In some ways, America's manufacturing industry is actually booming
The number of U.S. manufacturing jobs for people with less than a high school education fell 44 percent between 2000 and 2013, but it grew by 17 percent for people with associate degrees. Manufacturing jobs for people with graduate degrees have grown by 32 percent since 2000.
The Atlantic's Alana Semuels puts those numbers in context:
While the U.S. has lost low-paying manufacturing jobs involving repetitive manual labor to China, it has simultaneously gained higher-paying "advanced" manufacturing jobs, Semuels argues, as American industry begins to specialize in production efforts that "capitalize on the country’s technology and educated labor pool." The average manufacturing worker now makes $26 an hour.
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Read more about the changing face of American manufacturing at The Atlantic.
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Kelly Gonsalves is a sex and culture writer exploring love, lust, identity, and feminism. Her work has appeared at Bustle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and more, and she previously worked as an associate editor for The Week. She's obsessed with badass ladies doing badass things, wellness movements, and very bad rom-coms.
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