Source
Posted on 09/18/2005 9:19:51 AM PDT by Willie Green
Angel Mills worked at GST AutoLeather in Williamsport, Md., most of her adult life. She cut, inspected, packed and shipped leather upholstery until she was laid off in June 2003 as the company scaled back local operations and shifted production to Mexico.
"It's sad. It's scary. I've been a factory worker all my life, and I didn't know what I wanted to do," said Ms. Mills, a 38-year-old Williamsport resident with a teenage son.
But by March 2004 she was taking a half-year course to become a state-licensed massage therapist. A federal program that helps workers who lose jobs owing to foreign competition paid for her training and offered extended unemployment benefits.
In July, she started working at Venetian Salon and Spa in Hagerstown, Md.
~~~SNIP~~~
Mr. Thomas said that for all trade adjustment program workers passing through the consortium, the average wage was $14.36 an hour before the layoffs, while after retraining it was $11.87 an hour, a decline that is common for factory workers who have to restart their lives.
U.S. Labor Department figures indicate that among the retrained, those that find new jobs end up making only 70 percent to 80 percent of their old wages on average.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
And protect inefficiently high standard of living for the workers. If the same work can be done 10 times cheaper in some Third World country why American worker should not lower his standard of living appropriately?
The problem is that to have the same standard of living as worker in the Third World American worker would still have to pay much more as costs are higher in US.
I know several engineers who keep losing their jobs. Engineering stops to look like a long term career worthy of personal investment.
Not necessarily. If you have 5 extremely qualified and productive guys for 1 position the salary might get very low, at or below the subsistence level. But if you get one mediocre candidate for 5 positions open he will get much higher pay.
Free trade/open borders merge the US labor pool with China, India and the rest of Third World with additional disadvantage of higher costs of subsistence living in US.
That is why Founding Fathers put tariffs in the Constitution and made them the main source of income for the Federal government. That way they cleverly tied the interest of the national government with the interests of workers and businessmen.
Absolutely brilliant. How many is several? I probably know more engineers who have never lost their jobs. What do I win?
Sorry, I meant to post the above .gif to you. It should give you a start in showing you what to encourage your children to study.
Most new health care workers are from overseas, and work for less than American born workers in the same fields. Don't tell them to go into health care.
Are you in engineering? You do realize that most design work is now being done overseas. Wages for engineers are also very stagnant. Unless you are using engineering as a stepping stone to law or management, that isn't' a good choice.
That's only true if you reject the notion that free trade has lowered average wages.
"I know several engineers who _keep_ losing their jobs."
Key word emphasized.
I know all kinds of people who keep losing their jobs.
There's usually a logical reason for it.
Can you offer any proof that removing barriers to trade has reduced the standard of living for American workers?
If the same work can be done 10 times cheaper in some Third World country why American worker should not lower his standard of living appropriately?
The reason our standard of living continues to increase is because we continually increase our productivity. You won't find an explanation of this process in any poetry. This is the stuff best left up to those who understand business and economics. Bruce Bartlett is one such individual:
Manufacturers are not concerned about hourly wage rates, but unit labor costs - how much the labor costs to manufacture a given product. If a U.S. worker earns five times as much and is five times as productive as a Mexican worker making one-fifth as much and producing one-fifth as much, the workers are exactly equal from the point of view of the producer.
The best measure of comparative productivity levels is real GDP per employed person. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2002 the United States continued to lead the world in this category.
To believe that American workers have to lower their standard of living to compete with third-world labor would require that you ignore all the evidence to the contrary. Real wages and employment continue to increase - much to the dismay of those who want a problem to exist so they can justify further government control over the economy.
The wage arbitrage argument just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Over the past 50 years, real wages have tripled because productivity has increased eight-fold.
I am glad to hear that you are "willing to make sacrifices". Its time to start doing so.
I unequivocally reject it. The only people that do not are those who accept falling wages as an article of faith, much like the people who believed the Earth is flat.
Well, there are people who still believe the Earth is flat . . . and they share something in common with the paleos here and their fellow-travelers on the Left.
Do you know anyone living on a $8.20 an hour wage?
What's your point?
So did I . . . .
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