Poll: Americans prefer low prices to items Made in USA
WASHINGTON (AP) — The vast majority of Americans say they prefer lower prices instead of paying a premium for items labeled Made in USA, even if it means those cheaper items are made abroad, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.
While presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are vowing to bring back millions of American jobs lost to China and other foreign competitors, public sentiment reflects core challenges confronting the U.S. economy. Incomes have barely improved, forcing many households to look for the most convenient bargains instead of goods made in USA. Employers now seek workers with college degrees, leaving those with only a high school degree who once would have held assembly lines jobs in the lurch. And some Americans who work at companies with clients worldwide see themselves as part of a global market.
Nearly three in four say they would like to buy goods Made in USA, but those items are often too costly or difficult to find, according to the survey released Thursday. A mere 9 percent say they only buy made in USA products.
Asked about a real world example of choosing between $50 pants made in another country or an $85 pair made in USA — one retailer sells two such pairs made with the same fabric and design — 67 percent say they’d buy the cheaper pair. Only 30 percent would pony up for the more expensive Made in USA one. People in higher earning households earning more than $100,000 a year are no less likely than lower-income Americans to say they’d go for the lower price.
“Low prices are a positive for US consumers — it stretches budgets and allows people to save for their retirements, if they’re wise, with dollars that would otherwise be spent on day-to-day living,” said Sonya Grob, 57, a middle school secretary from Norman, Oklahoma who described herself as a “liberal Democrat.”
But Trump and Sanders have galvanized many voters by attacking recent trade deals.
From their perspective, layoffs and shuttered factories have erased the benefits to the economy from reduced consumer prices.
“We’re getting ripped off on trade by everyone,” said Trump, the Republican front-runner, at a Monday speech in Albany, New York. “Jobs are going down the drain, folks.”
The real estate mogul and reality television star has threatened to shred the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. He has also threatened to slap sharp tariffs on China in hopes of erasing the overall $540 billion trade deficit.
Economists doubt that Trump could deliver on his promises to create the first trade surplus since 1975. Many see the backlash against trade as frustration with a broader economy coping with sluggish income gains.
“The reaction to trade is less about trade and more about the decline in people’s ability to achieve the American Dream,” said Caroline Freund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It’s a lot easier to blame the foreigner than other forces that are affecting stagnant wage growth like technology.”
But Trump’s message appeals to Merry Post, 58, of Paris, Texas where the empty factories are daily reminders of what was lost. Sixty-eight percent of people with a favorable opinion of Trump said that free trade agreements decreased the number of jobs available to Americans.
“In our area down here in Texas, there used to be sewing factories and a lot of cotton gins,” Post said. “I’ve watched them all shut down as things went to China, Mexico and the Philippines. All my friends had to take early retirements or walk away.”
Sanders, the Vermont senator battling for the Democratic nomination, has pledged to end the exodus of jobs overseas.
“I will stop it by renegotiating all of the trade agreements that we have,” Sanders told the New York Daily News editorial board earlier this month, saying that the wages paid to foreigner workers and environmental standards would be part of any deal he would strike.
Still, voters are divided as to whether free trade agreements hurt job creation and incomes.
Americans are slightly more likely to say free trade agreements are positive for the economy overall than negative, 33 percent to 27 percent. But 37 percent say the deals make no difference. Republicans (35 percent) are more likely than Democrats (22 percent) to say free trade agreements are bad for the economy.
On jobs, 46 percent say the agreements decrease jobs for American workers, while 11 percent say they improve employment opportunities and 40 percent that they make no difference. Pessimism was especially pronounced among the 18 percent of respondents with a family member or friend whose job was offshored. Sixty-four percent of this group said free trade had decreased the availability of jobs.
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The AP-GfK Poll of 1,076 adults was conducted online March 31-April 4, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
Respondents were first selected randomly using telephone or mail survey methods and later interviewed online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn’t otherwise have access to the Internet were provided access at no cost to them.
SOURCE: Associated Press
I don’t know where the polsters got their information but my friends and I would prefer to buy American made. In fact if they contacted Walmart which is one of only 2 stores to buy clothing anywhere near here and the only thing they carry is foreign made. What makes me mad is tht if I bought American made it would last longer but foreign made I have to buy pants and shirts for my husband and sons 3 times more often then I would if it was American Made. I can buy American made pants for them and they last for several years and buy the foreign made and they don’t last 6 months.
So Like I said at first I don’t know where they are getting their information but it sure isn’t from the people who are buying the clothing. If they are asking stores well we know where their ideas are in their pocket book.
I have spent $15-30 at least two times over trying to replace the 2002 New Balance made in USA shoes I’m still wearing. I am low-income but educated and a veteran. I’m holding out for the $100+ Made in USA New Balance shoes I want. That said, the frozen veggie mix I just got at Grocery Outlet turns out to be grown in China. And ditto the Apricot exfoliating scrub. They will take any shortcut they can think of whether or not it’s good for the customer. And we know they are not treating their workers well. As for clothing, Lands End uses nice fabric, but I never know what the label will say as to who sewed it up. I am determined to sew for myself as much as possible. . . . I am seeing ugly female fashions pushed at me on my computer screen. These are so cheap — and ugly! — they have to be from far parts. The same people advertise “cute” and “sexy” total crap on eBay for pennies. Too many people want to look upscale just like something they saw on TV or online. The craft industry is selling pricey DVD lessons and out of sight kits for items our grandmothers could have shown us how to do in an afternoon. The advertising is deliberately trying to destroy confidence so a woman thinks she needs a damned seminar to make a gathered skirt! . . . oh, dear! Smoke coming out ears. . .
I agree with you. But where can I find fabric, thread and elastic for skirts. My clothing my not be fancy but they are made in the USA.
There is no such thing as a high school “degree”, or is that nomenclature sometimes encountered these days because with the widespread corruption in this country, including in academia where prices have been jacked up because they feel the can get it, that’s as far as too many people can now go? Competition is always a good thing, but unfair competition with foreigners fostered by the ruling class getting rich off it, is never a good thing, and with our addiction to foreign “goods” we’ll eventually wind up like any other addict.
When we buy Usa clothes they are made and wear better.Also in our food we import we don’t even know what all it is made from.Almost every thing we use is made in another country.
Caroline Freund is dead wrong when she blames technology for stagnant wage growth. Increasing productivity is not the culprit. As I note in my book, American Dragon, the Information and Innovation Technology Foundation released in March 2012 a comprehensive report comparing productivity increases in the ’90s and the ’00s. Their exhaustive analysis determined that productivity gains were approximately the same in both decades, yet manufacturing job loss was 1% in the ’90s and a staggering 33% in the ’00s. So what caused the massive job loss in the second decade even though productivity increases was the same in both? China’s entry into the WTO, which led to the massive offshoring of good-paying US manufacturing jobs. Sorry, Ms. Freund. Your entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
It is real simple to have it both ways. When you want to buy something Made in America for the same price or less than you would pay for an import simply go direct to the manufacturer. You see there is somewhere between a 50% and 90% markup on the overseas manufacturing cost in retail stores from Walmart to Williams Sonoma. If you go online and search “whatever you want Made in USA” you will likely find someone that is willing to sell you that whatever at the same price you would pay at the store. Yea, it cost more to make it here but if you cut out the middle men then you can compete. That is what my company does and we are growing like gangbusters!
Mr. Owens
What company do you work for? I would like to know where companies that do that are.
Sorry for the late reply, just saw this. I am co-owner of Liberty tabletop, the last flatware maker in the United States. You can find us online at https://libertytabletop.com
There are many forces against products being “Made in AMERICA”.
One of the worst is ABC TV’s “SHARK TANK”.
Their constant response is:”can you lower the cost” and “I have contacts overseas (CHINA).
How can we properly inform ABC that they are helping to further ruin our economy, increase our National Debt, cause more job loss and further devalue the dollar?
Stu Cooper
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world – Anne Frank
We can inform ABC that they are ruining our economy by hitting them where they hurt. Don’t watch their channels, don’t buy from their advertisers, (and while you are at it write the advertizers why you are not going to buy their products), When enough people do this then ABC will change their tune.