Free trade effects the American worker in very drastic ways, in the last thirty years the American worker has changed. Where there was once unionized well paying manufacturing jobs, now we have minimum wage, benefit free, service industry jobs. Thirty years ago the largest employer in America was GM, that was once a well respected job with benefits. Now the largest employer is Wal-Mart, which pays minimum wage and offers no benefits. The American landscape has changed as well, just look at Detroit and how many neighborhoods have become desolate and abandoned. Once the car manufacturing jobs moved overseas, hundreds of thousands of people were jobless and were forced to migrate to more opportunistic areas of the country with much less paying jobs. I would highly recommend those interested to take a look at this website, it is some pretty haunting images of Detroit's ghost districts. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/23/detroit-decline_n_813696.html#218521.
Unfortunately this is the cost of cheap goods, in order to get them their production cost must be kept low. As consumers we must be willing to make certain sacrifices if we want American industry to survive. I know of alot of people who are frusterated by outsourcing or even our illegal immigrant "problem" and yet they shop at Wal-Mart and pay $2 a pound for their oranges not realizing that free trade and illegal immigration are the means through which there products are produced. It's pretty ironic. In order to keep American industry strong we must support it, that also means we must be willing to pay extra. After all you get what you pay for.
No comments:
Post a Comment