FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 25, 2005
Contact: Karen Conner 202-775-8810
Since NAFTA, rising
trade deficit cost about 50,000 Ohio jobs, a
million in U.S.;
New study ranks
Ohio fifth in number, percent of jobs lost to
rising trade deficit with Canada and Mexico
Since the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took
effect, the rising trade deficit with Canada
and Mexico displaced production supporting
over a million jobs in the United States and
nearly 50,000 in Ohio. This and other
information is revealed in A Million
Lessons from NAFTA, by Robert Scott
and David Ratner, just published by the
Economic Policy Institute and released here by
Policy Matters Ohio.
Ohio ranked fifth among all states in number
of jobs and job opportunities lost due to the
rising trade deficit with Canada and Mexico
since passage of NAFTA, with 49,886 positions
lost. States with the largest job such
displacement from 1993 to 2004 were California
(-123,995), Texas (-72,257), Michigan
(-63,148), New York (-51,582), Ohio (-49,886),
Illinois (-47,701), Pennsylvania (-44,173),
Florida (-39,987), Indiana (-35,157), and
North Carolina (-34,150).
Ohio also ranked fifth in percent of jobs
lost, with nearly one percent of the state’s
employment (.92 percent) lost. Other states on
this list were Michigan (-1.44%), Indiana
(-1.19%), Mississippi (-1.03%), Tennessee
(-0.94%), Ohio (-0.92%), Rhode Island
(-0.91%), Wisconsin (-0.90%), Arkansas
(-0.89%), North Carolina (-0.89%), and New
Hampshire (-0.87%).
Congress is preparing to vote this week on the
Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
Proponents of this expansion, which would
erase tariffs between participating nations,
claim the agreement will create new jobs in
the U.S., Central America and the Dominican
Republic.
The U.S. experienced a rapid acceleration in
its trade deficit after NAFTA took effect in
1994. Despite helping the country gain one
million new jobs, NAFTA was responsible for
two million jobs being displaced from the
U.S., according to the study. Since the
beginning of the 2001 recession, 2.8 million
U.S. manufacturing jobs and 161,500 Ohio
manufacturing jobs have been lost. Growing
trade deficits are responsible for 34 to 58
percent of this decline, with all 50 states
and the District of Columbia being affected.
"Workers have good reason to be concerned
about another NAFTA-type trade agreement,"
said study author, Economic Policy Institute
economist Robert Scott. "The failure of NAFTA
to create jobs casts serious doubt on similar
claims being made for CAFTA."
The Economic Policy Institute is an
independent research institute that studies
the impact of economic policies on working
people in the United States and around the
world. A Million Lessons from NAFTA is
available at
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/ib214
Policy Matters
Ohio, which released this brief locally, is a
non-partisan Ohio based research institute, on
the web at
http://www.policymattersohio.org
