The Blue Collar
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What Donald Trump Can Do About The Inevitable Death of Blue-Collar Industries
While Donald Trump’s victory seemed to be a triumph for blue collar workers, it is likely that they have only won a battle in a war they will inevitably lose. The key to Trump’s victory was flipping the Rust Belt states, but if President-elect Trump is concerned about the long-term welfare of these workers, the best solution would be to help them find new jobs by expanding their employment options by de-licensing the job market. There is no doubt that manufacturing jobs are disappearing. While 24 percent of Americans worked in manufacturing in the 1960s, today that number is roughly 8 percent. The remaining factories are becoming increasingly automated, substituting machines for human labor. Trump and his voters see this as a problem. Yet what they need to realize is that manufacturing jobs will never come back to the United States. Many of these industries are no longer competitive in the United States given our standard of living. In the auto industry, for instance, a factory can hire nearly six Mexican workers for the price of one American worker. That number does not consider the fact that government subsidies are often used to incentivize these factories. For example, Tennessee offered Volkswagen multiple subsidies since 2008, costing federal, state, and local governments a combined amount of over $200,000 per job. A subsidy-driven job market is not a sustainable solution. While the manufacturing job market may be preserved or even expanded in the short term, this is done artificially at an enormous cost to American taxpayers. While not all subsidies are as generous as the one in Tennessee, many of these incentive packages subsidize the industry along with the worker, thus adding to the overall cost. Economically speaking, if Americans truly cared about blue-collar workers, we could more easily have paid for them to do nothing and sent these industries overseas. In addition, holding on to these jobs will continue to grow more expensive every year. As factory equipment becomes more advanced and reduces in price, the subsidies would have to become more pronounced to warrant the use of human labor. These workers will only continue to grow as a burden on their fellow Americans. Further, manufacturing wages are not only high compared to foreign wages, but low when compared to domestic wages. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing workers have a 7.7 percent lower median wage than the median wage of all American workers. Moreover, these wages have continued to decline since 2007 and are projected to continue doing so. This means that the jobs we are so desperately trying to save actually put the workers in a worse place than the average American. Rather than pour money into subsidies or put up trade barriers, President-elect Trump should be helping blue-collar workers transition into new jobs. One easy method is to cut down on federal occupational licensing and encourage states to do the same. Licensing laws significantly restrict the job opportunities of blue-collar workers, making their transition out of the manufacturing industry significantly harder. Expanding their choices on the job market increases the chance that these workers will find new and better careers. While justifiable for professions like doctors and lawyers, occupational licenses are now required for simpler professions such as truck drivers and hair stylists as well. As opposed to less than 5 percent of jobs in the early 1950s requiring a license, nearly a quarter of workers need licenses in 2015. The cost of obtaining these licenses is extremely prohibitive and prevents blue collar workers from looking outside of the manufacturing industry for work. For example, in Nevada, acquiring a barber’s license requires 890 days of education and training. Expecting the blue-collar worker to choose unemployment for two-and-a half years while training for their license is unreasonable, and is a key factor in deterring these workers from finding new jobs. American blue-collar industries are dying, but the same does not have to be said about the workers themselves. If President-elect Trump really cares about the future of these workers, he should end the laws that are chaining them to these dying industries and help them find new jobs in changing job market.
Faster Growth? Two Things Trump Supporters Won’t Like
Donald J. Trump wants us to dream bigger about the economic future. We shouldn’t be content with the roughly 2 percent annual growth that has been the norm this century, he has said. And he thinks he can bring about the kind of robust growth of 4 percent or more that was commonplace in decades past. But the closer you look at the math of economic growth, the more you see the inherent contradictions in trying to make that happen. The two strategies that would most directly help achieve that goal clash with other planks of Mr. Trump’s economic agenda. Economic growth can happen two ways: More hours are worked, or more economic output is generated from each hour of labor. But if the economy quickly became more productive, it would, at least in the short run, also risk the livelihoods of some of the very working-class people whom Mr. Trump pledges to help. And the surest way to increase the number of hours worked is to allow more immigration, which would be directly at odds with Mr. Trump’s get-tough stance on that topic. In other words, if an era of faster growth is really going to arrive, it will probably involve some changes that Mr. Trump’s supporters very much don’t want to happen. The productivity paradox Low productivity growth has been one of the chronic problems of the economy in the last decade, and an important contributor to the low growth rate, even if economists aren’t entirely sure why it’s happening. If we want living standards to rise over time, we need productivity to rise. But the connection between productivity gains and higher incomes can take time to play out. Often it means short-term disruption — job loss — for workers whose jobs are rendered unnecessary. And that has been especially true for the last few decades, and for people at the middle and lower end of the pay spectrum. As my colleague Claire Cain Miller wrote, some of the very innovations that have helped improve workers’ productivity are also the main culprit behind the decline of well-paying manufacturing jobs. These advances have made the United States richer — with jobs like designing software systems and taking medical images. But that’s not much solace for former manufacturing workers who haven’t found lucrative or rewarding work in growing fields, a group that is at the core of Mr. Trump’s campaign appeals. It’s not just manufacturing. Consider one innovation that could plausibly become a reality in the years ahead: trucks that drive themselves. Over time, that will make the United States economy more productive and raise incomes. But if you are one of the 1.7 million long-haul truck drivers in the United States, making an average of $42,500 for a job that doesn’t require advanced education, it should be concerning. It’s plausible to imagine a majority of those jobs going away over the next decade, which will be a boon for the countless industries that rely on trucks to bring in supplies and distribute finished goods. That will raise G.D.P., the broad measure of economic growth. But it would be daunting for any of those drivers who can’t find a job with similar pay, especially during some lag period. The experience with manufacturing does not give much reason for optimism that less-educated workers will have success finding lucrative jobs after a productivity-enhancing innovation the way economics textbooks might predict. It’s possible that the next wave of productivity gains could come from industries that affect white-collar professionals more than the blue-collar workers who form the core of Mr. Trump’s coalition. Think of artificial intelligence software that could one day replace doctors in diagnosing diseases (or at least make them able to serve more patients at once). If that happens, the question will be whether those displaced workers can adapt any better than the steelworkers of 30 years ago — and if not, how to deal with masses of white-collar workers who are as disconnected from the modern economy as their blue-collar counterparts seem to be. Need a labor force boost? Look to immigrants More people can make more stuff. That is the simple, brutal math behind G.D.P., and it’s the other central challenge of reconciling Mr. Trump’s economic growth ambitions with his other policy priorities. By extension, the more people there are in the United States with the desire to work, the higher the nation’s economic output will be. One major factor in the sluggish growth of the last few years is that the United States labor force isn’t growing the way it used to. The peak of the baby boom is nearing retirement age. And unlike in the second half of the 20th century, the proportion of women who work is stable, not rising. A straightforward way of increasing the labor force would be to increase the number of immigrants, especially those with advanced skills, whose economic output is the highest. Here’s some fun with labor force math. There are about one million legal immigrants per year. If you doubled the rate of legal immigration and ensured that 75 percent of those extra million people would join the labor force, it would mean a boost to the labor force of 750,000 people per year over current levels. The Congressional Budget Office currently projects that the labor force will grow by 0.5 percent a year over the coming decade. But if you add in those extra people under this hypothetical, that rate would rise to 1 percent. It would put a president a good bit closer to achieving an ambitious economic growth goal, all else being equal. Of course, Mr. Trump has made hostility to immigration a hallmark of his campaign, and there seems to be little appetite for any major expansions of immigration in Congress or in public opinion, let alone a doubling. Mr. Trump has argued that there is a vast untapped pool of American workers who are not in the labor force at all, and there is truth to that. But the pool may not be as large — or have as much potential to improve growth — as he suggests. The Economic Policy Institute, for example, calculates that these “missing workers” — prime-age people who are neither working nor looking for work but would be in a fully healthy economy — number about 2.3 million people. If they were successfully pulled into the job market over the next decade, they would provide only about an 0.15 percentage point annual boost. In other words, unless Mr. Trump wants to entertain immigration policies that are contrary to his campaign messages, demographics will be a major headwind making his growth promises all but impossible to achieve. Perhaps there is a broader lesson in all of this. Life is full of trade-offs. And so is economic policy.
Blue-collar ethic leads to success for Wisconsin-River Falls
By Nicole Haase With a second-place finish last season and third-place finishes each of the two seasons before that, Wisconsin-River Falls has established itself as the program to beat from the west. Despite the fact that their conference (WIAC) does not receive an autobid to the NCAA tournament, the Falcons have earned themselves a spot each of the last six years. Though a national championship is in reach — and likely a goal for every player on the roster — coach Joe Cranston said it’s not something he and his coaching staff focus on. “If you do that, I think it’s a little overwhelming; we just try to get better every week,” he said. Though Cranston said he also doesn’t like to look at previous years, it’s impossible not to compare this team to the ones that have been so successful in recent years. The Falcons’ 10-1 start to the season is the best they’ve had in years, and Cranston himself said he believes the current squad is playing better than the team did last year. Wis.-River Falls had a stumble in mid-November — a 4-2 loss to Wisconsin-Eau Claire, but since then, they Falcons have won five straight. They’ve outscored opponents 28-3 in that stretch. Of all the things Cranston has seen from his team already this season, it’s their response to that loss that has him most impressed — and excited for the rest of the season. The urgency and intensity the team has shown since that loss carried into the winter break. Where Cranston hoped to see players up-to-speed by midweek, they were there a day early. The team is focused and prepared to close out the season, one game at a time. The Falcons are a grinding team. Cranston talked about his team outworking opponents multiple times. He described his coaching style and the team’s play as “lunch bucket.” “We work hard, we’re disciplined, we’re respectful,” he said. “We play as a team. You’re only as good as how hard you work and you’ve got to make the players around you better. (Everybody) push(es) everybody and that’s a big part of our success. We’re not individuals.” Though the Falcons have two of the top 10 scorers in the country in senior Dani Sibley and junior Carly Moran, they’re getting contributions up and down the roster. Sibley and Moran alone account for half of the team’s goals through the first 11 games, but in those same 11 games, freshmen accounted for an additional 11 goals. That balance and depth are a large part of what has made Wis.-River Falls so successful. From top to bottom, their roster is contributing. They have two players who sit even on plus/minus. Every other player on the roster is in the plus. Hard work is the cornerstone of everything Cranston and the Falcons do. He preaches it on and off the ice, and warns possible recruits that if they’re not willing to put in the work, they shouldn’t bother joining the program. The only end-of-year award given out is one voted on by the team that goes to the hardest worker on the squad. It’s an incredibly simple coaching philosophy from Cranston, but it’s one that capitalizes on the blue-collar work ethic of a town like River Falls that’s just over the border in Wisconsin, but counts as part of the greater-Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. Though Wis.-River Falls has seen plenty of talented players fill the roster, Cranston focuses on the team as a whole and less on individual talent. The players all feed off of and improve each other. They put in the time and effort and the results have borne that out, especially in recent years. Cranston keeps it so simple that he doesn’t even go as far as to set winning as one of team’s goals. Winning is just a positive byproduct of the work the team puts in. “We’re going to outwork every team. We’re going to outskate every team. That’s our goal. Winning is never a goal. Winning is an outcome. We don’t go in saying we’re going to win a game. We need to win shifts. We need to win periods. We need to win the race. We need to win the battles on the boards. We break the game down. We keep it simple. I say that probably 20 times a day. Just keep it simple. We just try to play a simple game, not complicate it. Outwork teams. The end result of that will be winning games and having success.”
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Examples
1 In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs non-agricultural manual labour.
2 Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled manufacturing, mining, sanitation, custodial work, oil field work, construction, mechanical maintenance, warehousing, firefighting, technical installation and many other types of physical work.
3 In contrast, the white-collar worker typically performs work in an office environment and may involve sitting at a computer or desk.