——there has been absolutely no return of industry ——
What industry were you looking to return?
With near full employment, does industrial manufacturing return still matter? Where I live, there plenty of manufacturing jobs but few jobless workers.
i do not believe we will ever manufacture such things as paint brushes or screw drivers again. As the tariffs on Chinese steel bite, there has been a return of basic steel manufacturing. I can not measure how much was or is being returned. I doubt if the textile industry will ever return to the Carolina’s. Ditto the furniture business. However, relaxation of the air quality regulation might permit the furniture manufacturers to resume the production of high quality finishes that were essentially banned.
The manufacturing return remains fluid.
> What industry were you looking to return? <
Anything that would allow a semi-skilled worker to earn a decent living. Anything that would allow that worker to put money down on a house, and have a little left over at the end of the month.
I suppose it’s fair to say that those semi-skilled jobs are gone, and they won’t be coming back. But to accept that is to accept a large and permanent American underclass. Because not everyone can be a computer coder.
As for “near full employment”, that’s true in my area only if you count the McJobs. Nothing wrong with those jobs. But 30 years ago those jobs were just placeholder jobs until a factory job opened up. Now, no more factories.
One more thing. I freely admit that my area might be an outlier. Maybe good jobs are coming back, but for whatever reason not where I live.