[macinjosh]

No it doesn't. Trump's whole issue here isn't making more money for the federal government. His issue is that the American economy no longer works for you if you are a blue collar worker.

The services we export are performed largely by white collar, college educated people. A good number of whom are here on H1-B visas. What service can an unemployed factory worker export to Vietnam? We have to end globalization of industry or wealth inequality will just continue to spiral.

[yojo]

There are ~600k H1B visa holders in the US. the tech sector alone has ~10M workers, and professional workers are ~9x that again. That boogeyman represents < 1% of the relevant workforce.

“White collar” work is the majority of US employment. It’s unclear to me if you’re proposing sacrificing white collar for blue collar jobs, but that’s not a trade our economy overall wants to make.

Relatedly, the unemployment rate for US factory workers is 2.9%. This is a very low unemployment number - 5% is generally considered “full employment,” and anything below that indicates a labor shortage. So your hypothetical factory worker should probably just go get another job.

[Yeul]

I don't understand the nostalgia for manufacturing jobs. My mom worked in a factory putting pickles into glass bottles. It was not her dream job. I can still remember how she smelled after a shift. But it was the only employment she could find in that village.

Things got better when we moved after a few years and she shifted into a healthcare job. White collar if you will.

[disgruntledphd2]

I think the big reason is that there were loads of manufacturing jobs in the mid west, which has a bunch of swing states.

[jillyboel]

His issue is actually that Putin told him to jump, and so he has to jump. You're utterly delusional if you think Trump gives a single diaper filled with shit about the "blue collar workers"