A weekly presentation of downloadable charts and short analyses designed to graphically illustrate important economic issues. Updated every Wednesday.

Snapshot for May 17, 2000

Job losses under the China-WTO proposal

If PNTR for China is approved by Congress, a projection of trade trends over the next decade shows that the trade deficit will expand, resulting in sizeable job losses in every state and in virtually every sector of the economy. The absolute level of the U.S. trade deficit with China will increase by at least 80% between 1999 and 2010, eliminating a total 872,091 jobs.

In the figure below, state-level, industry-specific employment is used to estimate the job gains or losses of the China-WTO deal in each of the 50 states. Every state in the United States will suffer significant job losses from the China-WTO deal over the next decade. Major losses will be experienced over the next decade in California (84,294 jobs lost), Texas (50,409 lost), and Pennsylvania (45,824 lost). Eleven states will lose more than 28,500 jobs in this period. Other states that will experience significant job losses include New York (58,699 jobs lost), North Carolina (47,151 lost), Tennessee (38,098 lost), Ohio (34,687 lost), and Massachusetts (28,501 lost). A number of farm states will also be hard hit, including Illinois (38,082 jobs lost), Indiana (30,324 lost), Minnesota (17,833 lost), and Kansas (2,573 lost).

A full analysis of this issue can be found online in the EPI Briefing Paper, China and the States.

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