Simply American

By John Briggs

In the last twenty years, more than five million American workers have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector in this country. But you and I can put a lot of those Americans back to work by making some very simple changes in how we shop. By making products manufactured by American workers our default choice when we go shopping, we can usher in a renaissance of American manufacturing employment. Simply American tells the story of how our nation’s consumers evolved from buying mostly American-made products to the new status quo where most of the products we buy are not manufactured on our shores. Simply American offers guidance in how to return to the “Made in America” fold and introduces the reader to seven iconic American manufacturing firms eager to sell you their wares.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Aug 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483487687

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Briggs

Copyright © 2018 John Briggs.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8769-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8768-7 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date:  08/08/2018

Acknowledgement

To my sister Amanda, without whose belief and encouragement I would never have begun writing this book.

To my beloved Jackie, without whose support and help I would never have finished it.

1

Coming Home

Many journeys begin with a small first step. My journey home began with the purchase of a broom. I decided I needed to buy a new broom as my old one was down to its last bristles. I drove to the local Target Store and perused the options. The first was a silver model that carried a Made in China label. It was the cheapest of the brooms with a sales price of $5.99. The cheapest option has been my favored option for many years. But for once, I didn’t conclude my shopping trip by purchasing the cheapest product on offer.

Instead, I looked at a bright green broom with attractive grey bristles that was hanging next to the broom made in China. It was a broom made by the Libman company. The Libman broom was made in America. Made by American workers in Arcola, Illinois. It had a sales price of $7.99. Two dollars more than the broom made elsewhere.

I began to ponder those two dollars. Two dollars is about what I spend each morning for a cup of drip coffee at Starbucks. I tried to remember how often I replaced my brooms. It seemed that I had not replaced my broom in well over a year. Two dollars spread over 365 days works out to a little more than half a penny a day. That monetary pittance was what I would save by buying a broom made by Chinese workers, as opposed to a broom made by American workers.

I bought the Libman broom. My purchase that day was the starting point that led me to decide to write this book. On that day it became clear to me for the first time that decisions I make as a consumer can determine whether American citizens will have a job to support their families. Some of you probably came to this realization many years ago, but for me, better late than never. Ever since that trip to Target I have adopted a new approach to shopping, a Simply American approach.

From the time I began spending money that I earned, my overriding concern has been to get the lowest price. I tried not to buy things that would break right away, but all other things being even remotely equal the lowest priced product almost invariably was the one I bought. No longer. In the last six years, a far greater percentage of my purchases have been American products. My Allen Edmonds shoes, my Bill’s Khakis pants, my Tom Bihn laptop case, these are all products produced in America by Americans. It has become something of a challenge for me to search for the American made option for anything I need to buy. Don’t believe the rhetoric that they don’t make those in America anymore! In almost all instances I have been able to find an American option for whatever product I wanted to purchase. And usually finding an American made widget I needed has not been very difficult. My new Simply American approach means I buy American unless I have a compelling reason not to do so.

What is a compelling reason not to buy American? That will differ for each of us. Sometimes it may be fashion. Sometimes it may be function. And yes, sometimes it may be price. But in many other instances, the difference in price between an American product and a foreign product is not a compelling reason for me not to buy American. Simply American is not an all or nothing approach. It acknowledges that all Americans will continue to buy some foreign-made consumer products. That being said, if even 10% of Americans were to get on the Simply American bandwagon, together we could usher in a renaissance in American manufacturing employment. There is strength in numbers and there are over 200 million American consumers. By adopting the Simply American approach, the prospects for American workers in the manufacturing sector would be considerably brighter.

The need for a Simply American approach is a recent phenomenon in this country. But now without such a change in what we buy, employment in our manufacturing sector will continue to decline. And the decline has been dramatic. In 1979, over 20 million members of our extended American family worked in manufacturing. In 2016, about 12 million Americans are still working in manufacturing.¹

You may be asking, why should I care where the products I buy are made? You should care for a number of reasons, but the most important reason is that buying American means jobs for Americans working in your community, in your state, and in our country. I don’t need to tell you that we need all the jobs we can get in this country. Currently, the official unemployment rate is hovering at 4.1 percent. But many say the real unemployment rate is closer to 9 percent, when you factor in part-time workers and workers who have simply given up looking for work.² Adoption of the Simply American approach can help solve that problem.

Manufacturing jobs are special. They pay better than service jobs. The average hourly wage rate for workers in the manufacturing sector in this county in 2016 was nearly $26.50 an hour.³ In 2016, the average manufacturing worker in the United States earned $82,023 annually, including pay and benefits.⁴ Manufacturing jobs have provided the pathway into the middle class for millions of workers in this country over the last 75 years. Historically, a job in manufacturing allowed Americans who did not possess a college degree to earn an income sufficient to purchase a home, a car and finance a college education for their children.

As recently as the 1970s, most of the products Americans purchased were made in this country. Cars, major appliances, furniture, apparel, shoes, and housewares, all were made primarily in the U.S. Fully 25 percent of the U.S. workforce was employed in the manufacturing sector.⁵ But things changed. Mostly, we changed. We wanted more stuff. But we had a problem. Our income was not increasing. An answer, however, was close at hand. Rather than buying goods made here, with expensive American labor, we began to buy products made overseas with cheap foreign labor. As Pogo said, We have met the enemy and he is us. The resulting decline in the employment numbers in the American manufacturing sector beginning with the dawn of the new century has been dramatic.

Employment in the U.S. manufacturing sector peaked at more than 19 million workers in 1979. By 2001, more than 17 million Americans still worked in manufacturing. But beginning in 2001, the decline in the U.S. manufacturing sector began in earnest. According to Richard McCormack of Manufacturing & Technology News, between 2001 and 2009, 42,400 U.S. factories closed. This included 36 percent of factories that employed more than 1,000 workers (which declined from 1,479 to 947), and 38 percent of factories that employed between 500 and 1,000 employees (which declined from 3,198 to 1,972).⁶

Today, approximately 12 million American workers are still employed in manufacturing.⁷ As a country, we have lost approximately 5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.⁸ The last time fewer than 12 million people worked in the manufacturing sector was in 1941. The reason for the decline in manufacturing employment in this country is multifaceted, but the role the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs to foreign countries has played in the decline cannot be denied. Many iconic American brands’ products are no longer made by American workers. But that situation can change. The purpose of this book is to help you be an agent in bringing about this change.

The book is divided into two sections. The first section will discuss how consumer goods are manufactured, the history of manufacturing in this country, how we got into our current situation of endless trade deficits and the ubiquitous Made in China label on consumer goods. The first section will conclude with a discussion of the principles of a Simply American approach to shopping.

The second section will introduce you to seven American firms that make products for American consumers right here in the U.S. Allen Edmonds, which makes the world’s best dress shoes on the shores of Lake Michigan in Port Washington, Wisconsin; Hart Schaffner Marx, which stills crafts stylish men’s suits just outside the Windy City in Des Plaines, Illinois; Libman, which manufactured my broom and makes a host of stand-out cleaning products in Arcola, Illinois; Sub-Zero and Wolf, whose superlative refrigerators and ranges are found in the best kitchens in world, but are only made in Madison, Wisconsin; Crane Paper, the only name you need to remember when you are in the market for cards, invitations and other paper products; Homer Laughlin China Company whose iconic vibrantly colored Fiesta® tableware is crafted in Newell, West Virginia, and Wigwam, which weaves its amazing socks in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. All these firms are American, but each has its own unique American story.

I admit that, in the past, I felt that I had about as much chance of reversing the decline of American manufacturing as I did of bringing an end to the Arab-Israeli impasse. I don’t feel that way anymore. We can once again buy consumer goods made by Americans, our neighbors, our friends, members of our extended American family. In the process, we can create millions of new manufacturing jobs. We can revitalize the American consumer product manufacturing sector and in a real way America herself.

The real selling point of Simply American is, well, its simplicity. You don’t have to lobby your congressperson to ask for countervailing tariffs against South Korean car manufacturers. You don’t have to learn Mandarin in order to plead with the Chinese government to stop setting the value of their currency artificially low. You don’t have to participate in tedious GATT negotiations in Zurich. All you have to do is to keep doing what you are already doing: buying things. You just have to approach that activity in a slightly different way. I know you can do it, because I was able to do it. All it takes is thoughtfulness. Think before you buy. Think of your fellow Americans striving for a better life before you head out on your next shopping trip, be it online or to the mall. Together we can ensure the American dream for members of our extended American family by simply buying the products they are already making.