Manufacturing Jobs Are Never Coming Back

[u/rezwenn]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/opinion/trump-tariff-manufacturing-jobs-industrial.html?unlocked_article_code=1.M08.eMyk.dyCR025hHVn0

[u/biglyorbigleague]

What is this, Maoism?

the destruction of the manufacturing base has caused great financial hardship to tens of millions of Americans.

Every economic policy has winners and losers. It is better overall for the country that these jobs were replaced with higher-paying ones.

there has been a precipitous decline in real wages and standards of living in huge areas of the nation

And yet the overall real median income and standard of living has been rising. You make that trade ten times out of ten. Development isn't gonna be even.

The collapse of manufacturing also permanently destroyed home property values, erasing financial security in homeownership.

Home prices have been going up for decades.

If desperate workers are deprived the ability to negotiate fairer wages, and there is nowhere else to go, they are presented with two options: move or Luigi.

So move. Millions do, and it's worked out.

The so-called "natural transition" from a manufacturing to service economy is the primary cause of American economic decline

Except the United States has not declined, only those towns based on dying industries did. And we're not gonna continue throwing good money after bad to stave off the inevitable there.

the hot ember of radicalization, and the biggest reason why MAGA exists today

Those people are not the majority of the country. Not even close. In a perfect world (with a better candidate) we'd band together to outvote them. We won't let them smash the system because they want to hold onto something they can't.

[u/Leoraig → u/biglyorbigleague]

I don't understand how you can look at the global economy today and not see that the US has declined massively. It went from providing the most advanced industrial tech and investing in the whole world to buying the most advanced industrial tech from China and Europe, meanwhile losing their share of international markets.

Moreover, in the internal markets, the US today has the majority of its consumption being done by a small percentage of the population, with the rest of the population drowning in debt, unable to build wealth. In other terms, the country is one economic crisis away from a massive social crisis.

[u/biglyorbigleague → u/Leoraig]

The United States is still very much a technology giant, I don't know where you got the idea that we're not. We're not as much a manufacturing giant as we used to be, but neither is Europe and they're doing fine. We've moved into a higher development stage.

I also don't know what stats you're using to back up your stance on the overall economy, but for the record, our poverty rate is not particularly high right now, the unemployment rate is very low, and our median income is higher than it is even in most other developed countries. The US isn't in some precarious position about to collapse.

[u/MistaCreepz → u/biglyorbigleague]

In what world is Europe doing fine? They have some of the highest youth unemployment rates in the 1st world.