The former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said, arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity. Globalization, the international trade in goods and services with minimal barriers between countries, may seem unavoidable as the world’s economies become more reliant on each other.

Globalization, if properly regulated can be a powerful force for social goods. Globalization for wealthy nations can mean less expensive goods, higher standard of leaving and additional spending. Globalization for those who live and work in power to reduce child labour, increase literacy & enhance the economic & social standing of women.

But not everyone gains from it. An analysis of 120 countries between 1988 and 2008 which was published by the World Bank represents who has lost. For instance, the U.S. trade deficit with China has had a adverse effect on American workers, successfully eliminating 3.7 million jobs between 2001 and 2018. More than 75% of these job losses were in accounting, manufacturing for more than half of all U.S. manufacturing jobs lost or relocate during this period.

Job loss and the working class

Using data from the World Bank, the economist Branko Milanovic argues that the losers from globalization are working people in many rich nations. Milanovic’s research states that a large portion of the lower middle class in the U.S. and Western Europe have seen little to no gain in income since 1988. At the same time, 200 million Chinese, 90 million Indians and nearly 30 million people in Indonesia, Brazil, Egypt and Mexico have gained from globalization.

Many American workers have been adversely impacted by liberalized trade with China, the so-called “China trade shock,” because goods that China exports to the U.S. have been made alternate for comparable American-made products. From an economic perspective, China successfully increased its share of world manufacturing exports from a little more than 2% in 1991 to 28% in 2018. In 2001, by contrast, U.S. trade began to increase with China when they joined the World Trade Organization. Even though U.S. exports to China have surged over time, a large trade deficit has opened up since the U.S. buys more from China than sell to them. The surge in this deficit means that the U.S. is losing jobs in manufacturing and preceding opportunities to add jobs in this sector because imports from China have escalated, while exports have not increased much.

The trade deficit has had various impacts on different regions within the United States. Some regions are ruined by layoffs and factory closings, while others are surviving but not growing the way they might if new factories were being opened and existing plants were hiring more labourers. This slowdown in manufacturing job generation is also contributing to dullness in income and wages of typical workers and broadening economic inequality.

Retaining & moving from work

Generally, economists support “people-based” over “place-based” policies and investments. The reasoning is that it’s more important to invest in workers rather than support & boost a place where workers live. Economists would argue that administering public funds into different regions doing poorly is related to wasting money. The outcome of such policies is that towns that have lost their economic base are allowed to decrease while other economies take their place.

The Department of Labour’s Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers program helps workers dispersed by international trade with job training and relocation assistance, support health insurance and extended unemployment benefits. Trade Adjustment Assistance is a “people-based” policy as it invests in workers. It is believed that, relative to the magnitude of the job losses, Trade Adjustment Assistance provides very little relief. While there is little support among the economists for place-based policies, recent evidence demonstrates that such policies may deserve another look.

Examples of place-based policies include enterprise zones where economic incentives are offered to firms to create jobs in economically challenged areas and policies that seek to promote economic development by investing in infrastructure, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, which has since 1933, provided electrification to the rural South, enhancing the quality of life in that region and promoting industrialization.

Adopting to joblessness

People-based policies are predicated on the assumption that if given the right incentives, people will leave economically buckled areas and move to thriving regions. Yet, the regions of United States where deep manufacturing job losses have occurred, workers did not frequently move to new jobs. Those who lost their jobs adjusted and spent less money resulting in a further reduction of economic activity in regions that, in turn, became poorer.

Workers who can move to more promising local areas, but choose not to, is a wonder, not only in the United States but also in Norway, Germany and Spain, even if economically depressed regions have an adverse impact on those who live there. Men, particularly young and white men in the United States are less likely to graduate from college, more likely to bear children out of wedlock and more likely to suffer from what some economists such as Anne Case and Angus Deaton have called “deaths of despair.” These deaths increase because of a deep sense of hopelessness coming from unemployment, lack of resources and alcohol and drug dependency.