In Economics, students were taught that the backbone of America's ...

In Economics, students were taught that the backbone of America’s economy rested on factories – the machines inside of them and the men and women who ran them. Even today, the economy is rooted deeply in high-tech machinery to produce the goods needed to uplift the well being of all Americans. In today’s economy, manufacturing only accounts for twelve percent of the entire U.S. economy but that hardly signifies how important manufacturing is to America. Most important, manufactured goods are important for trade. According to the World Trade Organization, around eighty percent of trade is in goods and twenty percent is services. This basically means that America needs to trade foreign goods or there will be growing trade deficit, and for many years America has been trading goods with other nations – China, Russia, parts of South America, and many other countries. Services industries also rely heavily on manufactured goods. Service industries depend on manufactured goods for their operation and their technical progress. Industries that create services – like an airline industry – need a manufactured good to run smoothly and efficiently. As hinted before, economic growth depends on manufacturing. Manufacturing productivity has increased three percent each year in the United States because technical advances are always being made my manufacturing machines and because of the increased productivity, the cost of labor is becoming a less significant factor while cost of energy and materials become high and higher concerns Money and jobs play a big role in why manufacturing is so important. Every new manufacturing job creates an additional four jobs to support it; but for high-tech jobs it create an additional sixteen jobs. But one of the biggest hopes for manufacturing, though, is that the world will create strong regions of good manufacturing that will eliminate the possibility of poverty. Manufacturing generates middle-class jobs that anchor the economy. Plus manufacturing unions bloom because employees can bargain easier. If all regions of the world had the power and money to create a manufacturing sector in their economy, there would be fewer opportunities for poverty and rioting. Manufacturing isn’t just important because it lowers the trade deficit or helps service industries function, manufacturing can also help the economy grow in ways employers and workers didn’t recognize. And hopefully, the growth of stable economies can reinforce other regions around the world to create more worldwide manufacturing.

But for now, students will continue to learn about goods and services and how the economy relies on the wants and needs of humans rather than the factories that create machines that produces the goods.