Steve Cappozola of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), reports on what happens when manufacturing jobs disappear. This is a cross post from the AAM website.
Last week, Manufacture This published a chart showing how lost manufacturing jobs correspond with lower state revenues and higher state budget deficits.
We thought we’d amplify that point by citing a sad and disturbing New York Times article on the exodus of Detroit’s population. With Michigan hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs, Detroit’s population has fallen by 25 percent over the past decade. The result? 237,500 residents have left town.
Photos of Detroit show boarded-up and vacant homes. New York Times reporter Katharine Seelye describes this “as dramatic testimony to the crumbling industrial base of the Midwest.”
The U.S. Labor Department reports that Michigan lost more than 320,000 manufacturing jobs, just between 2001-2008. Little wonder then, that without job prospects, hundreds of thousands of residents have been forced to leave.
Seelye says the massive drop-off in population is “the largest percentage drop in history for any American city with more than 100,000 residents.” The only comparable flight would be the “unique situation of New Orleans,” where 29% of the city evacuated after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
What’s especially disheartening is knowing that Detroit’s exodus was preventable. Failed manufacturing in Michigan, which has left so many without work, is the result of failed U.S. trade policy and little effort by successive administrations to ramp up America’s industrial base in the face of changing global economic conditions.
Times are getting dire. What’s urgently needed is for the U.S. to implement a national manufacturing strategy to bring back good-paying jobs before it’s too late.
