[CTC] Senators Push Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act

Wed Mar 24 10:33:11 PDT 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   March 23, 2010  

CONTACT: Steven Capozzola, 202-550-4322
                    David Roscow, 703-276-2772 X 21 

Massive U.S. Job Loss to China Trade

Shown by State and Congressional District

High-Tech Industries Losing Jobs at the Fastest Rate;

California, Texas, New York Among Biggest Losers

2.4 Million U.S. Jobs
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103221508313&s=8422&e=001LA3gFPbdysvvNKGV4nUv
EQx0hI_gKYsVcN_ArXrAx6Ax82_xjcJdORcY_cOzQOTKJ6601y1sMi5f1l2qq3zAolGM7ehcXbeN
NeWRZwn-pPukXe84uR5dPcprV5xAy6EjcX2KtbeTepR7tkkY46wdvw==>  Lost Since 2001
as Trade Deficit Soars

WASHINGTON, DC - The United States is hemorrhaging millions of jobs as a
result of the nation's growing trade deficit, largely with China, according
to a report issued today
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103221508313&s=8422&e=001LA3gFPbdysu6FBA_CeJO
iWuXMynFXIeacw4Q6SNEE92cgvvY4PsxYAZtNbROG3BezZGiUBDGOZNBjBBG4OlkcbKlbjqISjQb
NjMB_hB5O5xb-QLTgbo9lC1Zw6PQFE84SkwC6vhGNTXdcc4m2VHCbA==>  by the Economic
Policy Institute (EPI). Contrary to conventional wisdom, high-tech
industries are losing jobs faster than any other sector of the economy, the
Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) pointed out.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, 2.4 million
jobs
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103221508313&s=8422&e=001LA3gFPbdysvvNKGV4nUv
EQx0hI_gKYsVcN_ArXrAx6Ax82_xjcJdORcY_cOzQOTKJ6601y1sMi5f1l2qq3zAolGM7ehcXbeN
NeWRZwn-pPukXe84uR5dPcprV5xAy6EjcX2KtbeTepR7tkkY46wdvw==> have been lost or
displaced in the United States as a result of the burgeoning trade deficit
with that nation, the report concludes. 

Growing trade deficits cost jobs in every state and congressional district
(CD), the report found, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The computer, electronic equipment and parts industries experienced the
largest growth in trade deficits with China, resulting in 628,000 job
losses-26 percent of all jobs displaced by trade between 2001 and 2008.  

The EPI report is the first to break down job losses to the congressional
district level. Using the EPI data, AAM created an
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103221508313&s=8422&e=001LA3gFPbdysvvNKGV4nUv
EQx0hI_gKYsVcN_ArXrAx6Ax82_xjcJdORcY_cOzQOTKJ6601y1sMi5f1l2qq3zAolGM7ehcXbeN
NeWRZwn-pPukXe84uR5dPcprV5xAy6EjcX2KtbeTepR7tkkY46wdvw==>  interactive map
showing the impact by CDs. The hardest-hit districts were located in
California and Texas, where remaining jobs in these industries are
concentrated, and also in North Carolina, which was hit by job displacement
in a variety of manufacturing industries. Other populous states like New
York and Illinois also had major job losses.

"China's cheating is causing America to lose more than just the capacity to
make widgets in the one-sided trade arrangements with China," said AAM
Executive Director Scott Paul.  "Sophisticated electronics and high-tech
products that once were made in the United States are increasingly being
made in China instead. We are losing more and more of these good jobs."

The report cites China's currency manipulation as a major cause of the
growing U.S. trade deficit with that nation. China has tightly pegged its
currency to the dollar at a rate that encourages a large bilateral surplus
with the United States. Other causes of the deficit include massive
industrial subsidies in China, lax labor and environmental law enforcement,
intellectual property theft and piracy and Chinese policies that block
market access to U.S. firms.   

"This intervention makes the yuan artificially cheap and provides an
effective subsidy on Chinese exports," said Robert E. Scott, EPI's director
of international programs, who authored the report. "Unless China raises the
real value of the yuan by at least 40 percent and eliminates other trade
distortions, the U.S. trade deficit and job losses will continue to grow
rapidly."

"Currency manipulation may sound like a highly technical subject, but its
impact is simple," AAM's Paul said. "U.S. exports to China cost up to 40
percent more in China and Chinese exports to our consumers enjoy a subsidy
of a similar amount. That's unfair and unacceptable." AAM is supporting
efforts by Congress to penalize currency manipulation, and has urged the
Obama administration to acknowledge that China is a currency manipulator, in
the Treasury Department report due April 15.

The impact of the China trade deficit is not restricted to the jobs
displaced, the report found. Competition with low-wage workers from
less-developed countries also has driven down wages for other workers in
manufacturing and reduced the wages and bargaining power of similar workers
throughout the economy-essentially all production workers with less than a
four-year college degree, roughly 80 percent of the private-sector
workforce.

For a typical full-time, median-wage earner in 2006, these indirect losses
reduced their annual income by approximately $1,400, according to earlier
studies conducted by EPI. China is the most important source of downward
wage pressure from trade with less-developed countries, because it pays very
low wages. For example, the report notes, China was responsible for nearly
40 percent of the U.S. non-oil imports from less-developed countries in
2008.

"These findings document what we have been asserting for some time," Paul
said. "China is undercutting the competitiveness of our manufacturers and
undermining the earning power of American workers by routinely failing to
honor its global and bilateral commitments." 

China's share of the U.S. trade surplus has soared, especially in 2009.
Since China entered the WTO in 2001, the U.S. trade deficit with China has
risen by $186 billion, from $84 billion in 2001 to $270 billion in 2008, an
average increase of $26.6 billion per year. Last year alone, China was
responsible for more than 80 percent of the United States' total, non-oil
trade deficit in goods. 

The congressional districts suffering the worst job losses were concentrated
in states heavily exposed to growing China trade deficits in computer and
electronic products and such other industries as furniture, textiles and
apparel. Of the top 20 hard-hit districts, those suffering the worst damage
were:

. Eight CDs in California (the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 31st, 34th, 47th and
50th), where a total of 370,000 jobs have been lost statewide-the worst hit
was located in the Silicon Valley region of the Bay area;

. Four CDs in North Carolina (the 4th, 5th, 6th and 10th), where 95,100 jobs
have been lost statewide;

. Three CDs in Texas (the 3rd, 10th and 31st), where 193,700 have been lost
statewide;

. Two CDs in Massachusetts (the 3rd and 5th), where 72,800 jobs have been
lost statewide; and,

. One CD each in Oregon (1st), Georgia (9th) and Alabama (5th), each of
which has lost more than 8,600 jobs.

Rapidly growing imports of computers and electronic parts accounted for more
than 40 percent of the $186 billion increase in the trade deficit with China
between 2001 and 2008. The $73 billion deficit in advanced technology
products with China contributed to the elimination of the 628,000 jobs in
computer and electronic products in this period.

The CD job model is based on new data from the Census Bureau's American
Community Survey (ACS), which provides a much richer dataset for analyzing
the effects of trade on employment than the Census Bureau's Current
Population Survey (CPS) used in prior EPI studies. Because of its large
sample size of 3 million addresses per year, the ACS allows for the
enhancements of the models for labor force estimates at the state and
sub-state levels, the Census Bureau says.

##

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) is a unique non-partisan,
non-profit partnership forged to strengthen manufacturing in the U.S. AAM
brings together a select group of America's leading manufacturers and the
United Steelworkers. Our mission is to promote creative policy solutions on
priorities such as international trade, energy security, health care,
retirement security, currency manipulation, and other issues of mutual
concern.

# # #

<http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?v=001P1yAzTPelCyg9ZWK-QkWF1CAMj8Cl
_DdBQfwUUPPuQdx8fg8atL7qod1sBXLFRSi4hqHQo6vaIc%3D&p=un> Safe Unsubscribe

This email was sent to @citizenstrade.org by scapozzola at aamfg.org.

Update Profile/Email Address
<http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?v=001P1yAzTPelCyg9ZWK-QkWF1CAMj8Cl
_DdBQfwUUPPuQdx8fg8atL7qod1sBXLFRSi4hqHQo6vaIc%3D&p=oo>  | Instant removal
with SafeUnsubscribe
<http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?v=001P1yAzTPelCyg9ZWK-QkWF1CAMj8Cl
_DdBQfwUUPPuQdx8fg8atL7qod1sBXLFRSi4hqHQo6vaIc%3D&p=un> T | Privacy Policy
<http://ui.constantcontact.com/roving/CCPrivacyPolicy.jsp> .

 <http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp?pn=mindshare&cc=TEM_Press_200>
Email Marketing by

 <http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp?pn=mindshare&cc=TEM_Press_200> 

Alliance for American Manufacturing | 727 Fifteenth St. NW | Suite 700 |
Washington | DC | 20005

<http://r20.rs6.net/on.jsp?t=1103221508313.0.1101569129261.8422&ts=S0471&o=h
ttp://ui.constantcontact.com/images1/s.gif> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20100323/69a3d3e8/attachment-0002.htm>