{"id":99,"date":"2010-10-19T20:59:13","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T03:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/?p=99"},"modified":"2010-10-19T20:59:13","modified_gmt":"2010-10-20T03:59:13","slug":"americans-believe-manufacturing-industry-is-vitally-important-to-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/general\/americans-believe-manufacturing-industry-is-vitally-important-to-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Believe Manufacturing Industry is Vitally Important to Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte Development LLC recently released their annual public view on manufacturing in a report titled, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.deloitte.com\/assets\/Dcom-UnitedStates\/Local%20Assets\/Documents\/Consumer%20Business\/US_CIP_Public%20View%20on%20Manufacturing%20Study_Report_2010.pdf\">Made in America<\/a>?\u00a0 What the Pubic thinks about manufacturing today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report revealed that Americans continue to believe manufacturing is vitally important to our nation\u2019s economy, with 78 percent saying it\u2019s very important to our economic prosperity, 76 percent indicating that it is very important to our standard of living, and 65 percent believe it is important to our national security.\u00a0 If the general public were aware of how much all branches of the military depend on the manufacturing industry for the development and production of products and systems for the defense of our country, the latter figure would be equally high, if not higher.<\/p>\n<p>Americans think we have the skills and resources to compete globally.\u00a0 In fact, they are \u201cbullish on the skills and abilities of our workforce in the face of global competition.\u201d\u00a0 The three sources providing the U. S. manufacturing industry with the greatest competitive advantages are:\u00a0 technology use and availability, a skilled workforce, and strong R&amp;D capabilities.\u00a0 Energy availability, natural resources and our infrastructure were the next three important attributes of U. S. competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p>They \u201cthink the strength of the workforce is one of the most important factors to our success.\u201d\u00a0 The top three most important items to maintaining U. S. manufacturing competitiveness are: work ethic, a skilled workforce, and worker productivity<\/p>\n<p>Americans want to strengthen the manufacturing industry, with 75 percent agreeing that the U.S. needs a more strategic approach to the development of its manufacturing base.\u00a0 Seventy-three percent believe the U. S. should invest more in the manufacturing industry, and 68 percent believe that developing a strong manufacturing base should be a national priority.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Americans are concerned about the future of the manufacturing industry, and over half (55 percent) believe that the long-term outlook for manufacturing in the U. S. will weaken.\u00a0 This may explain the dichotomy of why 55 percent believe manufacturing provides careers that are both interesting and rewarding, and 44 percent believe that jobs offer a safe, clean environment, but only 30 percent would encourage their children to pursue a manufacturing career.<\/p>\n<p>Americans are concerned that U. S. government policies are putting the manufacturing industry at a disadvantage in the global economy.\u00a0 The top three areas of concern are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>State      and federal government leadership<\/li>\n<li>Tax      rates on individuals<\/li>\n<li>Government      business policies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The survey didn\u2019t delve deeper into these three areas of concern by respondents.\u00a0 An independent research company conducted the survey in June 2010 with a nationally representative sample of 1,055 Americans across the fifty states.<\/p>\n<p>However, we can see that these three areas of concern have become key issues in the upcoming election in November.\u00a0 The September 30<sup>th<\/sup> issue of <em>Manufacturing &amp; Technology News<\/em> contains an interview with Tom Mullikin, who helped organize the Nucor town hall meetings in the 2006 election and described voter anger in his 2007 book, <em>Truck Stop Politics<\/em>.\u00a0 He said that his book \u201cattempted to capture the rage of a class of voters who feel they are sliding backward through no fault of their own.\u00a0 They are forced to downsize their expectations for achieving the American dream\u2026 They have a fairly accurate idea about why this is happening.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He said that if you went to a truck stop and tried to explain why we haven\u2019t effectively dealt with Chinese cheating, like currency manipulation, \u201cyou will be met by disbelief and outrage.\u00a0 Capitol Hill has refused to deal with these issues for over a decade.\u00a0 Issues such as the unstoppable flow of jobs to other countries, the constant currency manipulation that makes American goods too expensive to sell to our trading partners, and the subsidies some foreign manufacturers receive from their government.\u00a0 The change the people of <em>Truck Stop Politics<\/em> were looking for is a change on these fundamental issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cthis grassroots revolution has been years in the making\u2026 What every-day working Americans want to see is a government that ensures fair trade so they can have jobs, a clean environment and an ability to provide for their families.\u201d\u00a0 He predicts \u201ca storm surge of electoral activity in November,\u201d and that \u201cyou will continue to see volatility in the electorate until we elect Members of Congress with conviction enough to address the real and underlying issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His comments about fair trade are borne out by a poll conducted between September 22nd and September 26th for <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/public\/resources\/documents\/WSJNBSPoll09282010.pdf\">NBC and the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 When asked if they believe that free trade agreements signed by the United States have led to the creation of U. S. jobs or the destruction of U. S. jobs, 69 percent said they cost the country jobs compared to 18 percent saying they created jobs.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if they believe that free trade agreements helped the United States, hurt the United States or did not make much difference, 53 percent said they hurt, and only 17 percent said they helped.\u00a0 When asked the same question in 1999, 30 percent said they hurt, and 39 percent said they helped.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the loss of 5.5 million jobs in the last decade has had an influence on this change of opinion.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope that American voters remember these issues when they go to the polls in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte Development LLC recently released their annual public view on manufacturing in a report titled, \u201cMade in America?\u00a0 What the Pubic thinks about manufacturing today.\u201d The report revealed that Americans continue to believe manufacturing is vitally important to our nation\u2019s economy, with 78 percent saying it\u2019s very important to our economic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}