Politifact: ""NAFTA, supported by the Secretary (Clinton), cost us 800,000 jobs nationwide." FALSE

[ericson00]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/07/bernie-s/sanders-overshoots-nafta-job-losses/

Sanders said that NAFTA, which Clinton used to support, cost the U.S. economy 800,000 jobs. There is a report from a left-leaning policy group that reached that conclusion. On the other hand, many other nonpartisan reports found that the trade deal produced neither significant job losses nor job gains. This is a result of competing economic models and the challenges of teasing out the effects of NAFTA from everything else that has taken place in the economy.

The report Sanders cited is an outlier, and his use of its findings ignores important facts that would give a different impression. We rate his statement Mostly False.

[SidDithers]

1. I'm surprised at the dishonesty coming from the Sanders campaign...

I kinda though he was better than that.

Guess not.

Sid

[KPN]

105. Lol.

I dunno ... feigned indignation always strikes me that way.

[HassleCat]

2. Politifact is a questionable source.

Their judgments about true vs. false are way off. In this case, they are admitting it's impossible to determine how many job losses or gains can be attributed to NAFTA. Then they say the analysis used by Sanders is wrong. That's great. "It's impossible to say whether today is hot or cold, but anybody who says it's hot is a liar."

[Agschmid]

5. That's sort of the point, it's impossible to tell.

Sanders spoke with confidence that he knew it caused 800,000 jobs to "poof", and that just isn't something that's able to be proved true/false. He represented it as true and that's not something he should do.

No big deal, but statements like that shouldn't be made.

[HassleCat]

7. I'll go along with that

Statements such as "Single payer health insurance will cost Americans a hundred bajillion gazillion dollars!"

[Agschmid]

13. It's true, we don't know until we know.

[Baobab]

95. MOST JOBS are just going away, period, globally, for good.

get ready folks, because it has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.

except that the trade deals are trying to capitalize on the loss by creating a RAVE TO THE BOTTOM ON WAGES by opening up services markets globally. So, no more new deals, procurement will be globalized.

We wont be able to keep jobs to ourselves, any stimulus sending will have to be shared and lowest qualified bidder gets it.

This was the Clintons doing but it wasnt NAFTA, it was the other deal whose name causes my post to be hidden.

[RichVRichV]

3. NAFTA cost the US no jobs?

I think my bs meter just pegged. Hillary should run on that "fact". Let's see how far it gets her.

[Recursion]

22. It's certainly hard to argue it cost jobs, given how far unemployment fell after it passed

I recognize there are some outlying models that say it did, but the actual jobs situation since NAFTA has been significantly better than it was before NAFTA.

[revbones]

29. What year did the Clinton administration switch to using the U3 unemployment numbers?

That was an accounting trick basically to underreport actual unemployment numbers. I'm betting it was around then if that's the justification.

[Recursion]

35. Since the difference is about 0.5%, that's kind of silly (nt)

[revbones]

36. Might want to recheck your numbers. That's wrong. U3 is currently 5%. U6 is currently 9.8%

[Recursion]

37. The 1994 switch was from U5 to U3.

The difference being that U5 includes people who have given up looking for work. That's pretty consistently about 0.5%; U5 is currently 5.5% or so.

U6 is people who want to work full time but only work part time; it's usually roughly twice U3, so it's lower than one would predict now.

[revbones]

38. U5 is currently 6%

That's a full point above the official numbers. Either way, 1% is a LOT of people...

[Recursion]

39. Did it tick up? Sorry, I haven't looked at the reports in a couple of months

It was tracking at about 0.5% above U3 for a long time.

At any rate, back to the subject, both U3 and U5 plummeted after NAFTA passed, and are lower today than they were in 1993.

[revbones]

40. Just a quick scan between now and Jan 94

doesn't show it under 1% difference for any but a very few months. Again, that's just a quick once-over.

[Recursion]

41. I notice you avoided the actual point: both fell after NAFTA, and are lower now than before NAFTA

You do see that, right?

[revbones]

43. Oh sorry, didn't see where you mentioned that.

Admittedly this part is anecdotal, but I'm putting it out there because I think there are a lot of stories like this. In the 1980's Martinsville, VA was listed as one of the top 10 small towns in America to live in. There were anchor industries there including many many factories in the furniture and textile industries. Many secondary industries such as dye shops were located there as well as tertiary service industries. After NAFTA was passed, all manufacturing jobs left for Mexico, cratering all industry in the town. By 1996 Martinsville was listed as one of the worst small towns to live in for economic reasons. Living there I personally witnessed some of the devastation caused by NAFTA and the "great sucking sound" of jobs going to Mexico.


Factually, I agree that if you offset those manufacturing job losses with both the jobs gained in the preliminary and actual tech boom AND the normal economic growth numbers, and yes the total unemployment rate came down during those subsequent years although the U6 number was generally ~5% higher than the U3 in those years. Does that change the fact that there were 800k+ manufacturing jobs lost due to NAFTA? No.

[Recursion]

45. I'll see you Martinsville and raise you Clarksdale

I'll see you Martinsville and raise you Clarksdale, MS, right near where I grew up. In the 1980s it looked like Martinsville does now. Today, it's booming. And trade has a whole lot to do with that (servicing for barges going to and coming from NO).

Some places do better than others. That's why so many people left Detroit and Milwaukee for Houston and Atlanta in recent years, just like their grandparents left Houston and Atlanta for Detroit and Milwaukee.

[revbones]

46. I agree some areas benefited from the logistical industries that became necessary

but that said, I'd still rather make stuff...

[Recursion]

47. We make more stuff now than we did before NAFTA

American manufacturing output, both total and per capita, is higher than at any point in history.

(OK, per capita it may not quite have caught up to 2008 yet, though it will soon if it hasn't.)

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OUTMS

[revbones]

48. We can cite various numbers all night long. It doesn't change actual jobs lost

And I think you might be failing to account for normal economic growth.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/nafta-at-20-one-million-u_b_4550207.html

[Recursion]

49. We've been losing manufacturing jobs at roughly a constant rate since 1950 or so

Though those losses slowed down slightly after NAFTA's passage.



It's what one would expect once all the other countries that had recently been bombed to oblivion began to rebuild.

[revbones]

54. I'm not sure I agree with that.

I agree that they would increase their manufacturing to some degree, but why would we lose ours? Our domestic market would not have changed.

I think the manufacturing job loses are greatly creditable to bad trade agreements and lower tariffs. It's hard to compete with markets that pay so low and have so few worker protections that companies have to install suicide nets.

No rather than a rising tide lifting all boats, we have a race for the bottom.

[Recursion]

61. You're ignoring that manufacturing *output* has gone steadily up

The myth that we've stopped manufacturing is one of the biggest lies people are being fed right now. We manufacture more today than at any point in history, we just don't need very many people to do that.

[kristopher]

64. To what degree do you regard human lives as fungible?

[Recursion]

65. Zero. Manufacturing jobs are not lives.

And we need to stop fetishizing them. We need to pay service workers more.

[kristopher]

66. Bullshit. Those jobs ARE PEOPLES LIVES. And not just the workers, but their children...

...have their world upended and their future prospects curtailed.

But you answered the question - human lives are, to the free trader, 100% fungible.

[Recursion]

67. That's nonsense. A job is not your life.

It's only the weird nearly-religious aspect some parts of the left give to manufacturing jobs that makes it seem that way to you.

What's wrong with flipping burgers if it pays $17/hour? Is that less "noble" to you than making a car?

[kristopher]

69. Thank you for showing your true colors.

kristopher: 64. 64. To what degree do you regard human lives as fungible?

Recursion: 65. Zero. Manufacturing jobs are not lives.
And we need to stop fetishizing them. We need to pay service workers more.

kristopher: 66. Bullshit. Those jobs ARE PEOPLES LIVES. And not just the workers, but their children have their world upended and their future prospects curtailed.
But you answered the question - human lives are, to the free trader, 100% fungible.

Recursion: 67. Thats nonsense. A job is not your life. It's only the weird nearly-religious aspect some parts of the left give to manufacturing jobs that makes it seem that way to you.
What's wrong with flipping burgers if it pays $17/hour? Is that less "noble" to you than making a car?

I've never been one to wish ill on others, but I truly beg karma to give you a huge dose of what you deserve. A massive, huge, completely overwhelming dose of the pain you so blithely brush away.

http://media.vanityfair.com/photos/562a41cb29ade13279892d44/master/w_900,c_limit/b-hillary-clinton-benghazi.gif

[Recursion]

71. You are against fast food workers making a livable wage

Man, speaking of karma...

[kristopher]

72. Thank you for showing your true colors.

kristopher: 64. 64. To what degree do you regard human lives as fungible?

Recursion: 65. Zero. Manufacturing jobs are not lives.
And we need to stop fetishizing them. We need to pay service workers more.

kristopher: 66. Bullshit. Those jobs ARE PEOPLES LIVES. And not just the workers, but their children have their world upended and their future prospects curtailed.
But you answered the question - human lives are, to the free trader, 100% fungible.

Recursion: 67. Thats nonsense. A job is not your life. It's only the weird nearly-religious aspect some parts of the left give to manufacturing jobs that makes it seem that way to you.
What's wrong with flipping burgers if it pays $17/hour? Is that less "noble" to you than making a car?

Recursion: 71. You are against fast food workers making a livable wage?
Man, speaking of karma...

Recursion: 73. Yep. I want service jobs to pay what manufacturing jobs used to. You don't.
I'm speaking up for working people, you're speaking up for nostalgia. Now go away; you're not a friend of workers.
Why you're against fast food workers making $17/hour is absolutely beyond me, and it's incredibly callous, and I'm done talking to you.

I've never been one to wish ill on others, but I truly beg karma to give you a huge dose of what you deserve. A massive, huge, completely overwhelming dose of the pain you so blithely brush away.

http://images.complex.com/complex/image/upload/c_limit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_680/clintonbrush2_xhrlua.jpg

[Recursion]

73. Yep. I want service jobs to pay what manufacturing jobs used to. You don't.

I'm speaking up for working people, you're speaking up for nostalgia. Now go away; you're not a friend of workers.

Why you're against fast food workers making $17/hour is absolutely beyond me, and it's incredibly callous, and I'm done talking to you.

[kristopher]

75. Thank you for showing your true colors.

kristopher: 64. To what degree do you regard human lives as fungible?

Recursion: 65. Zero. Manufacturing jobs are not lives.
And we need to stop fetishizing them. We need to pay service workers more.

kristopher: 66. Bullshit. Those jobs ARE PEOPLES LIVES. And not just the workers, but their children have their world upended and their future prospects curtailed.
But you answered the question - human lives are, to the free trader, 100% fungible.

Recursion: 67. Thats nonsense. A job is not your life. It's only the weird nearly-religious aspect some parts of the left give to manufacturing jobs that makes it seem that way to you.
What's wrong with flipping burgers if it pays $17/hour? Is that less "noble" to you than making a car?

Recursion: 71. You are against fast food workers making a livable wage?
Man, speaking of karma...

Recursion: 73. Yep. I want service jobs to pay what manufacturing jobs used to. You don't.
I'm speaking up for working people, you're speaking up for nostalgia. Now go away; you're not a friend of workers.
Why you're against fast food workers making $17/hour is absolutely beyond me, and it's incredibly callous, and I'm done talking to you.

I've never been one to wish ill on others, but I truly beg karma to give you a huge dose of what you deserve. A massive, huge, completely overwhelming dose of the pain you so blithely brush away.

http://images.complex.com/complex/image/upload/c_limit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_680/clintonbrush2_xhrlua.jpg

[YASSIR THE FAT]

123. Check out where Recursion is..

*blink*

[Baobab]

91. yes but much of that stuff is made by fewer and fewer people.

Technology improving at an exponentially increasing rate means that the number of kinds of tasks which cannot be done by machines is falling faster all the time. Sure, new kinds of jobs are invested but the overall improvement in productivity means that huge numbers of products can often be made by very few, in many cases, just by a single person.

For example, I know how to make my own PCBs and populate them with parts, then heat them up in my toaster oven so they reflow.

That means people like me with practically no expensive equipment can become one person electronics factories and make fairly substantial numbers of (physically small) products themselves- .

[Recursion]

92. Yes, which is why manufacturing jobs aren't the answer going forward

And why we need to pay service jobs more than we do now

[Baobab]

93. well, guess what, services are being globalized so we can't keep other countries out.

as thats against the rules, baby.

we have the clintons to thank for that. get ready.

[Baobab]

94. Economic integration of developing countries is a very high priority under the GATS, is it not?

Higher than the interests of the US's "professional protectionists".

Consultants tell them to "maximize the values in the supply chain" which is the exact opposite

>And why we need to pay service jobs more than we do now

Developing countries are champing at the bit to get access to developed countries procurement markets, schools, hospitals, IT, you name it.

No wage parity. No necessity tests, no economic means tests, no licensing requirements..., no more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service

Nothing is allowed if it denies a country's firm of their entitlement to do the job if they are the qualified low bidder.

disciplines on domestic regulations

[Recursion]

96. Which is why we like Free Trade Agreements, which unlike GATS raise their labor standards

And which is why you won't see China or India joining the TPP, because they would have to increase their minimum wage and allow workers to form independent unions that can associate internationally.

[Baobab]

97. what do THEIR labor standards have to do with work HERE?

yes, much work will be done here. that is called the fourth mode of supply, or "movement of natural persons".

its temporary, no more than five to seven years, so its non-immigration.

[Recursion]

99. You should read your (nearly 20-year-old) link

None of the industrialized countries are actually implementing the GATS provisions.

[Baobab]

102. thats not true

we had a discussion about this a week or two ago. As i told you, India quite recently put in a request for interpretation of the quotas and visa fees to the WTO. And as i told you, I just don't think that all that huge amount of time would have been put into GATS and Mode Four - for it to be limited as it is. - well, I dont have a good feeling on this.

this is the problem with having certain kinds of leaders.

You know that old expression about with friends like these?

[Recursion]

103. Sounds like another reason to be for free trade agreements

This is yet another example of how our Free Trade Agreements are better than the status quo, because they allow us to specify trade in services limits more clearly, unlike GATS (which is another reason India will never join the TPP).

That said, India keeps losing their WTO cases against us, over and over again, and I doubt this one will be different.

[Baobab]

106. do you want more links?

I have hundreds, maybe even thousands of links on this.

the most recent ones are just a few days old.

that one is from an expert on the subject from India who has written extensively on the wage parity issue.

Not in this particular paper, though. If you go to I think its slideshare there is a good one but I was not able to save it as a PDF without major problems.

[Recursion]

107. More links that show that free trade agreements are better than the alternative? Sure

If you're trying to convince me that GATT/GATS has huge problems, I'm already there. Which is why I support the US entering multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements as much as possible, to address some of those problems.

[Baobab]

108. you evaded my question.

what difference does it make raising labor standards on the other side of the world when these companies will be working here. Obviously, since they will be subjected to our labor standards, our own are somewhat immune from criticism.

Wages are a different matter and what those jobs will pay their foreign workforces may not even be something we know or can do anything about. I suspect however that they will be paid at least minimum wage. not prevailing wage, minimum wage.


And for highly skilled people thats going to be a very low wage. seven whatever will be a real slap in the face for a teacher or nurse or doctor. Wherever in the world they are from. Fifteen is a little bit better.

[Recursion]

109. You expect a US law change from this?

I suspect however that they will be paid at least minimum wage. not prevailing wage, minimum wage.

That would require a change in US law, which I don't see coming (remember, India keeps losing their WTO cases against us, and in fact considers the WTO to be completely beholden to the US)

[Baobab]

110. you evaded my question.

what difference does it make raising labor standards on the other side of the world when these companies will be working here. Obviously, since they will be subjected to our labor standards, our own are somewhat immune from criticism.

So, be honest, the reason they discuss it in that way is to fool Americans into a sense of flse security about trade deals, in case they have read the stuff on wikileaks, etc, to make them think their jobs are immune from globalization just a little longer. When that is just not true.

Wages are a different matter and what those jobs will pay their foreign workforces may not even be something we know or can do anything about. I suspect however that they will be paid at least minimum wage. not prevailing wage, minimum wage.


And for highly skilled people thats going to be a very low wage. seven whatever will be a real slap in the face for a teacher or nurse or doctor. Wherever in the world they are from. Fifteen is a little bit better.

[Recursion]

111. I answered your question, and you keep replying to the wrong post

And since you adjusted the flawed argument I pointed out, clearly you got my point.

the reason they discuss it in that way is to fool Americans into a sense of flse security about trade deals

We don't have a trade deal with India. They would never agree to one because we would demand they raise their labor standards, and because we would limit L-1 and H-1 visas even more than we do now

[Baobab]

112. GATS is a trade agreement

[Recursion]

113. It's a massive multilat and it and GATT are precisely what NAFTA, TPP, etc. are attempts to avoid

The problems you're pointing out with GATS are exactly why the US has been seeking out more targeted trade agreements.

[Baobab]

114. They don't SUBTRACT from it, also GATS, TISA are services- their scope is different-

watch this- its all applicable - these things don't expire, this is the #1 reason we need Bernie in there and nobody else.

These things are 100% poison to our country's economic future.

[Baobab]

88. Innumerable unemployed people are not counted because

they simply do not have any reason to be counted in the US, given that the US does not give people any unemployment benefits at all after a few months.

This is likely a reasons Europeans think the US economy is doing much better than it actually is. Cutting food stamps will likely make the unemployment look even better because all those people will drop off the economic map.

Its all about appearances to the US's narcissistic personality disordered politicians.

[revbones]

89. Excellent point. nt

[Recursion]

104. No, it's not. Unemployment benefits have nothing to do with the unemployment rate (nt)

[Recursion]

100. Unemployment benefits have nothing to do with the unemployment rate

Not sure where you got that idea

[RichVRichV]

32. The job boom was largely due to the dot com bubble, not NAFTA.

Those jobs went away once the bubble burst.

NAFTA biggest problem wasn't about the net job loss. It's about what jobs were lost. Losing a manufacturing job paying 60k a year, and replacing it with two minimum wage part time jobs isn't a net zero in job loss. NAFTA allowed corporations to drive out a lot of the high paying manufacturing jobs. Why do you think NAFTA and the TPP got so much play in Michigan? It and other free trade agreements (along with trade normalization with China) further fueled job outsourcing after the crash in 2007. All this is why we now have college graduates working minimum wage jobs outside their fields of studies. The high paying jobs are now low paying jobs in other countries.


It also devastated a lot of central American farming.

[Recursion]

34. That's the most absurd of the usual claims. The tech boom destroyed tens of millions of jobs

Remember how there used to be travel agents? Secretaries? Typing pools? Print shops?

Guess what destroyed those jobs? The tech boom.

[RichVRichV]

42. That's nonsense. The tech boom did not destroy tens of millions of jobs.

Secretaries still exist to this day. Typing pools were replaced by data entry. Yes travel agents and Print shops have dramatically fallen, but those were not a large portion of the job market. Travel agents accounted for ~132k jobs in 1990. Many new jobs in the IT fields were created. The tech boom wasn't a job destroyer..... until it came crashing down. It was primarily a job displacer, moving people from one field to another.

[Recursion]

44. Oh my God tell me you're joking. It absolutely decimated entire industries

Secretaries still exist to this day.

About one tenth as many as used to.

Typing pools were replaced by data entry.

Which employs many, many fewer people.

Yes travel agents and Print shops have dramatically fallen, but those were not a large portion of the job market.

Neither is manufacturing.

The tech boom wasn't a job destroyer

You're nearly there. It destroyed tens of millions of jobs, and created tens of millions of other jobs. Just like trade.

[RichVRichV]

50. The tech industry and free trade are nothing alike

based solely on the types of jobs created and pay introduced. Free trade has been driving out some of the best paying jobs available to large portions of the country. Information Technology created good paying jobs. The two are not even remotely comparable. If it wasn't for IT and medical fields (both of which have dramatically grown since 2000) the job rates and pay scales would be even worse than they are right now in this country.

[Baobab]

90. I suspect that the US just doesnt count many/most unemployed people as such

I'm sure its intentional.

[Hoyt]

4. As Krugman said some time ago, simpletons blame NAFTA for things caused by other factors.

[Human101948]

8. And Krugman is God because?

He gets things wrong, and sometimes admits to it, yet I would never call him a simpleton.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/mistakes/

[Hoyt]

15. And Sanders gets things wrong too, while his supporters seldom get things right.

[Human101948]

16. Yeah and the horse you rode in on.

What a useless comment.

[Sancho]

6. For those interested...

http://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-immigrants-silly-tribal-and-economically-illiterate-358369

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-12-30/nafta-20-years-after-neither-miracle-nor-disaster

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1212/pros-and-cons-of-nafta.aspx

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/u-s-economy-since-nafta-18-charts/

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/nafta-20-years-later-benefits-outweigh-costs/

http://www.ttgconsultants.com/articles/freetrade.html

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2015-06-16/what-the-proposed-pacific-trade-deal-could-mean-for-u-s-jobs
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2015-02-03/understanding_the_trans_pacific_partnership_and_what_the_trade_deal_could_mean_for_the_u_s_economy

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-bernie-sanders-free-trade-michigan-chapman-0310-20160309-column.html

[oasis]

9. 22+ million jobs under President Clinton. There should be no denying.

[Skwmom]

30. Clinton was responsible for the dot.com boom...

[krawhitham]

87. Well his VP did invent the Internet

[Octafish]

10. Yeah. NAFTA only cost us 700,000 jobs.

NAFTA’s Impact on U.S. Workers

by Jeff Faux
Economic Policy Institute, December 9, 2013

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NATFA) was the door through which American workers were shoved into the neoliberal global labor market.

By establishing the principle that U.S. corporations could relocate production elsewhere and sell back into the United States, NAFTA undercut the bargaining power of American workers, which had driven the expansion of the middle class since the end of World War II. The result has been 20 years of stagnant wages and the upward redistribution of income, wealth and political power.

NAFTA affected U.S. workers in four principal ways. First, it caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico. Most of these losses came in California, Texas, Michigan, and other states where manufacturing is concentrated. To be sure, there were some job gains along the border in service and retail sectors resulting from increased trucking activity, but these gains are small in relation to the loses, and are in lower paying occupations. The vast majority of workers who lost jobs from NAFTA suffered a permanent loss of income.


Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits. As soon as NAFTA became law, corporate managers began telling their workers that their companies intended to move to Mexico unless the workers lowered the cost of their labor. In the midst of collective bargaining negotiations with unions, some companies would even start loading machinery into trucks that they said were bound for Mexico. The same threats were used to fight union organizing efforts. The message was: “If you vote in a union, we will move south of the border.” With NAFTA, corporations also could more easily blackmail local governments into giving them tax reductions and other subsidies.

Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market. This put further downward pressure on U.S. wages, especially in the already lower paying market for less skilled labor.

Fourth, and ultimately most important, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor. The U.S. governing class—in alliance with the financial elites of its trading partners—applied NAFTA’s principles to the World Trade Organization, to the policies of the World Bank and IMF, and to the deal under which employers of China’s huge supply of low-wage workers were allowed access to U.S. markets in exchange for allowing American multinational corporations the right to invest there.

[font color="green"]The NAFTA doctrine of socialism for capital and free markets for labor also drove U.S. policy in the Mexican peso crisis of 1994-95, the Asia financial crash of 1997 and the global financial meltdown of 2008. In each case, the U.S. government organized the rescue of the world’s bank and corporate investors, and let the workers fend for themselves.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.epi.org/blog/naftas-impact-workers/

I wonder how many jobs all the trade deals since have cost? Probably a lot more than 700,000.

[Ferd Berfel]

11. Public Citizen: NAFTA at 20: A Million Jobs Lost

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511630884

On the eve of the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) 20th anniversary (Jan. 1), a new Public Citizen report shows that not only did promises made by proponents not materialize, but many results are exactly the opposite. Such outcomes include a staggering $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada, one million net U.S. jobs lost because of NAFTA.... larger agricultural trade deficits with Mexico and Canada, and more than $360 million paid to corporations after “investor-state” tribunal attacks on, and rollbacks of, domestic public interest policies. ................

[PowerToThePeople]

12. We have lost 33% of manufacturing jobs since Bill left office

[Recursion]

25. And we lost more in the 25 years *before* NAFTA than we have since

It's a convenient punching bag for people who don't want to actually learn about things

[PowerToThePeople]

31. Total bullshit

you may want to learn about things.

[Recursion]

33. Nope, your chart is wrong

Or, more likely, completely misleading because absolute numbers of jobs are misleading in a growing economy; you care about the percent of employment that is manufacturing.

[hollowdweller]

14. Throw all the facts and figures you want.

NAFTA FUCKED the US and central America.

It sent good union jobs south and it flooded central America with cheap factory farmed food.

It put farmers in central America out of a job and heading north to work as indentured servants on US megafarms.

If you talk to anybody in my state, or any surrounding states they all HATE NAFTA and blame Clinton. NAFTA was one reason Gore bit the bullet in 2000 in the rust belt.

Clinton not only helped pass NAFTA but was an enthusiastic supporter.

No argument about which study is right is going to change public opinion about this. Most low information voters and even well informed voters take the fact that NAFTA fucked the US worker as gospel and the Clinton campaign should be apologizing not arguing the fine points.

[Human101948]

17. And we also put the Haitian rice farmers out of business...

POND-SONDE, Haiti — Haiti's rice farmers are dismayed. It's nearly harvest time in this fertile valley where the bulk of Haiti's food is grown, and they're competing once again with cheap U.S. imported rice.
Just down the road, vendors are undercutting them, selling the far less expensive grain. Subsidized U.S. rice has flooded Haiti for decades. Now, after the Jan. 12 quake, 15,000 metric tons of donated U.S. rice have arrived.
"I can't make any money off my rice with all the foreign rice there is now," said Renan Reynold, a 37-year-old farmer who makes an average of about $600 a year. "If I can't make any money, I can't feed my family."

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35608836/ns/world_news-americas/t/food-imports-hurt-struggling-haitian-farmers/#.VwBTUPkrLIU

[w4rma]

18. I watched NAFTA destroy my hometown over the past couple decades. Politifact is FALSE. (nt)

[ericson00]

19. ever heard of small sample size?

that's why individuals don't use their social circles for surveys or studies.

[w4rma]

20. Walmart’s Imports from China Destroyed 400,000 US Jobs Since 2001, New Study Says

According to the Economic Policy Institute, Walmart’s reliance on cheap Chinese imports have cost 400,000 American jobs in the 12-year period from 2001-2013.

As a result, a whopping 15 percent of the United States trade deficit with China can be traced back to Walmart. (The 2013 deficit was at around 324 billion dollars, of which Walmart is responsible for 49 billion.)

“Walmart has aided China’s abuse of labor rights and its violations of fair trade (norms) by providing a conduit for the distribution of artificially cheap and subsidized Chinese exports to the United States,” the EPI study said.

The study’s author, Robert E. Scott, also added that “the jobs we’re losing are good-paying manufacturing jobs, which pay higher wages and provide better benefits.” About 75% of American jobs lost from the deficit are manufacturing jobs, further crippling the US’s ability to create and export our own products and increasing our reliance on Chinese goods – many of which are made at the cost of the basic human rights of its workers.

Under pressure, Walmart recently pledged to invest $50 billion into American-made products. And yet, this report reveals that “The growing Walmart trade deficit with China has displaced more than 100 U.S. jobs for every actual or promised job created through this program.”

http://usuncut.com/news/walmart-imports-destroyed-400000-jobs-since-2001/

[Recursion]

26. What the hell does China have to do with NAFTA? (nt)

[DesertRat]

21. k&r

[LexVegas]

23. More lies from Sanders. He is on a roll. nt

[kristopher]

63. In your version of reality how fungible are humans?

[murielm99]

24. K&R!

[Skwmom]

27. Politifact?

rofl: :

[jfern]

28. They're saying it must be false since they're liberals?

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

51. This is idiotic! Clinton can't run away from NAFTA fast enough!

I'll go with EPI every fucking time.

Zero impact?

Fucking moronic...

[IdaBriggs]

52. I live in Michigan. I call Bullshit. But that is because I am not Paid to Lie.

ON EDIT: To clarify, I am referring to Politifact, and not my fellow DUer who is simply quoting from a source I find Not Credible based on my real world experience in automotive.

[basselope]

53. 800K. Far too low. Many more jobs lost than that.

[BlueStateLib]

55. NAFTA saved 800,000 jobs in the American auto sector

“Without the ability to move lower-wage jobs to Mexico we would have lost the whole industry,” said Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego, who has been studying the impact of Nafta on industries and workers since its inception more than two decades ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/business/economy/nafta-may-have-saved-many-autoworkers-jobs.html?_r=0

[That Guy 888]

56. Unemployment dropped with NAFTA... what sort of jobs did NAFTA create????

The sort of jobs that allow a "breadwinner" to support a stay at home parent?

Did NAFTA created jobs allow a sole working member of a family to buy a house?

Did NAFTA created jobs allow a sole working member of a family to put multiple children through college?

Did NAFTA created jobs allow pensions to be payed that were owed to workers, or did it allow business to duck their financial responsibilities?

I rate this Politifact story Deliberately Misleading. AKA bullshit

[Recursion]

57. The whole "sole earner" thing is BS. That was an aberration for middle class white people

immediately after WWII. It was never the case before or since. Worse yet, it was predicated on actually keeping women (to say nothing of minorities) out of the "real" workforce.

[That Guy 888]

81. Setting the sexism and racism of America aside, did NAFTA create better jobs???

Last edited Sun Apr 3, 2016, 05:31 PM - Edit history (1)

That was what was promised. After NAFTA, everything was supposed to be better, especially wages.

As far as "sole breadwinner is BS", that is bs. Are you telling me that prior to WWII all women everywhere worked outside the home? Seriously? LOL that is a very short sighted view of a slice of history. A long term view is that women working for themselves or their families is an aberration for most of written history.

Furthermore, the United States had (pre-NAFTA) a tradition of upward mobility. Last I heard Finland is the nation with the best chance to improve your earning potential.

The US has had greatly increased productivity since NAFTA, yet all of the profits are for corporations and their investors. Real wages purchasing power has declined.



Since you bought it up, did NAFTA end sexism and racism?

[Recursion]

85. Since wages and income went up, faster than they had before NAFTA, clearly "yes" (nt)

[That Guy 888]

116. LOL no, they did not. I hope you're protecting your investments or getting paid for this crap n/t

[Recursion]

117. Sure they did; this is very easy to look up

https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/

Median wages and incomes, and income at every quintile, went up more in the 22 years since NAFTA than in the 22 years before it.

[That Guy 888]

118. "For most workers, real wages have barely budged for decades" - Pew Research Center

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

Bigger Paychecks, But Little Change In Purchasing Power

...But after adjusting for inflation, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power as it did in 1979, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms the average wage peaked more than 40 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 has the same purchasing power as $22.41 would today.

A similar measure, “usual weekly earnings” of employed, full-time, wage and salary workers, tells much the same story, albeit over a shorter time period. In seasonally adjusted current dollars, median usual weekly earnings rose from $232 in the first quarter 0f 1979 (when the series began) to $782 in the second quarter of this year (the most recent data available). But in real terms, the median has barely budged over that period.

Wage_stagnation2What gains have been made, have gone to the upper income brackets. Since 2000, usual weekly wages have fallen 3.7% (in real terms) among workers in the lowest tenth of the earnings distribution, and 3% among the lowest quarter. But among people near the top of the distribution, real wages have risen 9.7%.

Wage stagnation has been a staple of economic analysis and commentary for a while now, though perhaps predictably there’s little agreement about what’s driving it. One theory is that rising benefit costs — particularly employer-provided health insurance — may be constraining employers’ ability or willingness to raise wages. According to BLS-generated cost indexes for wages/salaries and total benefits, benefit costs have risen about 60% since 2001 (when the data series began), versus about 37% for wage and salary costs. (Those indexes do not take inflation into account.)

From October 9th 2014

[Recursion]

120. Yep. And they've budged more in the past 2 decades than in the 2 decades before that.

I notice you didn't disagree.

[That Guy 888]

122. Sigh, another failed Jedi for the status quo. Do you wave your hand when insisting I agree with you?

I've done nothing but disagree.

[snowy owl]

58. Nothing there. Mostly false? Other non-partisan groups? Who says? Too ambiguous for me.

[Armstead]

59. My God. Let's just call it the Corporations Uber Alles Wing of the Democratic Party

The shilling and apologists of bad corporate behavior and bad right wing politics is getting absolutely mind boggling.

Sure, it's all just imaginary those factories that shut down and/or closed, and the blackmail to remaing workers -- AND the jobs that have not been created here because they were created in China and elsewhere.

It is absolutely fucking amazing the lengths people will go to deny reality in the name of the Corporate Cult these days.

[shenmue]

60. ...

[SunSeeker]

62. Another day, another Sanders lie exposed. nt

[NurseJackie]

68. "Mostly false" = "Big fat lie", right?

[Vattel]

70. Wow, what an absurd conclusion. The claim is debatable, but Politifact did not show it to be false.

[Recursion]

74. I agree; there's way too many variables here for anybody to be actively "lying"

The simple fact is we don't know how much of a given economic result is from this trade deal or that trade deal or the price of oil or.... etc. Politifact went past what I think they can reasonably claim.

[Jarqui]

76. I wonder if Politifact would try to claim Ross Perot was "mostly false":

"If this agreement is signed as it is currently drafted, the next thing you will hear will be a giant sucking sound as the remainder of our manufacturing jobs-- what’s left after the two million that went to Asia in the 1980s--get pulled across our southern border.

We need jobs here, and we must manufacture here if we wish to remain a superpower. We must stop shipping manufacturing jobs overseas and once again make the words “Made in the USA” the world’s standard of excellence.

We can do it. The question is--will we? It’s up to us, the owners of this country--THE PEOPLE."

About 5 million manufacturing jobs left the US due to NAFTA. People lost the pay from the trade they'd spent their lifetime honing and if they were lucky, they found a manual labor job in the retail industry earning a lot less.

Countries create wealth by making things or digging things out of the ground and selling more of what they make to other countries than what they buy. Manufacturing adds value to raw material products and countries who sell a lot of their manufactured good become wealthy like the US did post WW II.

That's what NAFTA and these free trade deals gave up. Income inequality grew. The rich got richer. The poor got poorer.

What Bernie Sanders is saying is beyond "Mostly True". It's right on the money.

There were global pressures that were going to force some change but there was a way to do so that was far less traumatic. That sucking sound wasn't just US manufacturing jobs - it was wealth. The US world share of GDP has fallen accordingly.

[mcar]

77. K&R

[treestar]

78. Yes, I am sure it is far more complex than

that generalized assertion we keep hearing that it caused job loss. With no job gain.

[libtodeath]

79. So now NAFTA is to be supported?

Where does it end?

[Recursion]

101. Given that this is a Democratic board, and a majority of Democrats support it

while a majority of Republicans are against NAFTA, I don't think it should be that surprising if there's some support for it here.

[Odin2005]

80. All this proves is how strongly RW ideology has been accepted as mainstream "fact".

As Slavoj Zizek would say, this is a good example of "PURE IDEOLOGY" being treated as accepted fact.

[99Forever]

82. Bwahahahaha...

... cool story bro.

[pampango]

83. Without NAFTA, WTO rules would have continued to govern trade with Mexico. Given what

WTO rules did with respect to our trade with China, it is highly unlikely not enacting NAFTA would have made much of a difference in our trade with Mexico.

The world was changing and whether WTO rules remained in effect or NAFTA superceded them, the world was still going to change.

[DesertRat]

84. kick

[Cheese Sandwich]

86. Series of shills: NAFTA was awesome, the WTO is brilliant. You're actually doing great America.

The pain is all in your head.

[Baobab]

98. Services are the next frontier of globalization. 70% of all jobs are services

"Everything you cannot drop on your foot".

[Jamaal510]

115. K&R

[CalvinballPro]

119. What do you do with a rabid creature? You take it to the VET.

A bad vetting joke, I admit, but the sentiment remains.

Hey Sanders fans, this is what Hillary Clinton has been dealing with since 1993. Non-stop, and even from supposed allies.

Welcome to the fight, finally!

[Dem2]

121. We've lost a shit-ton of manufacturing jobs in the past 30 years

I'm not able to know if NAFTA sped-up or slowed this process, but I am fairly certain we could have done something to help the USA be more competitive globally. Insisting on 1st world working conditions and environmental standards would be a start. These agreements only pay mostly lip service to these issues, but if other country's had to comply with similar standards to the US, it would be at least some help. I'm sure there are other places where these agreements are lacking, this is just the one that popped into my head.