Sec. 2. Findings
502 words·~2 min read·
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Congress finds the following: Between 1971 and 2011, the United States share of manufacturing output as a percentage of the world total has dropped by almost 10 percent, with 50 percent of this decline occurring during the last decade. Manufacturing has been a source of good jobs and has historically provided wages and benefits nine percent above the average for American workers. The number of manufacturing sites in the United States fell from 397,552 in 2001 to 344,352 by June 2010, leaving more than 50,000 factories far below capacity or vacant.
In 2010, the trade deficit of the United States in manufactured products with advanced technology was over $81,000,000,000. The percentage of Americans working in manufacturing fell from 12.5 percent in 1998 to 8.9 percent in 2008, and is expected to decline to 7.4 percent by 2018. United States service industries, including information technology, financial services, professional and business services, transportation and logistics, utilities, and others employ more than 90,000,000 Americans and have enjoyed significant growth over the last decade.
The unemployment rate in the United States has been greater than 8 percent since January 2009. Exports currently support more than 1/3 of United States manufacturing jobs and more than $500,000,000,000 in services exports. The earnings of Americans who work for firms that export are more than 15 percent higher than those of similar workers at firms that do not export. Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers of goods and services live outside the United States. To create the next generation of high-value jobs and to be competitive in the global marketplace, we need to expand the capacity of the manufacturing and traded services sectors to support exports.
It is the sense of Congress that Congress should— take action to help companies create new manufacturing and services jobs in the United States, including an inbound investment program which would provide matching funds to States that seek to recruit companies to locate in their State; encourage expedited consideration of export financing for companies that are already working with the Federal Government to increase their export capacity; ensure industry-approved certification assessments and standards are established for providers of education and workforce training programs in manufacturing and information technology; establish policies that enable lawmakers to better understand the challenges facing American manufacturing, including— metrics that measure the success of onshoring and manufacturing-related programs; baseline and annual targets for high-value job creation and job repatriation; and improvements to existing surveys of companies with overseas facilities; establish an independent United States Economic Competitiveness Commission to provide ongoing assessments of the competitiveness of the United States in key sectors; further exercise its oversight role by asking the National Academy of Sciences to assess the effectiveness of Federal research and development funding and programs that support advanced manufacturing; and call upon the independent United States International Trade Commission and the Government Accountability Office to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of distortive or discriminatory economic policies in global markets in order to better support and assist United States companies.