Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
You correctly report that Trump’s punitive taxes – a.k.a. tariffs – on Americans’ purchases of imports are not delivering the promised increase in manufacturing employment (“Where Are Those Manufacturing Jobs?” December 17). Because such an employment increase is a goal set by the administration for these tariffs, it’s fair to criticize the tariffs for failing to achieve this goal.
But a more fundamental error is the administration’s obsession with restoring manufacturing employment. Americans work overwhelmingly in the service sector because that’s where the better jobs are. Not only is the average hourly wage earned by workers in the private service sector higher than is the average hourly wage earned by manufacturing workers, the economy’s highest-paying jobs are all in the service sector – for example, physicians, bankers, IT workers, and (let’s not forget) real-estate developers.
It’s notable that nearly all of the people – including Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick, and Oren Cass – who clamor most loudly for more manufacturing jobs work in the service sector.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
