The MAGAs are still saying that tariffs are being paid by the country that we have the tariffs on. They don’t want the truth to be shown.
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Amazon, eBay, Temu etc etc all show it one way or another, one ebay seller is $45 shipping on any small items (fit in a small mailbox) from China and free shipping from the US, Temu is an extra $31 for small items minimum, but if coming from a US WH nothing extra, Amazon showing extra from China also…
You pay tax on gas, but nowhere at the pump have I ever seen a break down of what is what…
See, nothing political was said, some of y’all are not sticking to the NO politics rule that so many yell about…
The tariff listing shows how much profit the importer would lose if they don’t raise their prices.
Sooner or later, they will need to adjust their prices to stay competitive. Clothes for example, made in Bangladesh, Malasia or India will cost much less than clothes from China.
Maybe, maybe not. If they were 145% less expensive from China to begin with, then not.
However, all that most people will relate to is that in the past, it cost them $X for some essential goods. Now it is $X plus $something more. If you’re squeaking by, making do with a family and you can’t afford school clothes because the least expensive clothes are now equal to the mid-priced clothes- that’s a big deal.
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Why would you not buy the mid priced clothes then? Sounds like leveling the playing field. Or a conspiracy theory? Rent a hotel room and the quoted price is about double when you pay the bill due to local fees etc.
You are missing the point. Struggling families have a need for low priced childrens clothes since they grow out of them so fast and can destroy them climbing trees and just being kids. No conspiracy here , just misguided action by morons.
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I am a cheapskate and most of my pants and shirts are from countries other than China.
Every pump I have seen lists federal and state taxes.
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Well of course the whole idea is to provide better jobs available so one is not forced to buy the absolute cheapest, but which best fits their needs. Of course around here the gently used quality Kids clothes were sold at neighborhood garage sales. Really depends on whether you try to fix the front end or the back end.
Who says they’ll be better paying jobs? A large percentage of people are still paid minimum wage or slightly above…no where near a living wage (40% of all workers don’t earn a living wage). Just because some manufacturing jobs MAY move back to the US, it doesn’t mean they’re better paying jobs then McDonalds. The textile industry in the US has always been notorious for low wages and poor working conditions. Go to Lowell MA (the start of the Industrial Industry in the US) and take the tour and learn about what it was like to be a textile worker in the US.
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Yes I’m well aware of the practice of hiring young girls to run the mills back in 1890. In modern plants I worked in though, the people were fairly well paid. Those with vo tec training did very well. Of course you can find examples at either end.
Actually, the original “mill girls” were paid reasonably well and had reasonably ok “company town” conditions to live in. But it’s because they weren’t wage dependent. If conditions, including pay, were poor enough they could have gone back home to the family farm. The companies had to be “nice” enough to keep their labor force.
That changed in the New England mills when waves of immigrants started showing up (back in the real Statue of Liberty/“New Colossus” days when immigrants were still welcomed to help with domestic labor shortages). Incoming immigrants were wage dependent at which point labor abuse could proceed apace because they had no other way to live.
In terms of the big picture, the thing that changed in the manufacturing sector was the eventual legal right to form and act as labor unions. And while unions were strong, that even helped out even in non-unionized work places.
I’ll dotto Mike:
You’ve got two things to create decent working conditions/wages among working folks. One is skills in reasonably short supply. But the history of manufacturing has been the constant drive to deskill workers - very often for no other reason than to decrease labor costs. So the other is labor unions.
It doesn’t matter. Current federal policies will not result in some manner of manufacturing renaissance in the US. And any increases will only mean something if it’s either high skill stuff (which will still leave those behind now…well, behind) or unionized stuff. But unions are dead.
No point discussing. Everyone will believe what they want. I’ve been at three different plants. At one, one of those poor under privileged workers had enough company stock that he was sent to Philadelphia for their annual meeting at company expense. Company stock plans, insurance, etc. and everyone made a lot of money.
Those industries that moved offshore that they want to bring back- why do you think they moved offshore to begin with? Less expensive labor. If we bring them back, why would anyone think they can be globally competitive again with more expensive labor? They can’t. So they will be lucky to get minimum wage. How is this making the situation better?
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This survey was done ~ 1 month ago.
I wonder whether the results would be different if it was done today.
Try again. Pay is still way below a livable wage.
Textile Manufacturing Salary: Hourly Rate May 2025 USA**
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As I said earlier - take the Lowell MA Textile tour. No one I know would ever call those working conditions reasonable. There were THOUSANDS of accidental deaths in those mills. And let’s not forget all the people who died from tuberculosis. Safety was NOT a big concern for the owners. 14-18 hour work days was the norm.
Accidents and Negligence · Working Conditions · Mill Girls in Nineteenth-Century Print
Those mills were around for a very long time, and not all of that time saw the same kinds of conditions. In the very early days, there was no labor force to “woman” the mills. Labor had to be attracted to the company-built town. So the bulk of the earliest labor force consisted of young girls/women from family farms. They were “secondary” workers and not strictly dependent on wage employment (which was still pretty rare at the time).
And no one would argue that it came with wonderfully warm and fluffy working conditions or spectacular wages. But the comparative referent of the time would be working on the family farm - also long hours of drudgery, and that for no money at all. But the “Boston Associates,” as they were called, couldn’t make things too miserable at first or they wouldn’t have had a labor force.
It was after wage dependent immigrants showed up that conditions went downhill. The young maidens could just quit and go back home if things got too bad. The immigrants could not. So abusive conditions became much more the norm.
The reason the mills were able to attract workers was because there was NOTHING for them in the small rural towns they came from. I take it you didn’t read the article I posted by UMass Lowell. The working conditions were NOT good in those mills at any period of time.