Why are we so obsessed with manufacturing?

Summary

Planet Money Episode Summary: Why Are We So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

Release Date: July 18, 2025
Podcast: Planet Money
Host: NPR

In this enlightening episode of Planet Money, hosts Greg Rosalski and Sarah Gonzalez delve into the persistent political and economic focus on manufacturing in the United States. Titled "Why Are We So Obsessed with Manufacturing?", the episode examines whether the emphasis on manufacturing jobs is driven by nostalgia, political motives, or solid economic rationale. Through expert interviews and insightful analysis, the hosts explore the complexities surrounding the manufacturing sector, its impact on the economy, and the challenges it faces today.

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1. Introduction: The Political Focus on Manufacturing

The episode opens with Greg Rosalski highlighting the bipartisan political emphasis on revitalizing manufacturing:

Greg Rosalski [00:06]: "Both Democratic and Republican politicians and presidents certainly seem to think there's something special about manufacturing."

He notes that both President Trump and President Biden have implemented policies aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing, such as tariffs during Trump’s administration and the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips and Science Act under Biden. This bipartisan support underscores manufacturing's symbolic and practical significance in American politics.

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2. Is Manufacturing Special?

A central question posed by Greg is whether manufacturing holds a unique place in the economy. When posed to economist Oren Cass, the response is nuanced:

Oren Cass [03:18]: "Manufacturing was special, and it has been less and less special with every passing year."

This sentiment suggests that while manufacturing was once a cornerstone of the American economy, its relative importance has diminished over time. Conversely, Harry Moser, the founder of the Reshoring Initiative, offers a contrasting view by emphasizing the essential nature of goods produced through manufacturing:

Harry Moser [04:47]: "You wouldn't have your job. You wouldn't have your job ... You're right. Anyway, so what makes manufacturing special first? Goods. Manufacturing produces goods as opposed to services. And goods are absolutely essential."

Moser argues that goods are vital for both everyday life and national security, reinforcing the notion that manufacturing holds a special place in the economy.

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3. The Manufacturing Premium: Higher Pay for Workers

One of the most compelling arguments for the importance of manufacturing is the higher wages it offers compared to other sectors. Economist Gordon Hansen explains the concept of the "manufacturing premium":

Gordon Hansen [06:57]: "As long as we've been able to measure earnings in the sector, it's just paid workers more, especially workers without a college education."

Research by economists David Card, Jesse Rothstein, and Moises Yee reveals that manufacturing jobs can offer substantial pay increases for workers transitioning from lower-paying industries. For example, moving from a restaurant job to manufacturing can result in an average 35% pay bump (07:27). This premium is higher than shifts to sectors like retail or finance, making manufacturing an attractive option for many workers.

However, despite these higher wages, the U.S. faces nearly half a million unfilled manufacturing positions, prompting the question: why aren't more Americans taking these well-paying jobs?

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4. Labor Shortages and Wage Competitiveness

Oren Cass offers a perspective on the labor shortages, challenging the notion that raising wages is a straightforward solution:

Oren Cass [10:06]: "I have less than zero sympathy for employers who go around complaining about labor shortages and skills gaps."

Cass argues that merely increasing wages may not resolve the underlying issues. He suggests that productivity plays a critical role in maintaining competitiveness, stating:

Oren Cass [11:02]: "If somebody in the United States is 20 times as productive as somebody in China and you have to pay them 20 times as much, you're no better or worse off as a result."

This indicates that without corresponding increases in productivity, higher wages could render American manufacturing less competitive internationally.

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5. The Skills Gap: A Major Barrier

The episode identifies a significant skills gap as a primary obstacle to filling manufacturing jobs. Carolyn Lee, president of the Manufacturing Institute, emphasizes the necessity of specialized training:

Carolyn Lee [12:53]: "Every single one of them requires skills or the ability to learn and attain new skills."

Efforts to bridge this gap through workforce development initiatives, apprenticeships, and community college programs have been slow to materialize, despite political promises such as President Trump's directive to create a million new active apprentices.

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6. Perception vs. Reality of Manufacturing Jobs

There exists a disconnect between the public perception of manufacturing jobs and their modern reality. While industry leaders like Carolyn Lee advocate for a positive image:

Carolyn Lee [14:13]: "They are high paying, high quality jobs. Right. It is not, you know, manual labor necessarily."

Conversely, several factory workers describe the harsh realities of their jobs, including long hours, physical strain, and monotonous tasks. This dichotomy highlights the varied experiences within the manufacturing sector, suggesting that not all manufacturing jobs offer the same benefits or work conditions.

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7. The Economic Impact: The Multiplier Effect

Manufacturing's role in local economic growth is framed through the concept of the multiplier effect. Enrico Moretti of UC Berkeley estimates:

Enrico Moretti [17:07]: "For each one job in the manufacturing sector, 1.6 additional jobs get created in the local community outside of manufacturing."

This effect arises as manufacturing jobs generate demand for local suppliers and stimulate consumer spending within the community. Compared to other sectors, such as tech—which has a higher multiplier of five additional jobs per job—manufacturing still plays a crucial, albeit moderate, role in economic revitalization.

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8. Regional Revitalization: Can Manufacturing Bring Back the Heartland?

The decline of manufacturing has disproportionately impacted smaller towns and regions outside major metropolitan "superstar cities." There's a prevailing hope that revitalizing manufacturing could rejuvenate these communities:

Oren Cass [20:21]: "Manufacturing isn't the only answer, but manufacturing is a good answer."

However, the challenge lies in ensuring that manufacturing plants are strategically located where they can benefit previously industrially devastated areas. Factors such as infrastructure, proximity to resources, and availability of skilled labor are critical in determining the success of such initiatives.

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9. Critical Perspectives: Is the Obsession Justified?

Economist Gordon Hansen offers a critical take on the manufacturing focus:

Gordon Hansen [22:01]: "I think we've developed kind of a collective fetish for manufacturing, which is really unproductive. The problem is not too few manufacturing jobs. The problem is too few good jobs for workers without a college education."

Hansen argues that the issue extends beyond the number of manufacturing jobs to the availability of quality employment opportunities for non-college-educated workers across various sectors. He suggests that instead of concentrating solely on manufacturing, efforts should be made to develop high-paying industries that provide similar benefits.

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10. Conclusion: Balancing Manufacturing with Broader Economic Strategies

The episode concludes by balancing the various perspectives on manufacturing's role in the American economy. While manufacturing offers higher wages and can stimulate local economies through the multiplier effect, challenges such as labor shortages, skills gaps, and varying job quality complicate the narrative. Experts like Oren Cass and Gordon Hansen highlight the need for a multifaceted approach that not only revitalizes manufacturing but also fosters the growth of other high-paying sectors to provide sustainable economic opportunities.

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Final Thoughts

"Why Are We So Obsessed with Manufacturing?" provides a comprehensive examination of the multifaceted relationship between the manufacturing sector and the broader U.S. economy. Through expert insights and economic analysis, the episode underscores that while manufacturing plays a significant role, addressing the current challenges requires a holistic approach that includes workforce development, productivity enhancements, and diversification of high-paying job opportunities across various industries.

For those interested in further exploring the nuances of American manufacturing and its economic implications, additional resources and related episodes are available through the Planet Money newsletter and NPR’s platform.

Transcript

[Sarah Gonzalez]

This is Planet Money from npr.

[Greg Rosalski]

Both Democratic and Republican politicians and presidents certainly seem to think there's something special about manufacturing. Bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States is one of the big motivations behind President Trump's tariffs.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And even before Trump took office, President Biden also aimed at dramatically boosting domestic manufacturing through things like the the Inflation Reduction act, the Chips and Science Act.

[Greg Rosalski]

America is now actually building a ton of new factories. Spending on manufacturing construction has nearly tripled in the US since 2021.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

The manufacturing industry is expected to need 3.8 million additional workers by 2033. But will people want these jobs? Just recently, there were almost half a million unfilled manufacturing jobs. So.

[Greg Rosalski]

Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Greg Rosalski.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And I'm Sarah Gonzalez. Some people want more Made in America, but is it just because of nostalgia and political pandering, or is there a strong economic reason for this?

[Greg Rosalski]

Today in the show, are manufacturing jobs actually good jobs? And if so, why are there so many vacancies?

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Also, is having a factory in your town particularly good for the economy? Is it better than other industries? Like why? Why are we all in on manufacturing?

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[Sarah Gonzalez]

Okay, Greg, our wonderful Planet Money newsletter writer, you have been.

[Greg Rosalski]

No, you're wonderful.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

We're both wonderful and we've both been covering manufacturing a lot recently. But you in particular kind of wanted to figure out, like, what all the fuss is about when it comes to manufacturing jobs.

[Greg Rosalski]

Yeah, Sarah, I mean, like the question that I have been kind of asking is like, why do politicians, like, kind of obsess on this one sector? Do they want to bring these jobs back? So I asked a bunch of economists the same question. So why don't you? You have the floor. Is manufacturing special?

[Gordon Hansen]

It is special.

[Greg Rosalski]

Let's talk about that. First question, just big question. You have the floor. Is manufacturing special?

[Oren Cass]

Manufacturing was special, and it has been less and less special with every passing year.

[Greg Rosalski]

Is manufacturing special? No, it's not. You know, if we're talking about importance to the economy, no, it isn't. So I guess I would maybe frame the question a little bit differently and.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Maybe this is why there's some disagreement. So, Greg, classic ask a bunch of economists, get a bunch of different answers.

[Greg Rosalski]

Tell me about it.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

By the way, that was Gordon Hansen, Enrico Moretti, Norbert, Michael and Susan Halper. There is a lot of research on this, and that's what we're getting into.

[Greg Rosalski]

Now from the yes, manufacturing is special camp. Why do they think it's special? Like, what economic evidence actually supports this? First up, a former manufacturing executive who really didn't want to give up on manufacturing.

[Harry Moser]

I was 65, and they said it was time to retire.

[Greg Rosalski]

And you're like, what am I going to do with my time? I'm going to try to fight to bring back manufacturing. Yeah. So that's Harry Moser. He's the founder and director of the reshoring initiative. Reshoring, as in bringing manufacturing back to America's shores. And we asked him, why should we care about manufacturing more than, say, like, any other sector? Because, you know, there's some free market economists out there and libertarians and others who are like, we're a growing economy. Sure, we've lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, but we've gained a lot of jobs in other areas.

[Harry Moser]

That reminds me of an economist maybe 20, 30 years ago who said, computer chips, potato chips, what's the difference if there were jobs? If there were jobs and there was GDP being produced? And obviously for an economy, there's a difference between having enough potato chips. Well, you could do without them if you had to.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Basically, Harry is saying here that some industries are. Yeah. More important than other industries.

[Harry Moser]

You wouldn't. You wouldn't have your job.

[Greg Rosalski]

But I'd have a lot of potato chips.

[Harry Moser]

No, you wouldn't. You couldn't afford them because you wouldn't have a job.

[Greg Rosalski]

That's true.

[Harry Moser]

You're right. Anyway, so what makes manufacturing special first? Goods. Manufacturing produces goods as opposed to services. And goods are absolutely essential.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah, manufacturing produces goods. It produces things we need like computer chips and microphones for Greg and I to do our jobs, or clothes, pillows, rockets, whatever. And, you know, having goods is good. Now, of course, that doesn't mean these goods need to be made in the U.S. right. They could be made somewhere else.

[Greg Rosalski]

But people think it's important to make goods domestically for national security reasons. For one, that's why we make tanks and vaccines in the United States. And, you know, case of wars or pandemics or other national emergencies. And some people are like, we need to make even more things in the US for, you know, national security reasons.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And there's people who argue that manufacturing just like, leads to more innovation, which leads to economic growth. So they say that makes it special. Others say it's special just based on where in the US These jobs and factories tend to be in places with not a lot of good job options.

[Greg Rosalski]

Or they say, you know, manufacturing is special because these jobs have been historically more unionized and they've provided a good path to the middle class.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Right. But here is probably the most popular reason for the. Yes, manufacturing. A special camp among economists. The pay.

[Gordon Hansen]

As long as we've been able to measure earnings in the sector, it's just paid workers more, especially workers without a college education.

[Greg Rosalski]

So that's Gordon Hansen. He's an economist at Harvard Kennedy School who's probably one of the leading researchers on American manufacturing. He says manufacturing pays more than a lot of other industries. Economists call this the manufacturing premium. And Gordon points to what he calls the gold standard of research on this from economist David Card, Jesse Rothstein and Moises Yee. They followed over 100 million Americans as they jumped between industries, basically, according to their research.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

If you take two statistically identical workers, like, same background, same skill, same race, gender, education, everything, and you randomly plop them in different industries, here's what you would see. Let's take someone working in the restaurant industry, which has the lowest average earnings. So like a server. If a server were to quit their restaurant job and switch over, over to working in manufacturing, they would get on average a 35% pay bump. Not a bad bump.

[Greg Rosalski]

I want that.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

That's a good bump.

[Greg Rosalski]

Hello? Yeah. So pretty substantial premium. It's higher than if that restaurant worker moved over to retail, which would be an 11% premium, or if they moved into, like, agriculture or education or healthcare. It's even better than the pay bump from moving into finance and insurance jobs, which would be a 32%. Now, obviously people in finance tend to, you know, get paid a lot more than people in manufacturing. But when you put aside education level and everything, there is something about manufacturing that delivers workers an extra pay bump. So pretty special in terms of pay.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Although the manufacturing premium is lower than some other sectors. Like if the restaurant workers switched to working in utilities, they'd see a 49% premium. Working in mining, oil and gas, that's a 62% premium. So I don't know. I'm going to say manufacturing is like medium special when it comes to pay.

[Greg Rosalski]

Yeah. Though we should say that jobs in manufacturing can really vary, Right? Like, so like garment workers, they don't get much of a pay bump, if any at all. But if you're making cars or planes or petrochemicals, the premium is a lot higher.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

And yet there are still a lot of vacant manufacturing jobs in the US right now. There were recently about 500,000 openings, including in the higher end, higher premium paying manufacturing jobs. So the US Is having a hard time filling the existing manufacturing job openings right now, and yet politicians are going all in trying to create more of them.

[Greg Rosalski]

So why is that? Right? Like, if it pays such a premium, why aren't Americans taking these manufacturing jobs?

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Part of the story here is that there's been a pretty tight labor market. Right. A lot of industries have had a hard time filling jobs. But it's not just that. It may be that the pay premium just isn't high enough. Right. The obvious econ response here is raise the pay, people.

[Oren Cass]

I have less than zero sympathy for employers who go around complaining about labor shortages and skills gaps.

[Greg Rosalski]

Oren Cass is the chief economist and founder of American Compass, a conservative think tank. And he's also a vocal advocate for Trump's tariffs. And when it comes to all of these manufacturing job vacancies, he's actually like, I don't know what to tell you. Companies pay more.

[Oren Cass]

I don't know if I'd mention on the side, I run an incredibly innovative biotech company that employs leading scientists at $10 an hour to develop, you know, extraordinary cures. I have 500,000 job openings as well, and I have not yet been able to fill one of them.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah, pay workers more and I bet you won't have so many job openings, right? And this sounds great, but if companies have to pay more, would they still be profitable in the U.S. i mean, that's one of the reasons manufacturing went overseas in the first place.

[Greg Rosalski]

I mean, to be internationally competitive if the going rate is not enough, like if the reservation wage of Americans is so high that they're going to have to hike their wages up because there's already a pay premium. Right. But especially when it comes to the lower end stuff like apparel, I mean, like, is that just, like, are we just not going to be competitive? Because the, the Wage that they're going to have to pay is so high that it just makes it not doable here.

[Oren Cass]

So I think there's a real confusion that, that people have when they start asking sort of, you know, how much can we afford to pay and so forth. Because the, the question is about productivity level. If somebody in the United States is 20 times as productive as somebody in China and you have to pay them 20 times as much, you're no better or worse off as a result that you are equally competitive. In either case, the competitiveness problem emerges from a labor force and wages perspective when you get the opportunity in some places to pay a lower wage relative to the workers output, which is a polite way of saying you have a problem when it's much easier to exploit workers in some places than others.

[Greg Rosalski]

Yeah. So in the US Oren is saying if workers are a lot more productive than workers in, say, you know, China, American companies can pay higher wages and still remain competitive, but little problem. In recent years, American manufacturing has actually seen an alarming decline in productivity growth.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

So okay, maybe these jobs are just not paying enough and that's why there are so many openings. But also there is a skills issue here.

[Greg Rosalski]

Right? That's what a lot of economists and people in the industry say is actually the biggest challenge. People don't have the necessary skills for these jobs. Carolyn Lee, president of the Manufacturing Institute, a non profit, says these jobs often require a lot of training.

[Carolyn Lee]

You know, half of our, our jobs are open jobs in manufacturing, the last time I checked, required a college degree and half of them didn't. And I will say that every single one of them requires skills or the ability to learn and attain new skills.

[Greg Rosalski]

Speaking to industry leaders and economists, I heard that one of the big issues in the United States is we lack a strong workforce development system. Things like apprenticeships and certificate programs at community colleges to give people the skills they need to work in advanced manufacturing. Recently President Trump ordered his administration to create, quote, a plan to reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices. Though many other politicians have also talked a big game in this area and we haven't seen much progress.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

So the pay, the skills, that is part of the story here. But the elephant in the room here is kind of that like maybe there is a skills gap because people don't want to invest all of the time and effort to learn these skills because they don't think that these jobs will exist in the future because of automation, for example. Manufacturing in the US has been seen as dying for decades.

[Greg Rosalski]

Carolyn and others in the industry, say manufacturing in the US might have a bit of a PR problem. She says people have an outdated view of what manufacturing work actually is.

[Carolyn Lee]

They are high paying, high quality jobs. Right. It is not, you know, manual labor necessarily. And it is not, you know, that you're standing on an assembly line and doing the same thing for 40 years. That's not what your job is today.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Okay? There is a wide variety of manufacturing jobs out there. You can be the machine operator or an engineer. On the R and D side of things in marketing, those are considered jobs in manufacturing, too. Not all manufacturing jobs are directly involved in, you know, making stuff. In fact, just about two in five are. But we have spoken to workers who are making things like on the factory floor, like garment workers in la, for example, and they talk about the long hours, the below minimum wage pay, the monotony of the job, the toll that doing the same arm movement, for example, over and over and over for hours a day for years of your life can have on your body.

[Greg Rosalski]

Yeah. And other factory floor workers have said things like factories can often get really hot when you're wearing protective gear and you're around a bunch of machines worrying. They said things like shift schedules can be inflexible.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

So manufacturing jobs are not always the best and most satisfying jobs for workers. After the break, are manufacturing jobs good for the economy? Like when a factory comes to town? How much does that make an economy grow?

[Greg Rosalski]

Can bringing back manufacturing revitalize the heartland?

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Foreign.

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[Greg Rosalski]

Over the last 50 years, as computers and free trade revolutionized America's economy, job opportunities became more and more concentrated in America's big cities.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Big cities grew, got expensive to live in, had a bunch of college educated people living in them, all of that.

[Greg Rosalski]

Economists now call these economically successful metropolises superstar cities. Meanwhile, a lot of towns across America lost their factories and saw a process that looked like the reverse of superstar cities. An unwinding, a loss of good jobs and communities struggling. And there is this hope among some that revitalizing the manufacturing sector could promote economic growth in those places like in the heartland. And the theory behind this is pretty fascinating.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Okay. When manufacturing plants Went away. In some of these places, they took something with them, the whole economic ecosystems that those plants created around them. And the theory is bringing manufacturing in particular back would be good because in order for a community or city to see a lot of growth, that city has to export something or sell something to people outside of the community.

[Gordon Hansen]

The growth of a city is a function of the growth of its export base. You don't have to export to the rest of the world, but you got to export to somebody outside the city boundaries, rest of the state, rest of the country. And that's because you're not going to grow just by selling to yourself.

[Greg Rosalski]

This kind of sector is known in economics as a tradable sector. Tradable sectors pull in wealth from the outside. They include manufacturing, but also agriculture, like farmers who grow, I don't know, like Brussels sprouts and sell it around the country or world. But it can also include, like, colleges that educate students from outside the community, or fancy hospitals where people fly in to get surgeries. Tech, finance, mining, tourism.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Non tradable sectors would be like restaurants, gyms, barbershops that just kind of circulate wealth that already exists in a community.

[Oren Cass]

You know, the way I always put it is like, we can't all just be cutting each other's hair.

[Greg Rosalski]

Is this because I'm bald or I cut my own hair? Okay, there you go. Sufficient. So a popular way to think about how valuable a tradable sector is is to calculate how many jobs each tradable sector job creates in other sectors.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Enrico Moretti, an economist at UC Berkeley, estimates that for each one job in the manufacturing sector, 1.6 additional jobs get created in the local community outside of manufacturing. It's called the multiplier effect. And here is what drives the multiplier effect. First, manufacturing plants need suppliers, right? Often nearby. That creates jobs. But also workers get paychecks and they spend their money in the community on things like going out to eat, getting haircuts, going to the gym. And the better the manufacturing job, meaning the better the pay, the more the worker spends and the more jobs are created. That's the multiplier effect.

[Greg Rosalski]

So, yeah, the average manufacturing job, it creates 1.6 extra jobs in the local community. That's over 10 years. By comparison, Enrico calculates that the average tech job creates five additional jobs. So it's a much higher multiplier.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

That said, high end manufacturing jobs, like, say, making computers or computer parts, those can get pretty close to matching the multiplier of the tech jobs.

[Greg Rosalski]

So can manufacturing revitalize a community? It kind of depends. It depends on things like what they manufacture. Is it advanced or not that, you know, determines how much workers get paid. And it depends on things like how many workers, you know, a plant employs.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

But either way or. Cass specifically supports policies that would bring manufacturing in particular back to the heartland. He says it's not the only industry that can revitalize it, but that it is probably a strong bet.

[Oren Cass]

Would it be financial services? Sure. Could it be tourism? Sure. Manufacturing isn't the only answer, but manufacturing is a good answer. And there are a lot of places where manufacturing is a much more likely answer than some of the things that we've seen be successful elsewhere.

[Greg Rosalski]

So there's sort of spatial allocation of jobs that seems to be lurking behind what you're saying. What makes you think that manufacturing will go to the same places that they were lost, like left behind communities?

[Oren Cass]

Well, if you're thinking about where to locate manufacturing, you're just looking at a very different set of factors than if you're asking where to locate an investment bank.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

Yeah. Oren says opening up an investment bank has just different needs than opening up a manufacturing plant.

[Oren Cass]

What are the key things that you need for manufacturing? Certainly a trained workforce is one element of it, but you also need a lot more space. Right. Good luck. Good luck setting up your manufacturing in Manhattan. You need close connection to natural resources, potentially low cost energy logistics and transportation infrastructure and so forth. And so at a minimum, the the answer is going to be not the same places. You're doing media and finance and tech.

[Greg Rosalski]

Oren thinks policies that boost manufacturing could help lead to more regionally diversified economic growth.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

But Gordon Hansen, who is also on Team these Jobs Are Special, says that even though manufacturing jobs provide good paying jobs to people who are in desperate need of good paying jobs, particularly people without a college degree. He suggests that politicians may be taking the love of manufacturing a little too far.

[Greg Rosalski]

Like maybe it's not worth starting a trade war and exploding the rest of the economy for the sake of this one sector.

[Gordon Hansen]

I think we've developed kind of a collective fetish for manufacturing, which is really unproductive. The problem is not too few manufacturing jobs. The problem is too few good jobs for workers without a college education. We should then think about how do we create more of those good jobs.

[Greg Rosalski]

Yeah. Gordon says we need more good jobs, and manufacturing jobs are good jobs. But the reality is that going forward, manufacturing will always be like, at best, a small slice of the US Economy. Jobs in manufacturing have been declining around the world, in large part because of automation. So maybe instead of obsessing on bringing manufacturing back, Gordon says we should focus on trying to replicate some of the things that made manufacturing jobs special in the first place, like trying to get more high paying industries outside of manufacturing to lower some of the barriers for people without a college education.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

If you liked today's episode, you can learn more about manufacturing at the Planet Money newsletter for watching.

[Harry Moser]

Thanks.

[Sarah Gonzalez]

This episode was actually based on a series that Greg wrote about manufacturing in America. You can read [e-mail] manufacturing also last week we ran an episode about what manufacturing work in the US can be like for workers. The focus was on garment workers and how much they're paid to make each piece of clothing. Made in America $0.15 today. You can listen to that episode right now in the Planet Money feed. It's called Made in America. This episode was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kessler. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact checked by Sierra Juarez engineering by Debbie Daughtry with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. I'm Sarah Gonzalez.

[Greg Rosalski]

And I'm Greg Rashalski. This is npr. Thanks for listening.