Poll Shows Enthusiasm for Free Trade Fades

POLL SHOWS ENTHUSIASM FOR FREE TRADE FADES -- (House of Representatives - March 02, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kline). Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I wish to place in the RECORD this evening a poll done by the University of Maryland that shows that even high-income Americans, those earning over $100,000 a year, now have lost their enthusiasm for free trade and the loss of jobs in this country as they perceive their jobs are now threatened by white collar workers in China, in India and other countries, and rising anxiety exists across all income bands in our country relative to free trade.

So it is as much of a curiosity as anything that the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, Mr. Greg
Mankiw, caused an uproar recently when he said the practice of shipping out our jobs, outsourcing U.S. jobs, is good for our country.

How can shipping out our jobs be a good thing? Not surprisingly, Mr. Mankiw was forced to backtrack and profess his sympathy for anyone who had lost a job. My goodness, that is the least he could have done. Predictably, Mr. Mankiw was defended by free trade fundamentalists like The Washington Post and some of his fellow economists. But something has changed profoundly in America over the past 10 years, and I would say it is reality. Reality has set in coast to coast.

NAFTA is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and we are seeing the impact of failed NAFTA-style trade policy throughout our country and continent.

It is no longer just in Ohio and Michigan, although the Great Lakes States are undoubtedly the epicenter of the job-loss earthquake. It is not just the Carolinas or Massachusetts, where the job losses have been so staggering. And it is not just vehicles, cars and trucks and the massive auto parts industry. It is not just machining businesses, and it is not just machinery in general.

In fact, the damage to our economy from outsourcing and the doctrine of free trade is no longer confined to just the manufacturing sector.

Something has changed in America, and it will undermine and eventually destroy public support for NAFTA-style trade agreements. Suddenly, it is not only manufacturing jobs that are being outsourced to Mexico, to China and other low-wage platforms. Now outsourcing is beginning to bite into whole new sectors of our economy, where the promise of future job growth once lay. Indeed, the loss of jobs in manufacturing has been dramatic over the past several years.
Look at these sectors: apparel, 37 percent of the jobs lost; textile mills, 34 percent; primary metals, down 25 percent; machinery, down 22 percent.

But the decline in what has been called knowledge-based industries has been dramatic too: computer and peripheral equipment, down 28 percent; communications equipment, down 39 percent; semiconductors and electronic components, down 37 percent; electrical equipment and appliances, down 23 percent; telecommunications, down 19 percent; data processing, down 23 percent.

During the NAFTA debate, the free trade fundamentalists promised that high-wage, high-benefit jobs would be replaced by high-wage jobs in the computer sector. In other words, automotive industry jobs would be replaced by computer jobs.

Wrong. As economist Paul Craig Roberts wrote recently in the Washington Times, "For years, as U.S. multinationals moved manufacturing offshore, Americans were told their future was in 'knowledge jobs.' Today, knowledge jobs are being moved offshore more rapidly than even manufacturing jobs were moved away."

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers said last week that in 2003, the U.S. jobless rate for computer scientists and systems analysts has reached an all-time high of 5.3 percent. That is roughly in line with the national unemployment rate of 5.6 percent. In Ohio, the unemployment rate is 6.2 percent, in my region of Ohio, over 8.4 percent, and in some counties of Ohio as high as 18.5 percent.

But the burden of proof is now in the proponents of NAFTA-style trade agreements. If outsourcing is sending the jobs of highly trained computer scientists, computer programmers and medical diagnosticians overseas, then where are the new jobs supposed to come from?

It is hard to believe, but Vice President Cheney said, "If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last 2 or 3 years, the kind of tax increases that both Messrs. KERRY and EDWARDS have talked about, we would not have had the kind of job growth we have had."

I would just ask the Vice President, where is the job growth? I do not see any job growth. And that is what the average real American is asking too, where are the good new jobs going to come from? Where?

Mr. Speaker, I include for the RECORD the poll I referred to earlier.

[From USA Today, Feb. 24, 2004]

Poll: Enthusiasm for Free Trade Fades; Dip Sharpest for $100K Set; Loss of Jobs Cited
(By Peronet Despeignes)

High-income Americans have lost much of their enthusiasm for free trade as they perceive their own jobs threatened by white-collar workers in China, India and other countries, according to data from a survey of views on trade.
The survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) is one of the most comprehensive U.S. polls on trade issues. It found that support for free trade fell in most income groups from 1999 to 2004 but dropped most rapidly among high-income respondents-the group that has registered the strongest support for free trade. "Free trade" means the removal of barriers such as tariffs that restrict international trade.
The poll shows that among Americans making more than $100,000 a year, support for actively promoting more free trade collapsed from 57 percent to less than half that, 28 percent. There were smaller drops, averaging less than 7 percentage points, in income brackets below $70,000, where support for free trade was already weaker.
The same poll found that the share of Americans making more than $100,000 who want the push toward free trade slowed or stopped altogether nearly doubled from 17 percent to 33 percent.

Rising anxiety about free trade and shipping out of U.S. jobs could intensify an already fierce political battle this
election year.

In the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., has gained ground on front-runner Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., by hitting Kerry's support for free-trade agreements that critics say have cost American
jobs. The two have bitterly accused each other of supporting past agreements.

Whoever the Democratic nominee, he is expected to use the trade issue against President Bush, whose administration has generally been supportive of free trade.

The poll was released last month, but breakdowns by income level were performed at the request of USA TODAY. The results are based on responses from more than 1,800 U.S. residents. The margin of error is 2.3 to 4 percentage points.
The findings suggest that anxieties about free trade long held by lower-income Americans and blue-collar workers-who have been losing jobs to cheaper labor markets abroad-have spread up the income ladder.
The findings come as the U.S. job market remains sluggish and accounting, computer programming, radiology and other high-end service jobs are being lost to workers abroad.

"This is huge," said Steven Kull, director of the Maryland polling unit. He said the PIPA poll shows most Americans remain supportive, or at least tolerant, of free trade, but with big caveats. "They're not saying, 'put on the brakes,' " he said. "But they are saying, 'Don't step on the gas. Don't rush. We need to make adjustments. We need more time to adapt to these changes.' "