EPI economist Josh Bivens lays out the facts in Squandering the Blue-Collar Advantage, which show that U.S. manufacturing’s blue-collar workforce, far from destroying U.S. competitiveness, is actually one of the key elements making a positive contribution to competitiveness—a contribution being undermined by a variety of other factors. Click here to read the entire report.

Says Bivens:

If the story of U.S. manufacturing began and ended with its blue-collar workers, the outcome would be far different from what we’re seeing today. In hourly pay and productivity, U.S. manufacturing workers give their companies a significant competitive edge—one that is being drained away by other negative forces.
 

Bivens identifies three key factors undermining U.S. competitiveness:
 

•           The overvalued U.S. dollar, which artificially drives up the price of U.S. goods abroad and drives down the cost of foreign-produced goods here. Over the past 10 years, this imbalance alone has created a 10 percent to 16 percent cost disadvantage for U.S. goods, compared with the previous decade.
 

•           The high cost of U.S. health care is another significant factor. Reducing these costs to the same level as our comparable trading partners could create a 4.6 percent cost advantage.
 

•           U.S. managers—not workers—are overpaid. Bringing white-collar wages in line with those in comparable countries could result in a 6.4 percent cost advantage for U.S. manufacturers.

Bivens adds:

If we want to restore the strength of U.S. manufacturing in our economy and in the world, we have to address the real anti-competitive factors that are dragging it down. In this effort, the wages and productivity of the unionized blue-collar workforce are an important asset.