Manufacturing employment has remained stagnant in the United States over the last 60 years, even as jobs have grown in other parts of the economy. That has led to the impression that America's manufacturing base is shrinking. But William Strauss, senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, argues in a new study that manufacturing output has never been higher in the U.S., but that productivity gains have allowed our industrial concerns to do more with fewer workers. Above is an illustration of Strauss' point: the number of industrial workers that it takes today, and over the last 60 years, to do the equivalent of what it took 1,000 workers to do in 1950.
