President-elect Donald Trump has delivered ideas on how to help the working class: restrictions on immigration, tax cuts, and renegotiating trade deals. At the Aspen Ideas Festival in June, economic experts also weighed in. For families dealing with stagnating wages, a decline in manufacturing jobs, and the impact of trade, what can be done?
“There has been a drop in the absolute number of manufacturing jobs for a long time,” says Steven Rattner, lead advisor on the 2009 Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry. Last year 2.7 million new jobs were created, but Rattner says, just 1 percent were in manufacturing. “As a country, we need to be doing a lot more to help the people who are being left behind.”
Michael Froman, President Obama’s chief trade negotiator, agrees more should be done, but he says, “we should recognize some of the major steps that have been taken.” American businesses have added 15.5 million jobs since 2010, and Froman says, 800,000 of those have been in manufacturing. Read more.