[CTC] Kudos | National Farmers Union Resolution on TRADE Act and Reform Measures

[Citizens Trade Campaign]

Study finds 2.4 million American jobs lost due to trade with China;

More than 90,000 Ohio jobs lost to rising trade deficit

 

Study analyzes job loss by congressional district;

Senate weighs bill to penalize China for currency policy

 

http://www.policymattersohio.org/JobsAndTheTradeDeficit2010.htm

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp260/

 

Trade between the United States and China has grown tremendously since
commercial relations were liberalized between the two nations in 2001.  The
effect has been net job loss in the U.S. (2.4 million jobs) and in Ohio
(91,800 jobs).  The Economic Policy Institute and Policy Matters Ohio are
each releasing studies at noon today, Tuesday March 23, examining job growth
and loss in the nation and in Ohio.

 

The U.S. trade deficit with China rose from $84 billion in 2001 to $270
billion in 2008, an increase of $186 billion or 18 percent per year. The
growing trade deficit translates into job loss in the United States.
Between 2001 and 2008, 2.4 million jobs were lost or displaced.  On balance,
this job loss grew by an average of 19 percent annually between China's
entry into the WTO in 2001 and 2008, the most recent year for which data is
available.

 

The impact of the trade deficit with China is not restricted to job
displacement. Competition with low-wage workers from less-developed
countries 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 70% of the private sector workforce, or about 100
million workers. China is the most important source of downward pressure
from trade with less-developed countries, because wages there are so low,
and because it was responsible for nearly 40% of our non-oil imports from
less-developed countries in 2008.

 

Two thirds of the job displacement occurred in manufacturing.  This affected
Ohio disproportionately, as Ohio's concentration of manufacturing
employment, at 18 percent, is 50 percent higher than in the nation as a
whole. 

 

"Ohio is a supply chain state," said Wendy Patton of Policy Matters Ohio.
"Ohio's strengths in durable goods production makes our industrial base
valuable to our nation's economy, but vulnerable to this growing trade
deficit."

 

As a result of the trade imbalance with China, Ohio lost 91,800 jobs between
2005 and 2007 alone.  The loss occurred in every congressional district
across the state as Table 1 shows.

 

Table 1:  Job loss due to trade with China by congressional district in Ohio



 

Congressional

Jobs

Total

Loss as share


Ohio Representative

District

Lost

Jobs

of total


Rep. Steve Driehaus [D-OH1]

1

4,100

293,300

1.40%


Rep. Jean Schmidt [R-OH2]

2

5,200

319,200

1.63%


Rep. Michael Turner [R-OH3]

3

5,500

295,200

1.86%


Rep. Jim Jordan [R-OH4]

4

5,900

299,200

1.97%


Rep. Robert Latta [R-OH5]

5

6,700

311,200

2.15%


Rep. Charles Wilson [D-OH6]

6

3,300

268,400

1.23%


Rep. Steve Austria [R-OH7]

7

4,300

308,200

1.40%


Rep. John Boehner [R-OH8]

8

6,000

309,900

1.94%


Rep. Marcy Kaptur [D-OH9]

9

4,100

287,900

1.42%


Rep. Dennis Kucinich [D-OH10]

10

4,700

292,100

1.61%


Rep. Marcia Fudge [D-OH11]

11

3,400

235,000

1.45%


Rep. Patrick Tiberi [R-OH12]

12

5,100

349,100

1.46%


Rep. Betty Sutton [D-OH13]

13

5,700

311,300

1.83%


Rep. Steven LaTourette [R-OH14]

14

6,400

325,300

1.97%


Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy [D-OH15]

15

4,400

329,100

1.34%


Rep. John Boccieri [D-OH16]

16

6,200

311,800

1.99%


Rep. Timothy Ryan [D-OH17]

17

5,500

279,000

1.97%


Rep. Zachary Space [D-OH18]

18

5,000

287,000

1.74%


Ohio

Statewide

91,800

5,412,100

1.70%

Source:  Economic Policy Institute, Based on Census Bureau, USITC and BLS
Data

 

"Several factors need revisiting in our trade relationship with China," said
Robert E. Scott, EPI's director of international programs, who authored the
national report. "Chinese currency makes its goods artificially cheap and
our goods artificially expensive; China refuses to observe core labor
standards and actively suppresses labor rights; and China blocks access to
its markets."

 

"Sophisticated electronics and high-tech products that once were made in the
United States are

increasingly being made in China instead," said Scott Paul, executive
director of the American Association of Manufacturers, which co-released the
report. "We are losing more and more of these good jobs."

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