Is US Manufacturing Dying?

Despite fears to the contrary, the manufacturing industry in the United States is not doing particularly poorly. In fact, in 2009, the U.S. had a 45 percent higher manufacturing output than China at more than $2 trillion US Dollars (USD). The U.S. also was responsible for about one-fifth of the world's manufacturing output in 2009.

More facts about manufacturing:

• The average American manufacturing worker is responsible for about $180,000 USD of annual output. This is three times greater than the average annual output of American manufacturing workers in the 1970s.


• The U.S. is the world's top manufacturer, followed by Japan, Germany and China.


• Though the U.S. manufacturing industry isn't dying, it is declining in terms of employment. About one-fourth of U.S. workers were employed in the manufacturing sector in the early 1990s, but as of 2006, only about 10 percent of all employees in the U.S. worked in manufacturing. This is not an isolated trend: Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy all experienced similar drops.