Are American blue-collar jobs being displaced by foreign workers?
The facts are troubling. During the past twenty years, imports of foreign goods into America have doubled as a share of GDP. Meanwhile, the wages for many blue-collar workers have stagnated, leading to declining standards of living for many workers. For the lowest 10% of wage earners in America, real wages fell by 13% between 1979 and 1989. Meanwhile, the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers has widened significantly. The blame is being passed to foreign workers, who are taking away American jobs with their low-cost exports to America. When production does remain in the United States, domestic workers are forced to accept pay cuts to keep production costs competitive with low-priced foreign labor. The Stolper-Samuelson Theorem An economic theory, known as the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, predicts that international trade will lower the real income of factors of production that are relatively scarce in a country. In the United States, unskilled labor would be considered to be th
