Report: NAFTA Has Cost 683,000 Jobs—and Counting

[Donnachaidh]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/05/03/report-nafta-has-cost-683000-jobs-and-counting/



To date, 682,900 U.S. jobs have been lost or displaced since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect in 1994, a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study finds. The main reason for the job loss is a $97.2 billion trade deficit with Mexico. In 1993, one year before NAFTA was implemented, the United States had a $1.6 billion trade surplus with Mexico that supported nearly 30,000 U.S. jobs.

All 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have seen jobs lost or displaced to Mexico in the past 17 years, says Robert Scott, EPI’s senior international economist and author of “Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA.”



During a phone conference today, Scott said NAFTA supporters argued the pact would create jobs in the United States. Backers of proposed trade deals with South Korea and Colombia are making similar claims, he said. But his research has shown that each trade agreement would cost thousands of U.S. jobs. In the first eight years, the current deal with Korea could cost 159,000 jobs, he said, and Colombia could swallow up 60,000 U.S. jobs.

Scott found the five states that experienced the largest percentage of local jobs displaced by trade with Mexico since NAFTA began are Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. The five that have the largest actual number of jobs displaced due to Mexico trade deficits are California, Texas, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. (Check out the map above.)

More at the link --

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[MadHound]

2. Somehow I think that the number is much, much higher than that.

Entire plants have been, and are, being moved south of the border. If that figure were for just one year, it would be more believable, but over the entire seventeen year stretch, no, sorry, but they are drastically undercounting.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. +1 - K&R anyway.

[asjr]

5. What really bugs me about it is that

most of those companies were started in this country with the help of Americans who needed those jobs and kept the companies going for years and years. Americans who thought they were safe and making a living for their families. But when greed entered the picture these companies showed true colors. In the rest of my lifetime I do not think those jobs will ever return.

[Dappleganger]

3. k&r

[OhioChick]

6. K&R n/t

[bvar22]

7. That seems very low to me.

How many GOOD manufacturing jobs with benefits were replaced with McJobs due to NAFTA and trade deregulation?

Is this only NAFTA, or does this exclude all the other "Free Trade" treaties and NFN with China?


Ross was Right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls&feature=player_embedded

[mountainlion55]

8. NAFTA signed

By a former DLC president! Glass-Steagall repeal signed by a former DLC president. Two wars continued right now by another DLC president. No banksters arrested by the current DLC president. Down with the DLC!:smoke:

[gratuitous]

9. We'll be getting those "side agreements" just anytime now

You know, the ones on labor and environmental issues? We were promised that those niggling little details would be worked out, but that the main treaty had to be passed right away, or the opportunity would be forever lost. Sort of like health care reform last year. But don't worry; those little details that got compromised away will be negotiated and passed just any time now. Of course, the compromises didn't net any more votes, and there are some spoilsports who would argue that since the bill was never going to garner any more votes no matter what was compromised away.

Advice: Don't hold your breath.

[grahamhgreen]

10. K&R. End the slave trade agreements.