Posted on 05/15/2019 4:19:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
The workers who assemble Apple iPhones make a starting wage of $3.15 per hour in the People's Republic of China, according to The New York Times.
"Apple has said the starting pay for workers at the world's biggest iPhone factory, in Zhengzhou, China, is about $3.15 an hour," The Times reported in a story published two weeks ago.
That $3.15 per hour is less than half the U.S. minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
That means a teenager working part-time serving Big Macs at a McDonald's in the American Midwest earns a far bigger hourly wage than a Chinese adult hired full-time to build iPhones in the People's Republic.
A 2018 Congressional Research Service report on the U.S.-China trade relationship summarized Apple's supply chain and its production of the iPhone.
"According to Apple Corporation, it used over 200 corporate suppliers with nearly 900 facilities located around the world," said CRS. "The top five largest country sources of these facilities in 2017 were China (358), Japan (137), the United States (64), Taiwan (55) and South Korea (34)."
"Apple iPhones are mainly assembled in China by Taiwanese companies (Foxconn and Pegatron) using a number of intermediate goods imported from abroad (or in many cases, intermediates made by foreign firms in China)," said CRS.
In 2016, The New York Times published an in-depth story about the Foxconn facility that assembles iPhones in Zhengzhou.
"Running at full tilt, the factory here, owned and operated by Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn, can produce 500,000 iPhones a day," reported The Times. "Locals now refer to Zhengzhou as 'iPhone City.'"
"The local government has proved instrumental, doling out more than $1.5 billion to Foxconn to build large sections of the factory and nearby employee housing," said The Times.
"It helps cover continuing energy and transportation costs for the operation," said The Times. "It recruits workers for the assembly line. It pays bonuses to the factory for meeting export targets. All of it in support of iPhone production."
Is this free enterprise?
Is the Apple iPhone an American product?
Apple's relationship with the United States of America and American workers helps illuminate some trends in the modern American economy.
The United States normalized relations with the People's Republic of China in 1979 and gave it most-favored-nation status the next year, according to CRS. In 1985, the first year for which the Census Bureau has published U.S.-China trade data online, the U.S. ran a $6,000,000 merchandise trade deficit with China. That equaled approximately $13,791,382 in December 2018 dollars (adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator).
In 2018, according to the Census Bureau, the U.S. ran a $419,162,000,000 merchandise trade deficit with China.
That means that in inflation-adjusted dollars, our merchandise trade deficit with China was 30,393 times bigger last year than it was 33 years before then.
Who is winning this competition?
In January 1980, the year we extended most-favored-nation status to the People's Republic of China, there were 19,282,000 Americans employed in manufacturing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This January, there were only 12,826,000. As our population and economy grew, we lost 6,456,000 manufacturing jobs.
At the same time America was losing manufacturing jobs, Americans who did not attend college were losing income.
In 1980, according to the Census Bureau Table H-14, American households where the householder was 25 and older and had finished four years of high school but not attended college had a median income of $55,777 in constant 2017 dollars.
In 2017, according to Table H-13, households where the householder was 25 and older and had graduated from high school but not attended college had a median income of $44,970 in constant 2017 dollars.
From 1980 to 2017, the real median income of households headed by Americans who completed high school but did not attend college dropped by $10,807 -- or about 19.4 percent.
Those American householders now have little hope of getting a job assembling an iPhone -- unless they can somehow get a Chinese work visa and move to Zhengzhou.
And even if they were to do so, as The New York Times reported, they would join a workforce whose wages start at $3.15 per hour.
The U.S. Constitution united the American people in a vast free-trade zone that was coterminous with our international borders. It gave Congress the power to impose duties on foreign imports.
It did not envision creating a free-trade zone between this free republic and a People's Republic.
Ping
he average price of a Big Mac in America is $4.62; in China its $2.74
Typical liberal bullshit.
You cannot compare wages between two nations with vastly different costs of living.
The FACT is that China wages are rising rapidly and it is not as attractive for assembly work as it was in the past. India is the new favorite destination for such work.
But liberals do this within the US and compare an $8 per hour job in New York with one in Arkansas.....vastly different costs of living.
But socialists see everything as one size fits all...if you don’t like it, then you must adjust to your one option.
Capitalism offers multiple sizes for you to choose from so you can find exactly what fits you best.
Lots of numbers, but that’s one gigantic hole you pointed out. I kept waiting for it.
“But liberals do this within the US and compare an $8 per hour job in New York with one in Arkansas.....vastly different costs of living.”
And in line with that thought, I make a TON more today than I did in the 1970s - but I felt like I had a LOT more money then.
It’s not so much the inflow as it is the outflow. And when prices go up seven or eight times, even if your income increases four or five times - you’re still on the losing side of things.
They’re a communist country. Why do they need wages at all?
I earned $0.25/hour in my first job.
In China, you work where they tell you to work. You live where they tell you to live.
With the trump tariffs I feel iPhones will be made elsewhere in ‘the Rim’.
“Capitalism offers multiple sizes for you to choose from so you can find exactly what fits you best.”
Right. Like buying slave labor in a communist dictatorship to increase immediate profits while cutting jobs for Americans.
If it’s more profitable for shareholders now, it must be the “best” thing to do...
I worked at a remote mine site in Indonesia. One of our helpers was from a nearby island. I was shocked to hear that he was only paid 50 cents an hour. I asked him about it.
“50 cents and hour!?”
“Oh yes!!! And room and board - best wage in all of Indonesia!! In seven years I will have enough to build a home for my family!!!”
I thought to myself - “Okay, it’s probably not like my home - but to have a home bought and paid for in seven years? pretty good.”
The guy was a go-getter. I had to track him down in his dorm one time. He was studying an English book.
When he worked with me he got $1.50 an hour. Double time for working outside the actual mine site, and another 50 cents an hour for the entire day because we were out for more than 8 hours.
Plus - at lunch and the ride home I gave them a Snicker’s bar that was probably $1 at the company store.
(This was back in the mid 1990’s. They are probably getting 80 cents an hour today!?)
Move to Vietnam, my wife convinced me to watch Amazing Race and from that bit of open source intelligence IMO that should be the next “It” place next to our country of course.
Indonesia is not a resource-hungry communist dictatorship building up the most massive military on Earth
So?
What's the cost of living - in China?
I think we can all agree that life in China and wages in China are both cheap. And worst of all... You have to live in China. But if you want to only pay $1,000+ per phone, then you need to make them in China. Otherwise, you’d be paying $10,000 for a phone.
The reality is, phones cost next to nothing to manufacture and phone companies do not pay very much for these phones. They sell them at exorbitant prices or charge customers monthly to have a phone. Charging monthly for a phone was eliminated in the home phone market back in the 1980s... At that time phone companies used to charge customers for their phones... Customers ended up shelling out monthly rent over a 20 year period and essentially paying hundreds of times the actual cost of the phone.
So what goes around, comes around. It’s all back to square one and phone companies are doing the same thing today that the government outlawed them from doing years ago.
Well; we now know about the Apples; tell us about the Oranges.
Bingo!
Over the years I've seen more elderly, middle aged and special needs people in the fast food chains.
Not as many kids in high school seem to be working.
I worked two jobs in high school before going into the Army in '65.
Pumpin' gas (which is also check oil, water, wipe windsheild etc.) and busboy at a greasy spoon.
I left the gas station gig because I thought I'd meet girls .... nope.
Now, the greasy spoon after school was LOADED with chicks !
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