“… public policy that should raise the most suspicion is trade policy, which fostered the offshoring of more than 2 million manufacturing jobs after Congress normalized trade relations with China in 2000. But an even more fundamental factor in the declining share of working Americans is the technological automation that has eliminated millions of jobs and is poised to eliminate millions more.
…47 percent of U.S. workers have a high probability of seeing their jobs automated over the next 20 years…”
I would prefer the author didn’t single out China. China continues to be blamed in the media because they have the worker capacity to do the jobs that are building the vast majority of consumer electronics and everything else.
On the one hand Americans love their low cost consumer electronics. On the other hand Americans complain about loosing jobs to China.
What ends up happening is that Americans start hating on all Asians (not knowing the difference between cultural groups), and next segregation, xenophobia, hate crimes, scapegoating, and maybe even immigration restrictions based on race again with the myopic thinking that Chinese people are taking all the jobs – at the low end in China and at the high end in the U.S.
There is an underlying injustice from the U.S. here:
- U.S. government refuses to provide low cost higher education so that low income people (often Black and Brown) can get an education and in-turn get a decent job.
- Furthermore, U.S. companies refuse to hire Black and Brown workers to manufacture goods in the U.S. and hence move the vast majority of manufacturing jobs to other countries.
See on www.washingtonpost.com
