Is that even possible? If so, it is an eye opener for what is happening in the American economy and what is causing the MAGA movement.
Let’s follow the evidence.
According to this article https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5375146/trump-tariffs-factory-jobs-nostalgia?
there are 12.7 million manufacturing jobs in America, down from an all-time high of 19.6 million in 1979.
According to this data base,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/437763/employment-level-in-canada-by-industry/
there are 1.8 million manufacturing jobs in Canada. Applying the standard 1-to-10 ratio (population ratio) that means scaled up proportionate to population Canada would have the equivalent of 18 million manufacturing jobs, just short of America’s all time high of almost 50 years ago, let alone the current US job rate.
That caught me completely off guard. Puts a whole new perspective on what Trump is saying about the dire state of the US. Even compared to Canada, the US is in the pits.
Here is another data bomb. One quarter of those US manufacturing jobs are held by immigrants. Not sure WHAT to make of that one.
America does have a problem regarding manufacturing jobs. But tariffs certainly are NOT the solution. If Canada can out-perform the US per capita without the trade barriers of tariffs, exactly what does that say about the condition America is in?
You absolutely are missing the point.
It doesn’t matter what we’d like it to be.
Claiming a statistical account measures chickens when it measures albatrosses and then making inferences about chickens, would be silly.
Likewise, using labour productivity figures from the national income accounts.
Nothing to say that the points you and others are raising aren’t both much more relevant and interesting.
But when the business press drags out labour productivity comparisons as if they have anything meaningful to say on the subject, it’s a non sequitur to the conversation you’d really like to have.
When the business press brings out ANYTHING as if they have anything meaningful to say on the subject is a non-sequitur…
The business press just uses doubletalk to either support or reject the current governance policies. The super=rich ignore it, because by the time it gets into the business press it is too late and they have made their move months ago.