It needed to be said, and the Los Angeles Times, surprisingly, is the vehicle: “The [US] manufacturing workforce declined; however, not because we stopped making things. It is because we got very good at making things, writes Veronique de Rugy, a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Her Opinion Editorial (op-ed) appears in a beginning of April 2025 edition of the Times.
Contrary to conventional wisdom and self-serving political rhetoric, the United States (US) manufacturing base is neither “hollowed out, gutted, or shipped overseas,” writes de Rugy. “This widely told tale is wrong.” De Rugy cites various statistics to back up her assertion, notably that “US manufacturing output is up 117% compared with 1975, the year America last ran an annual trade surplus. Industrial production — manufacturing, mining, and utilities combined — is higher than ever. That is hardly a collapse.”
Employment facts
She also notes that the unemployment rate has been at historical lows and real wages, adjusted for inflation, have been growing. Not to mention that there is a consistent unmet demand for skilled labor, as we have frequently reported in PlasticsToday. A joint study from Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute found that US manufacturing will create 3.8 million jobs over the next decade; yet about 1.9 million of those jobs will remain unfilled because of a lack of skilled labor. The plastics industry, ranked between the sixth or eighth largest sector within US manufacturing, depending on the source, is reflective of and impacted by all of these events.
Surge in productivity
Productivity has surged, writes de Rugy, thanks to automation, technology, and — gasp! — global supply chains. Yes, far fewer manufacturing workers are needed today than in past decades; however, it is not because we “stopped making things, it’s because we’re incredibly good at making things.”
De Rugy acknowledges that regional factors fuel the perception of decline. “Shuttered factories in Detroit or Youngstown bring concentrated pain and struggle for affected workers. No one denies this. However, manufacturing did not disappear; it relocated and upgraded.”
Economics 101
A great deal of commodity plastics production, indeed, has moved overseas for simple economic reasons. US factories and workers cannot compete with low-wage countries in churning out cheap mass-produced products that consumers want at an affordable price. However, we excel in advanced manufacturing and technological prowess, and we need to nurture a new generation of skilled workers that can ensure industry maintains its competitive edge. “If Americans today were willing to work for 1950s wages in 1950s factories, we’d have less automation,” writes de Rugy. “We’d also be much poorer.”
Hear, hear! A sane voice in our present-day wilderness: I encourage you to read her piece in today’s Los Angeles Times.
REFERENCE: Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry (MD+DI); 27 MAR 2025; Norbert Sparrow