Barack Obama Quotes
It probably wouldn't be good for our economy for a bunch of these jobs to come back because, there's no way that people could be getting paid a living wage on some of these jobs - at least in order to be competitive in an international setting.
Obama, Barack. "Remarks by the President on the Economy." The White House, 2014.
Most Americans are familiar with the many people whose jobs were lost to other countries where the wage rates were less. However, far fewer know about the jobs that are created by American exports. And fewer still realize that the wage rates of the jobs created by exports are far better paying than the average. Even though there is balancing of jobs, the burden has fallen very heavily on blue collar workers with poor educations whose jobs have gone overseas and who do not have the education, skills, or cultural background to fill most of the new jobs that are created by exports.
Fallows was contrasting the benefit that offshore manufacturing brought many Americans in addition to the damage to the Americans who lost their jobs to Chinese manufacturing workers. The complexity was that the offshoring of manufacturing does damage to many American blue collar but benefits white collar workers.
This is the classic conservative argument against raising the minimum wage. Historically, if the minimum wage was raised well after there has been a period of wage inflation, there has been little or no negative effect on the lowest paid workers. However, when the minimum wage has been raised during a period of wage stability, there is an effect of making some workers simply not worth the rate that they must be paid. However, even then, after a year or two, the negative effect begins to dissipate.
This is the major argument always given against raising the minimum wage. Historically, however, when the minimum wage has been increased there has never been a large increase in the unemployment rate. However, if the increase would be huge it would likely have the effect of pricing some workers out of the market. Like so many other elements of politics, moderation is important.
The good jobs that support middle and upper middle class lifestyles are growing at a lesser rate than the minimum and low wage jobs.
The “guidelines” were EPA Clean Air Guidelines that among other things would phase out coal fired power plants as coal was then the dirtiest fuel being used. The objections to these guidelines were the same as those that had been made for every other air quality or energy efficiency guidline that the Obama administration issued. They were also the exact same objections to all the guidelines issued by the Clinton Administration. And the same same arguments were made to oppose the original creation of the Enviornmental Protection Administrtion (EPA) by President Nixon’s Executive order on December 2, 1970. The economy has never been “crushed” but there is no way of knowing whether or not there would have been more jobs created if the Agency had not been created.
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
