President Obama regularly touts the U.S. manufacturing sector. But how much progress has been made?
Way back in 2014, President Obama sat down to a lengthy interview with Steve Inskeep of NPR. Their agenda was wide-ranging with topics including (but not limited to) the recent diplomatic thaw with Cuba, the president’s recent executive order on immigration policy, and Republican ascendancy on Capitol Hill.
He also mentioned manufacturing a few times. That naturally caught our attention.
First, it popped up while he was talking about demographic shifts in the electorate:
I do think that right now there are a lot of white working class voters who haven't seen enough progress economically in their own lives, and despite the work that we've done to try to strengthen the economy and address issues like child care or minimum wage or increasing manufacturing, that's not what they read about or hear about in the newspapers.
The president mentioned it again while defending the country’s economic progress during his stewardship:
Demographically, we've got a young population, in part because of immigration. We've got the best universities in the world; we've got the best workers in the world. Our manufacturing base has come roaring back, led by the auto industry, but not restricted by it. Our deficits I've cut by two-thirds.
And he referred to manufacturing when comparing the U.S. economy to Russia’s:
When we look at an issue like Ukraine, we have to be firm with the Russians but we've also got to make sure that we've got our own fiscal house in order; we got to make sure that we are doing what we need to do to build our manufacturing base because ultimately, the big advantage we have with Russia is we've got a dynamic, vital economy, and they don't.
President Obama has to weigh a lot of competing priorities as our country’s chief executive. It’s refreshing to be reminded that he recognizes (at least rhetorically) the unique and critical role manufacturing plays in our economy. But that rhetoric should be tempered a little bit. Manufacturing, as measured by employment, can hardly be described as “roaring back.” The sector lost roughly 5.5 million middle-class jobs from 2000 to 2010, and has gained back only 750,000 in the four years since.
While the White House has championed apprenticeship programs to improve the competitiveness of the U.S. workforce and pushed a series of manufacturing institutes in an effort to plant the seeds of future industry, it has remained frustratingly mute on issues that affect domestic manufacturers every day — including currency manipulation, which essentially taxes all American exports. And its effort to double exports has done little to stem the flood of imports; the U.S. trade deficit, in fact, continues to widen.
Will we see manufacturing policy that will truly match the rhetoric in the final two years of the Obama administration? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, check out the president's interview with NPR.