<div dir="ltr"><div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><a href="https://sanbenito.com/guest-view-trade-policies-leave-workers-even-more-vulnerable-during-pandemic/" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank">https://sanbenito.com/guest-view-trade-policies-leave-workers-even-more-vulnerable-during-pandemic/</a></span></div></div><div><br></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 5.25pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;line-height:37.5pt;background-color:white"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)">Guest view: Trade policies leave workers even more vulnerable during pandemic</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 5.25pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;line-height:37.5pt;background-color:white"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)">By Will Wiltschko</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 5.25pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;line-height:37.5pt;background-color:white"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;font-size:12pt">09/24/2020</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Approximately
 4.8 million Californians have filed first-time unemployment claims 
since mid-March in the midst of a pandemic that the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/unemployment/" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(77,178,236)">U.S. Census Bureau</span></a> says has reduced income for more than half of the state’s households. </span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">The
 economic downturn that the world is facing today as a result of 
Covid-19 may have been unavoidable. But the level to which so many of 
our neighbors are struggling today has been compounded greatly by the 
recent economic history of the United States, in which the economic 
security of working families has been sacrificed on the altar of 
corporate profits.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Nowhere has this trend been more pernicious than in <a href="https://sanbenito.com/study-job-offshoring-hits-hollister/" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(77,178,236)">international trade policy</span></a>. </span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">After
 being left scrounging the globe for life-saving products that not long 
ago had been “Made in the U.S.A.,” public officials are finally 
beginning to second-guess trade deals with China and other nations that 
have offshored the production of critical medical equipment like 
protective masks, ventilators and prescription drugs. </span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">The
 disruption of supply chains in the time of Covid certainly needs to be 
addressed—but so, too, do trade agreements that have promoted a global 
race-to-the-bottom in wages.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Even
 before the global economy was paralyzed by the pandemic, the U.S. 
carried a significant trade deficit totaling $616.8 billion last year, 
according to the <a href="https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/AnnualPressHighlights.pdf" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(77,178,236)">Census Bureau</span></a>. The U.S.’s trade deficit with its biggest trading partner, China, is more than half of the total.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">The
 growth of the U.S. trade deficit with China since 2001, when U.S. 
policymakers first approved China’s entry into the World Trade 
Organization (WTO), is responsible for the <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/growing-china-trade-deficits-costs-us-jobs/" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(77,178,236)">loss of 3.7 million</span></a> U.S.
 jobs, according to a January study by the Economic Policy Institute 
(EPI). An estimated 654,100 of those displaced jobs were from 
California.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Nationwide,
 decades of this type of outsourcing have cost the families directly 
impacted billions in lost income. But, in one year alone, EPI estimates 
that trade deals with China and other low-wage nations reduced the wages
 of all U.S. workers without college degrees by a total of $180 billion.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">In
 other words, the downward pressure on wages and benefits caused by 
outsourcing is hurting most Americans, even if their own jobs have not 
been outsourced.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">The EPI study, which is considerably more conservative than <a href="http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/trade_2001_10_03.pdf" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(77,178,236)">others</span></a>, found that outsourcing costs the majority of American workers <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/growing-china-trade-deficits-costs-us-jobs/" style="color:rgb(5,99,193)" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(77,178,236)">5.5 percent</span></a> of
 their income. That’s even after the benefits of lower-cost television 
sets, tube socks and other imported sweatshop goods was factored in.  </span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">For the average Californian household today, that’s almost $3,700 out of your pockets each and every year.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">An
 extra $3,700 in the family bank account sounds rich to many right about
 now, as workers are facing unprecedented furloughs and layoffs, as well
 as the threat of an even worse fall season of Covid-19 contamination.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Extend
 that $3,700 over ten years, and you can understand just how badly 
California’s working families have been robbed by bankrupt trade 
policies.</span></p><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:14.25pt;background-color:white;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-ligatures:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">The
 Covid crisis has already drawn some attention to the need to rebuild 
domestic medical manufacturing capacity.  If we want Californian 
families and communities to be more economically resilient, too, we’ll 
need trade policies that prioritize worker rights, higher wages and job 
creation moving forward. <br></span></p></div>