US-China Trade Gap Costs $37 Billion in Lost Wages

The growing trade deficit between the world’s two largest economies cost the U.S. $37 billion in lost wages in 2011, a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has found, and is likely to cost the economy more as the deficit widens further.

According to the study, 2.7 million jobs have been lost in the U.S. between 2001, when China entered the World Trade Organization, and 2011, the bulk of which were in the manufacturing sector. The report took 2011 as a snapshot of the cost of these losses and found that when these displaced employees were re-employed in non-trade-related industries, they lost an average of $13,504 per worker in 2011, creating a total of $37 billion in wage losses over the year.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza