? (where is that kid anyway?) How does he go to that high priced private school and listen to professionals who know things, real things...and properly process it? Imagine you're Trumps kid, taking a High School Economics class, where the curriculum has to be way more advanced then the lessons his old man sat thru when he was in HS...!? Its like dissecting a toad, compared to operating on a living human!
What must Barron be thinking? I cant wait for that book! If a publishing house hasn't locked up that Autobio yet, that's a sin. I want access to this kids Journals! Geesh.
9
@Boregard
It is difficult to believe that there is even a child in that madhouse. Hard to think of what goes on in his classroom, I feel for the other students who have to hold their tongue of his presence. Interesting current events sessions.
We have never seen Trumps grades or heard from his classmates. Trump paid them off to be quiet and he probably is paying the parents of Barron's to be quiet now.
Still waiting for the tax cut and the new jobs to kick in.
6
How many more examples of trump's epic, dismal pathetic failures do we need? For some, the willful ignorance of what a sad loser he is just won't sink in and we all suffer because of it
15
The US exported heavy industry a long time ago. None of these jobs will ever return. The corporations, which received teh tax cuts, just passed along their savings to stick holders and executives. Those overseas, kept their money out of the US. The US has become a service economy and many jobs, now performed by domestic employees, could be eventually replaced by computers and robots.
Also, why would a domestic corporation invest millions of dollars in factories? It is far cheaper to have manufacturing over seas. To make it such that this is not an options, the Us would have to impose tariffs that would be so punishing, that it will cause run away inflation and effectively cripple the US economy. The tariffs, already imposes, are already effecting the economy.
The US is not preparing its workforce for the future. The current administration, and party, continue to live in the past.
Thus, the administrations economic policy continues to fail. And, if these policies are allowed to continue, it will pull the US into a deep recession, with the rest of the world with it.
11
Of course it is hard to "bring jobs back"
Technology means that the manufacturing, metal working, and automotive jobs are fundamentally different than the positions in the 1950s to 1970s era. Automation limits the number of humans required, and eliminates the drudgery of repetitive tasks.
The jobs available now require coding experience and an understanding of robotics. New factories may be built, but they won't be able to employ the laid-off workers from GM (they don't have the skills).
Milling rebar is a function that is not required to be done in the US, since foreign firms can do the work in a more cost effective manner. Creating high-quality finished steel is something that we excel at and is higher up in the value chain. Our best strategy is to let foreign manufacturers do what they do best and we focus on what we do best. Trying to get our workers to do the tasks foreign workers do more cost effectively is simply a tax.
8
"Mr. Trump’s tax cuts unquestionably stimulated the American economy in 2018, helping to push economic growth to 2.5 percent for the year."
Completely disagree with this statement. There's no empirical proof GDP would have been slower without the tax cut.
And in any event, it fell well short of his 4% promise.
20
The majority of job losses are not due to them going overseas... it's because of technology.... perfect example, the coal industry.... the productivity associated with mining coal has gone up YoY for decades while the number of workers in that industry has shrunk.... that's not because those jobs went overseas... it's due to technology. With advances in robotics and AI, more and more jobs will disappear into the ether... like the switchboard and 411 operators.
The way you combat this is through education! Real education... not the current system that has us ranked low when compared to other industrialized nations. We need to invest in education instead of cut funding for education. People have to come to grips that working at the local factory as a pathway to the middle class is G-O-N-E gone... that ship has sailed... those days are OVER!
Get educated or get left behind….
14
It didn't work for one simple reason: manufacturing got out of China but didn't go to the USA; instead, it went mainly to countries of SE Asia such as Vietnam and, in rare occasions, India.
But that process was already happening. China was already getting ready for such kind of deindustrialization since it knew it was getting richer. Hence it shifted from an export-oriented to a consumer-oriented economy beginning in 2012.
If much, Trump's trade war accelerated a little bit this process -- but definitely not enough to impress the Chinese.
6
There are global forces at play over time that defy any one power's ability to control them.
One might be able to create small fluctuations in markets, but that will not overcome such forces any more than one can counteract the undertow when wading in the ocean.
As they say, time and tide wait for no man.
4
Mr. Trump said at the White House recently. “They’re all coming back now. They’re [jobs] coming back to the United States.”
Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who tracks international investment flows said, "You’re not in any way seeing a shift in real activity back to the United States.”
Are we supposed to be surprised? I'm a retired music teacher and I knew jobs wouldn't be returning to the States.
Trump's false verbiage is meant to make loyal followers happy, not to produce any meaningful results.
11
The majority of job losses is not due to them going overseas... it's because of technology.... perfect example, the coal industry.... the productivity associated with mining coal has gone up YoY for decades while seeing the number of works shrink.... that's not because those jobs went overseas... it's due to technology.
With advances in robotics and AI, more and more jobs will disappear from the ether... like the switchboard operator and 411 operators.
The way you combat this is through education! Real education... not the current system that has us ranked lower when compared to other industrialized nations. We need to invest in education instead of cut funding for education.
People have to come to grips that working at the local factory as a pathway to the middle class is G-O-N-E gone... that ship has sailed... those days are OVER!
6
The premise here is that few manufacturing entities have returned following the December 2017 Tax Cuts passage. That's because although the new foreign profits Tax was initiated at the 15 percent rate, it's still lower than the lowered 21 percent national rate making it undesirable to return. I've pointed this out since passage and it hasn't been addressed.
7
"Trump’s Push to Bring Back Jobs to U.S. Shows Limited Results"
Trump should not be shamed for trying with "limited success" to bring back jobs, even if it is a half-a-loaf attempt. Had the Democrats done the same when they held Congress and the White House and proudly passed NAFTA and then tried to pass the TPP, Trump might not be sitting in the White House today. Democrats, on the issue of middle-class jobs, live in a grimy glass house.
5
@wilt First, NAFTA was written during the HW Bush admin and had he won, it would've passed with him as potus.
Second, Clinton urged passing in an effort to show bipartisanship. But now we're getting kicked in the teeth for it, is what happens when we agree with republicans.
Same thing with crime bill.
7
Reversal takes time. I am amazed that it worked to the degree reported
The job exodus commenced 26 years ago after NAFTA was signed . It accelerated after China was admitted to the WTO.
Mr Trump has been at his job for 3 years.
====
Between 1993 and 2014, the U.S.-Mexico trade balance swung from a $1.7 billion U.S. surplus to a $54 billion deficit. From 2001 the US PRC deficit rose from $83.0 billion in 2001 to $367.2 billion in 2015
We are talking about very large effects.
4
How anyone could have believed that these policies were going to reverse a multi-decade trend of moving manufacturing to countries with cheap labor and/or cheap energy is beyond me. Corporations got these tax breaks whether they repatriated their factories or not. Obviously going with "not" was always the more profitable option. How can anyone be surprised that they took it? And it's not as though CEOs can count on the incentives being long term. What kind of knucklehead would invest millions or billions in a country where they have no idea what the long term policy outlook is?
If the Trump administration had been the least bit serious about companies reinvesting on American soil, they would have tied the corporate tax cuts directly to such reinvestment. They didn't. That tells anyone willing to look all they need to know about the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act". It was just another Republican way to fleece the average taxpayer.
15
@Derek Martin
I support Trump's efforts to change China's business practices with respect to the U.S., but your point about linking corporate tax cuts to reinvestment in this country is very good.
2
@Derek Martin: Congress picks the most oxymoronic names imaginable for its bills.
@Enough Humans Thanks. I appreciate that. And interesting timing. I'm curious to hear how you view Trump's decision today to delay the next round of tariffs until after Christmas?
1
The u6 unemployment rate which includes discouraged workers who gave up looking for work and part time workers that want full time work is at the lowest point it has ever been, 7.0 %, except for a few months in the year 2000. Wages are rising fastest among the working class and minority employment is at all time lows. Most of the comments in this section deny that the economy is good - the same absence of logic and evidence as climate change deniers.
Do research - don't rely on anecdotal evidence.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
2
@Enough Humans
Low unemployment figures don't necessarily indicate a healthy, robust economy, especially for the working class, many of whom are working several part-time jobs, without benefits, at minimum wage, to barely make ends meet.
6
@Enough Humans
You mixed up the positive employment figures which the article does not seem to dispute with the "wages are rising" narrative.
Government reports show income rising almost entirely from growth in dividends, capital gains, and interest.
Workers get wages. Rich people have dividends, cap gains, & interest on their spare cash. Workers are fully aware their wages aren't going up.
10
@Enough
The economy is doing well. The article, however, points to an area where it is not, specifically Trump’s false claim of all kinds of foreign jobs coming back to the United States. That hasn’t materialized in reality. It has, however, materialized in Trump’s mind. The growth of the economy began years ago under President Obama. It continued, and has continued, under the current President. It won’t last forever. No matter the state of the economy and the state of employment, there are other related matters. This article points out one of those matters. If the Times stuck to sharing Fox News talking points and the president’s false statements, it wouldn’t actually be a news organization. By the way, the president has now lied publicly over 12,000 times. What an admirable accomplishment.
3
What made any of you pathetic working people think that anyone in Washington or on Wall Street cared if you have a job? You've been voting for crooked politicians all your adult lives knowing they don't care. It's one of the reasons I left the United States 13 years ago. Not that Israel is any better, but Trump is your problem.
14
@Heather, I would worry about your president right now who is buddies with ours. I think he is also worrying about avoiding prison.
4
Imagine that. The brilliant businessman who bankrupted a casino scores another "Epic Fail."
Par for the course with this charlatan. And while we're on the subject, did you see the news about why Russia picked him to "lead" our nation?
Beyond belief, isn't it? I never thought we could be dragged down like this. Never.
18
A nation hostile to immigrants who bring: (a) top level cognitive talent in medicine, science, engineering, math, other fields, and (b) top level physical labor that toils long hours at low pay without complaining often in horrendous physical conditions (meatpacking, construction, agriculture) - deters investment in business and industry?
No kidding.
A nation hostile to science and math, a government hostile to education and in favor of for-profit colleges, and focused on banning math education and re-writing curricula to fit the interpretations of people who read one book in their entire lives - makes potential investors pause? Hmm.
Gee I wonder why.
You mean those nice people at Trump rallies, eager to send him or her back, beat up protesters, wanting a wall, and destruction of education and justice, never mind the environment - bring no real cognitive or physical skills and couldn't just replace all immigrants in a snap of a finger?
Hmm.
Kindly vote for Trump again, it will be completely different this time around.
Science will stop working, gravity will disappear, global cooling will happen as a result of for-profit colleges, immigrants will be gone, and those nice Nazis in Charlottesville will serve as your doctors, builders, educators, scientists - and rake in the big bucks for you.
Thank you, Trumpites, for making America great again. Keep up the good work, investment in jobs will follow (paid for by the Mexicans).
26
Could someone please do the math on the cost of the tax cuts that went nearly exclusively to the wealthy per job brought back? I would do it, but my calculator doesn’t support that many places before the decimal point.
15
@Pierson Snodgras
Not to mention that the repatriated funds from the tax cuts were spent on stock buybacks not reinvestment. That explains the 2018 GDP of 2.5%.
5
@Pierson Snodgras If you turn your phone sideways, you should get another 8 places- still won't be enough though.
2
@Pierson Snodgras Use scientific notation.
The tax cut added a trillion dollars to the deficit. I added each of the figures estimated in the article to the anticipated but not yet realized jobs added. It looks like this:
1E12 = trillion S and 1.45E5 jobs added
So 1E12/1.45E5= 6.9E6 per job.
Seven million dollars of revenue lost to gain back each job.
6
There is no provable reliable causation relationship between Trump's tax cuts and tariffs. Correlation and coincidence and arithmetic is not science and math.
America is not a business. America is a nation state.
The President of the United States is not a businessman. The President is the head of government and state.
Economics is not a science. Economists are not scientists.
There are too many variables and unknowns to craft the double-blind experimental controlled tests that provide predictable and repeatable results.
7
in spite of all of the "help" and proding, foreign investment during trump presidency has grown at a SLOWER pace than it did during President Obama's terms... pretty simple... he's trustless and responsible corporate operatives around the globe know it!
11
This is about as surprising as Lucy pulling back the football. That his policies are ineffective, except for the ultra-rich, is not exactly breaking news.
20
That was the lie that won him the election
16
The Democrat media continues its shameless attempt to put a negative spin on the best US economy for most Americans since the 1960s.
Unemployment is at historic lows for all demographic groups. I won’t hold my breath waiting for a story about that.
Doesn’t fit The Narrative.
2
EGD, you must not have been around or an adult in the. 90's.The economy was much stronger then under Clinton. Check the growth figures. As for unemployment figures, three quarters of the reduction in the rate occurred under Obama. These are the facts.
21
@EGD
Unemployment is low because (a) more people dropped out of the job market and (b) people have jobs, but not full employment or a living wage.
That's nothing to the 1960s, when the US was making huge investments in housing, infracstructure, and education, and finding (surprise!) that those investments pay off.
18
@EGD
Best Economy since the 60's? you are not talking about the stock market. There was a small jump in the Dow when Trump was seated as President. Since then (18 months later), the dow is flat, maybe 1% growth in a year and a half.
Maybe, if your one of the African Americans who got a job. Means nothing if you already had a job!
Most of the GDP growth in the last year was caused by the tax cuts.
I bet you think like Trump (also Lie like Trump), in that China is paying the tariffs. amiright? In actuality, it is a tax increase as China won't pay a penny of the tarrifs.
Keep drinking the kool aid.
Or, perhaps, you can show evidence (that no one else can find), where all the jobs that Trump is touting. We won't hold our breath waiting for you answer. SMDH
1
You guys will print anything to make Trump look bad. Whether it's true or not .
1
@BorisRoberts
Including your statement.
6
Another right wing delusion goes down in flames. Is there still anyone out there who thinks that right wingers know anything about running an economy? Besides right wing entertainers, the "president" and his sycophants? Believe it or not we are still coasting on the Obama economy!
24
Imagine that a man who refuses to release any of his academic credentials, most of his financial records, who has bankrupted at least six corporate entities, is a self admitted fraudster, sexual assaulter, serial philanderer and pathological liar was given the world’s largest economy to run. Et voila.
64
@John David James
Bingo! The mind boggles.
4
"Researchers from Wall Street financial firms and the Federal Reserve have concluded that companies used repatriated funds mostly to buy back stock."
So, not job creation, not higher wages........ not helping the US middle or lower classes.
I don't want to see people suffer, but honestly, until his own supporters are impacted more than they are now, they'll never see him for the snake oil salesman he is.
Even then, they may not.
54
@MotownMom
I'm afraid to imagine how bad retirement accounts would be without the boost from the tax cuts, given Trump's excellent handling of tariffs and trade negotiations.
2
@MotownMom
You are right- They'll blame "immigrants" before they blame Trump.
5
@MotownMom It took a serious abandonment of principal and sense to vote for this guy. People who decided he was "going to shake things up" will never admit how foolish they were and how incompetent he is. They double down on their feelings about him in the face of all contrary evidence-because to face the reality of the choice they made would be too painful. Nobody ever admits to their own foolishness.
7
Oh, no kidding? So the tax cuts were just a massive giveaway to the rich and corporations? I'm so disillusioned, I've lost my faith in government.
10
Love to read these headlines from Obvious Magazine. We all knew no pump priming to Obama's economy was needed, it was building up a head of steam nicely and sustainably. Instead this guy rammed through a tax cut that was massive and not targeted to helping the fiscal or economic infrastructure at all. And now we are looking over the horizon to see our children drowning in the debt that has resulted from his cutting off the revenue the nation relies on for its security and its future. How dare he be allowed to hug our flag.
20
One economic item missed in this article is the effect of increased government spending under Trump. Federal spending for FY 2017 was $4T. Current CBO estimates for federal spending for 2019 is $4.4T--and that's before you factor in the effects of that tax cut that mostly helped the already wealthy.
Government can create jobs. It can create wealth. How much of it should be essentially handed away to private concerns that abuse the public interest should be a question, but it's not one we ask often enough.
11
Wall Street is predicting a recession. It doesn't look like Trump's time at the Wharton School of Business did him any good even though he claims to be a stable genius. Jobs haven't come back, the economy is not working for most Americans, drug prices are so high people are dying because they can't afford them, we have more homeless on our streets, people can't afford the high deductibles, co-pays and premiums for health insurance, and many are food insecure. The 1% enjoyed a huge tax cut, the rest of America is left behind.
28
"Shows Limited Results"
In other words....sans negative spin....it shows results.
We have historic low levels of unemployment among blacks and Hispanics.
Jobless claims hit 202,000 in September, which was the lowest level since December 1969.
Why can't you admit that Democrats are bad for the economy?
@George Orwell Yes, deficit spending stimulates the economy. But not so much in this case because the economy was already growing. This is why corporations used their windfall to buy back stock rather than investing in growth and hiring. You've been had again, Boris from the USA.
19
@George Orwell Because they aren't. Remember what George Bush did to the economy before Bill Clinton fixed it? Remember what G.W. Bush did to the economy before Barack Obama fixed it? Trump isn't done causing damage yet. Give him time. A Democrat will (hopefully) be voted in next year to clean it up.
12
@George Orwell
You have to consider return on investment. If we were having this slow-but-steady growth on its own, I would cheer. When we made a massive investment of borrowed money and did not get a return on that investment, well, I'm not going to cheer.
1
Trump's economic plan is genius. Tweet tariffs and un-tweet them so no one really knows what is happening. Surround yourself with sycophant shillsters from Fox News and have everyone claim the economy is Great Again. Facts? Those are just Fake News. He is the greatest. Just ask him or any of his cabinet members.
If a president could single-handedly change our economy, far smarter men than the "stable genius" would have done so. The problem with Trump is not his policies, it's him. He is the most despised president in the history of the U.S. not because of his policies but because of who he is and how acts. He's trash, and the majority of Americans have never wavered in this assessment.
36
@Dan Shiells Well, who he is, but also, his policies. Both lead to his being despised.
14
I have yet to hear anyone besides sycophantic right wing entertainers claim that the "president," or any Republican, had any clue on how to run an economy, unless it is to run it into the ground. Trump and his clueless cronies are doing their very best to sabotage the Obama economy! I guess they really do want to destroy everything that Obama did!
14
The big lie sells - but never delivers. It's the D J Trump signature so many times.
12
We've watched capitalists destroy our labor opportunities for decades.
How do some short-term tariffs change any aspect of that?
7
The rich got richer; workers get the opportunity to take a 2nd or 3rd job to pay ever increasing bills. middle Class is long dead thanks to GOP. Manufacturing jobs are never coming back. Grow up and vote Democratic for a living wage.
43
"Researchers from Wall Street financial firms and the Federal Reserve have concluded that companies used repatriated funds mostly to buy back stock."
Of course the president doesn't know how to interpret hard data or understand what impact trade wars really have on US manufacturing.
Thanks for this excellent reporting, which I wish MAGA voters would read. I can't listen to the president who both lies and doesn't know how to read charts. He'll keep trying to convince his base that he's right and the experts are wrong, but if voters vote with their pocketbooks, he's likely in for a rough ride.
35
@ChristineMcM
And after they buy back their stock what happens next? Many economists believe investment in their businesses will follow. All this rock throwing is premature.
1
@AACNY No, no, and no. The money went to CEO's and shareholder dividends. It's gone.
14
@ACCNY: sure--because that's happened so often! Trickle down through the routes you describe has never ever worked. This myth was started by Reagan, and simply hasn't panned out. I remember when Gary Cohn asked a bunch of CEOs what they would do with their tax windfalls. All said, we don't need these cuts but we'll either buy back our stock or increase our bonuses. None--that's right, none--said they'd reinvest their windfall in expanding their businesses, increasing jobs, or even God forbid, increasing wages.
5
What a shock. it is interesting to me that this total children's fable got any play time at all. That the media, including this paper, would think that nonsense had any credibility at all is really disappointing to me. Expected, but really disappointing.
4
people who have enough money to move production overseas also have teams and accountant and lawyers.. who had probably considered movie to places like Thailand or Vietnam before the tarriffs due to rising Chinese labor costs. so the tariffs will give them another reason to move product to a cheaper, not more expensive nation, such as America.
8
Trump was right that it is "easy to win a trade war." Problem is, the winner probably won't be Trump. The winner will most certainly not be the American People.
24
As long as we have a capitalist economy - and we know that the GOP are all about capitalism, and decry anything remotely 'socialist' - there is no reason for any corporation to change their process just to generate more jobs for Americans. Indeed, the government is having to bail out (socialism!) those most hurt by the trade wars.
Especially the largest, wealthiest ones, who are where they are precisely because they (and their stockholders) make sure they earn as much as possible, and pay their workers (American or foreign) only the minimum necessary to keep the revenues rolling.
This is the central fallacy that the GOP, and Trump in particular, is selling to its stridently anti-communist/anti-socialist supporters, who can't see this contradiction. Had Obama or any Democrat proposed the same, GOP supporters would be howling.
15
Trump seems to be bringing more manufacturing jobs, "but it is not that much."
Trump is getting repatriated money, "but it is not that much."
Wow, Gloomy Gus.
To try to figure out what is going on, I will do a web search for "trend manufacturing jobs." This is one type of "solid middle class jobs" the politicians have been telling me about all of my life. I select the St Louis Fed site to see the trend across time. For manufacturing jobs, we peaked in 1980, then had gradual decline, 20 million to 17 million by 2000. At 2000, we had a sharp decline, from 17 million down to 11 million.
A web search for China's GDP will show it is flat, and skyrockets beginning in 1980. Before Trump, we were putting about 5% tariffs on Chinese imports, while China was placing much higher tariffs on stuff from USA.
China was passing steel and other things through Mexico and Canada to get the NAFTA Special.
Frank number of jobs has been rising modestly, but the great news is that part-time is getting lower as full time is rising. These numbers offset each other.
So, to cheer up you Gloomy Gus guys, examine manufacturing job trend, the end of unbalanced tariffs with China (which as Michael Moore notes is hurting the Mitt Romney job exporter types), and the transfer of jobs from PT to FT.
What would really make a difference would be stability. Let's have bipartisan support for US WORKERS, with fair, reciprocal tariffs, rather than helping boost Wall Street numbers by exporting jobs.
2
@PJ "examine manufacturing job trend, the end of unbalanced tariffs with China " Well, the NYT had an article in the Upshot recently showing that grwoth in manufacturing and construction is going down fast since last year. Most jobs, even full time, are service jobs, not durable goods. Anything made in China will now be made in other countries to get around the tarifss. Even chinese companies are building factories in other countries to get around them
See, it is easy to win trade wars. Problem is, who wins may not be the US!
18
@PJ You do realize that, by your own data, the decline in US manufacturing started before China was a factor? In fact, the overall decline in US manufacturing started in the 1970s. The bottomline is that the US job market issues are entirely created in the US. The 2.5 million jobs "lost" to Chinese competition (and those include knock-on jobs, not just those directly lost) have been more than made up for by the jobs added to the US economy in other places and other sectors. The real problem in the US is that the failure to follow good redistributive policies and provide affordable education and a good social safety net have made it much more difficult for people to adjust to a changing economy. The US creates its own problems then conveniently blames them on China and other foreign states.
16
@PJ Trump is boosting Wall Street by looting the Treasury with exploding federal deficits, one trillion a year and rising, to give Wall Street hundreds of billions in tax cuts to buy back their own stock. It can't continue. The trade deficit with China is the largest ever. Future Trump plans are cutting Social Security, Medicare, and food stamps and Medicaid for workers and families, and revoking worker wage rules/overtime pay and health and safety protections to make exploiting labor cheaper and easier.
12
That was the expected outcome.
Trump only shifted some production from China to Taiwan, Vietnam or or anywhere else in Asia.
Probably not one job came actually back to the US.
But nobody cares. We live in fakenewsland were facts don't matter anymore.
17
I can remember when Walmart first opened, they would advertise that a lot of their products were American made. Now you’ll have a hard time trying to find anything in Walmart that is made in America. Companies are only interested in profit, they make the most profit by having their products made overseas, they’re not going to reduce their profit margins by bring production back to the U.S. no matter what lies trump promises them. Even official trump merchandise is made overseas, why isn’t he having it made in America? Profit margins, that’s what he and all companies are interested in, if trump can’t even follow his own advice, why should anyone else?
42
Who would have thought that tax cuts to businesses and wealthy individuals would not trickle down to the actual rank and file workers? It sure didn't happen under Ronald Reagan. Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity and a Republican.
77
@Jeff, it was never meant to trickle down to us. And that explosion of jobs, jobs, jobs never happened. Many jobs are advertised multiple times on the same website and across other websites. Multiple agencies advertise the same job. The truth is that the recovery has not been a recovery for most of us. It's been a continuation of the recession which is really a depression if you cannot find a job.
12
Not only have companies not come back from overseas (including trump's campaign stuff & ivanka's) but I keep reading about layoffs and companies closing due to increased costs. One company is laying off over 14,000 workers. I don't know how they keep adding jobs when jobs are being lost. Are they actually adding jobs or are people just getting hired for the jobs that are already there? Unemployment goes down when people stop filing claims or use up all their unemployment time or people age out of employment & retire. Businesses in the smaller rural areas & in the Midwest are closing faster & faster.
For those who think illegal immigrants are taking their jobs...there are 680 jobs open in the meat slaughter & packing plants in Alabama now. Anyone(mostly trump's white base) want to go apply to work for minimum wage?
84
@Nostradamus Said So Jobs added are mainly service jobs. New manufacturing and construction jobs are way, way down from just a year ago.
18
@Nostradamus Said So
I tend to believe that if we didn't have an overabundance of low-skilled immigrants willing to work for minimum wage, employers would be forced to raise wages and improve working conditions in order to attract the native born population into these jobs. I do think the large immigrant population is holding down wages and undermining unions.
7
Which is why people like the Koch brothers and a lot of the wealthy want this mass immigration. It keeps elasticity in the labor market and puts a lid on higher wages. Meat packing plants wouldn’t be paying min wage if there was scarcity in the labor market.
11
I saw dozens of really rich people say that the money corporations would get back through reparations would be used to invest in the company and their workers. The real world result was approximately the zero reinvested in capital and workers that I thought it would be. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anyone would believe these people. I cannot understand why greedy capitalists would invest in their workers rather than line their own pockets with scads of bucks. But you see from the article, professional economists and journalists are stunned that this did not happen.
17
@gratis As usual, we saw and heard really rich people lie, what they tend to do best and what tends to make them the most money. Most professional economists and journalists are not stunned because most pointed out at the time that reality would not live up to the lies. The professional economist and journalists who insisted the rich were right are the same economists with deranged theories (think, Moore, Navarro, Laffer, etc.) and journalists (think paid propagandists) who are able to somehow convince a portion of the population that Lucy Rich won't move the football again and that they won't fall on their backsides again, as she and they always do.
3
Well I guess you believed them.
No one ever thought it would.
US companies manufacture in China (and elsewhere) because they generate more profit that way. It is cheaper to manufacture in China because China does not have environmentally friendly regulations, good worker protections, good wages, or many of the other things that we have in the US that make living here better than living in China. Unless it is cheaper to manufacture things in the US than it is elsewhere, manufacturing will never, ever, ever come back to the US.
35
@Randall The jobs went to China in the 90s when China had a corporate tax rate in the single digits vs. 35% in the US.
The recently-passed tax legislation put the US rate at 21% whereas the China rate has increased to 25%. So, when multinationals do their manufacturing sourcing analyses, the US now has an important advantage, particularly when considered along with the tariffs, political risk in China, IP theft, increased labor costs, transportation to market, etc; it's just math. So, while it may take multinationals time to retool and respond to these new factors( depending on their particular facts and circumstances), they are ultimately favoring the US now.
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@pete
Ah, yes, the benefits are just around the corner, just like they have been since the 1980s!
If we just keep sacrificing enough money and lives to the capitalist gods, surely they will reward us!
It reminds me of the White Queen: jam tomorrow, but never ever jam today.
3
So I guess this means that all those coal mining jobs aren't coming back either?
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@Vanessa Hall
It does not matter. The "art of the deal" says you can lie and not deliver. The key is the joy that it might happen and not that it could. It couldn't and didn't. Rewind - New lie.
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@Vanessa Hall Nope, especially with Trump giving massive subsidies to the oil and gas industry in the form of US government sanctions against other oil/gas producing countries, thereby giving US oil/gas companies the opportunity to export their excess and gain market share around the world (and at the same time pressuring the Saudi's to cut production). Indeed, there are multiples more people working in the solar/wind energy field than in coal mining. And solar/wind is now cheaper than nuclear at peak daytime hours.
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@Vanessa Hall, those jobs have not bee coming back for decades. Trump was wrong and Hillary Clinton was right. No one wanted to hear what she said. No one wanted to understand that she wasn't wishing them away. The people living there need to be trained to do other jobs that can pay the bills. As a rich country we can well afford to pay for the coal miners and their families to get retrained or trained for jobs in today's world. Pretending that the jobs will always be there is not an answer.
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I am wondering if this policy change will have a favorable impact on the DACA cohort? As an aside in the early 60’s I was interested in migrating to Australia and part of the process was having job interviews pre-arranged by Australia’s immigration authority based on my qualifications.
1
And while this is going on there are plenty of Americans over the age of 50 who need jobs, who have college degrees and plenty of experience, and who can't find jobs in their fields. Some of them have experience in STEM fields yet when they apply for jobs or go on interviews those jobs mysteriously disappear or their credentials mean nothing. This means that there is an entire group of Americans who are raiding their IRAs or 401Ks to survive until they can collect Social Security. Some have found minimum wage jobs but those jobs do not provide enough security. Nor does the gig economy provide it for anyone.
Our politicians, not just the GOP politicians, seem incapable of addressing the problems Americans are facing when it comes job security, saving for retirement, timely access to medical care, affordable housing, etc. The only problems they appear to care about are the fake problems of extremely rich people and corporations, none of whom are investing in America, Americans, jobs, etc.
Both parties have contributed to the problems 99% of us are facing whether we are in our "prime" working years or past them. It's not true that what's good for business is good for Americans. For too long businesses have been allowed to ruin America and the lives of her citizens while receiving federal welfare at our expense.
In other words, our politicians don't want to serve those who pay their salaries. They want our votes but don't want to represent us.
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Its because they really don't care. Do u?
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@hen3ry
In large part the biggest problem American workers face today is the destruction of unions who fought for good wages and benefits. Without them, we have fewer jobs, meager pay increases, and declining benefits. Bring back the unions!
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@hen3ry . Sadly, one of the biggest problems that will continue to grow is agism in the workplace. Job seekers who think they can apply online and find a role, when they are over, say 48, are kidding themselves. They won't get traction except in the rarest circumstances. This will only get worse as algorithms spit out more resumes of older applicants.
Meanwhile, our elected officials too often disappoint. And some, of course, are downright terrifying.
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Trump’s economic policies are disastrous for the country.
Would manufacturers rather have 7.5 billion customers or 315 million?
Would consumers rather have lower prices, higher quality and more choice or less?
Tariffs are a regressive tax paid by US consumers and US businesses.
Tariff retaliation, currency devaluations, and other components of the global Trump trade wars are lose-lose.
They create enormous uncertainty and break up long standing supply chains.
Combined with restrictions on legal immigration and a path for citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people working and paying taxes in the US, the factors that distinguished the nation have withered.
No wonder he has bankrupted more companies than any person in modern history.
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@David Parsons I have yet to hear anyone besides sycophantic right wing entertainers claim that the "president," or any Republican, had any clue on how to run an economy, unless it is to run it into the ground. trump is doing his very best to sabotage the Obama economy!
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I thought the tax cuts were a give away to billionaires and corporations and the tariffs an attempt to paint Trump as tough and in charge for his base. I doubt anyone really expected an increase good livable jobs, except maybe a few very delusional people.
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@Chris. I am not a billionaire but I received a substantial tax cut. Most has been invested, which helps create jobs, the rest spent which also tends to increase jobs. The politics of resentment are really quite ugly.
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@Thomas Smith I am not a billionaire either. However I am out of work because of Trump. His politics and programs and attitudes have hurt people like me. And yes, I do resent being out of work because it's hard for me to find another job at the age of 60. And most of the money given back to the corporations and the richest was not invested in anything to create more jobs. It was used to buy back stock or give people who don't need more money, more money.
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@Thomas Smith
Perhaps you have invested your tax cut. But if it is in the stock market, I seriously doubt that jobs were created. Jobs are created because of demand, though you probably think it is supply (make a zillion buggy whips, and you will create a market for them! Bigly!! ).
I agree that some demand has increase, mostly because of the increase in wages, primarily among the lowest paid. However, those increases are over whelmingly due to the minimum wage increases the liberal states instituted, not because of anything the GOP did.
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Yet, never in my 67 years can I recall seeing the number of help wanted signs, heard so much about the lack of manpower, or seen the unemployment rate stay at this low level for so long. So I guess the plan isn’t working?
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@Thomas Smith I don't disagree with you but I'm wondering if the signs you see are on factory doors, or other industries. This article talks specifically about manufacturing jobs, that Trump promised. Its is not focusing on the overall unemployment rate.
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Your anecdote is missing the point entirely and deliberately.
There is a broad gulf between the jobs on offer and the jobs this nation’s households need to provide for themselves and their basic and long term needs e.g. jobs providing health care benefits, jobs with retirement benefits, jobs with wages and salaries that allow people to save money after satisfying basic needs
Employment has been growing since 2009, eight years prior to Trump’s ascendancy to power. How would you go about explaining that fact?
Trump’s strategy isn’t working and his own competent advisers like Gary Cohn told him they wouldn’t. There is no indication anyone in his administration understands what they’ve been destroying or how to replace it with a functional alternative.
We’ll all reap the bitter harvest of this sowing of Hydra heads.
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@Thomas Smith, you are looking at only part of the equation. Yes, there are jobs available, but, the wages are pitiful. In upstate NY, I used to earn $12/hour in an earlier job. More than 20 years later, the average wage for that job has increased by only 11.5% . Had the national minimum wage kept place with worker productivity, minimum wage would be $19.33. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-higher-the-federal-minimum-wage-should-be-2017-12. There is no state where minimum wage is close to that figure. Employers are offering rock-bottom wages. That’s why you see no many open jobs: no one can support themselves on the meager salaries too many employers offer.
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Jobs are never coming back! Here are the reasons:
1) Technology made a lot of jobs obsolete.
2) All big business cares about are profits.
3) Americans think they are above doing certain jobs, yet somehow also don't want immigrants to do them?
4) Americans don't want to pay more money for products, which is what they will be doing if jobs "come back".
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@Steve The biggest deterrent to job creation in the United States is our very high cost of healthcare and the fact that only in America is the employer expected to pay for it. It costs twice as much as it does anywhere else. An American worker has to be $15K more productive than his European or Asian counterpart in order to get a job here. Until we fix this, which will require politicians saying "No" to big pharma and the health insurance industry, we won't fix the problem. It's also easier and less expensive to fire an American worker than it is anywhere else. Even a Chinese worker has more protections than an American one. I know this because I've run factories all over the world. Our healthcare system doesn't help any of us other than big pharma and insurers and our lack of employment protections may help employers but it does not help ordinary Americans. The only way to fix this is to elect democrats who swear off corporate contributions.
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@John in Richmond
No, the biggest deterrent to job creation is that half the people cannot afford a $400 sudden hit, and so many who work full time have to get Food Stamps and are Medicaid and get EITC. In other words, corporate subsidies.
Economies are driven by the acquisition of goods and services. Cannot sell a whole lot of goods and services if half the population can barely eat. Cannot sell a whole lot of goods and services when 1% control half the wealth.
The biggest deterrent to job creation is that so many Americans are not paid a living wage.
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My local hospital just spent 3 million on a DaVinci surgical robot. We could bring four Indian or African doctors to the US for that and bring their families out of poverty. Problem is when they get here they charge as much as the ones already here. So we need to do something about medical incomes. For the same operation an Indian or Pakistani doctor in the US makes 10 to 20 times as much as he would in India or Pakistan let alone Africa.
7
You have to give the guy credit for trying, or at least acknowledging the issue.
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@Midwest Josh Why? "The issue" isn't really an issue, and everyone has already acknowledged it. Manufacturing isn't coming back to the US, so people need to stop whining about it and learn a new trade from one of the numerous programs Democrats, who actually care about US workers, have created to help retrain people who worked in manufacturing.
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@Midwest Josh
The issue was acknowledged a long time ago. Trump has no clue what he is doing and he has no economy consultants who can get him up to speed.
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@Midwest Josh - He didn't try to do anything constructive and the only thing he did to acknowledge it was to make a bunch of phony promises to gullible people who were unwilling to do fifteen minutes of research before voting.
9
All smart companies do what is best for their futures and that of the shareholders.
Companies don't make plans to spend $14 billion on six months notice, and of course they'll give thanks and credit to whoever is POTUS.
But see, if the Fed would cut interest rates to zero and we had another trillion dollar tax cut and we doubled the tariffs, THEN Trump would prove how he's the smartest economist ever.
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@John Hanzel
"All smart companies..." What a small universe that is. Minuscule, in fact.
As a 69 yo ex-worker in the real world, the rest of them are pretty pathetic.
2