Most of what Americans owned used to be made here. From shoes and clothes to cars and washing machines, what we used daily was American-made, and the new hair dryers, bicycles, bedroom sets, televisions or air conditioners families bought not only brought them enjoyment but kept their neighbors at work making the items, warehousing them, transporting them, retailing them, repairing them.
In 1953, manufacturing accounted for 28.3 percent of our gross domestic product. By 1960 the figure had fallen a little, to about 25 percent; manufacturing then provided jobs to 26 percent of the workforce.
But by now, manufacturing only accounts for a little over 11 percent of GDP—less than government, which generates 12.4 percent—and the percentage of the workforce it employs has fallen accordingly. The implications of this are farreaching and not merely obvious; as Harold Meyerson explained in a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, professional positions as well as less skilled jobs go away when manufacturing leaves for other countries.
In 2007, for example, 63 percent of American scientists and engineers worked in industry; last year, while 4.1 percent of all employed Americans lost their jobs, a much higher percentage of scientists and engineers—6.3 percent—lost theirs.
Meyerson’s discussion draws information from a new book, The Betrayal of American Prosperity by Clyde Prestowitz, which abounds with just such facts—facts that illuminate both our current situation and the future that awaits us if we don’t rebuild our manufacturing base. Not only is employment for our people at stake in that future; self-sufficiency in manufacturing enhances our security. And there are other issues, including our status—no longer what it once was—as a center for research and development of numerous technologies.
Electronic technologies, green technologies—the U.S. is no longer the leading manufacturing center for them, as Prestowitz shows. “There is only one American company among the world’s top 10 producers of photovoltaic cells,” he points out. “Germany’s Q-Cells is the world’s leading producer, while Japanese and Chinese producers each have about 30 percent of the global market.”
In 1999, he adds, 36 percent of semiconductor wafers [from which computer chips are made] were produced here; by 2004 the figure had dropped to 20 percent, then it fell to 15.
