By President Donald Trump has claimed that the blooming trade war the White House launched this year will spur companies to forgo foreign goods and return manufacturing to American shores. But data suggests that the U.S. economy is not ready for a wholesale shift to manufacturing and that it would take years to ramp up production capabilities.
Data shows a fraction of people in the United States are employed by farms and factories compared with decades past, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with most now in service jobs like software, finance and health care. And experts say focusing on domestic goods production could cost consumers while undermining America’s growing advantage in the knowledge economy.
In the 1970s, 1 in 5 U.S. workers worked in manufacturing. Today, it’s closer to 1 in 12.
