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Thriving US Economy Comes With Reduced Labor Costs

Brian Padden

   YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO - The growing U.S. economy is creating new
   manufacturing jobs in northeastern Ohio, part of the country's once
   vibrant industrial heartland, but these new jobs pay about half of what
   union workers made in the past.

   This region, sometimes called the Rust Belt, has struggled economically
   as automobile and steel plants shifted operations over decades to
   low-wage countries or increased automation to cut the high cost of
   labor. The region continues to deal with higher unemployment, more than
   6% in the Youngstown area, compared with the national average of 3.7%.

   The mixed regional economic outcomes of increased jobs but lower wages
   has divided working class support for President Donald Trump, who won
   this key battleground state in the 2016 election with a promise to
   revive American manufacturing and to stop corporations from sending
   jobs abroad.

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