The role of manufacturing.

• Position: STATESTATS - Brief article

The part manufacturing plays in the U.S. economy has changed in very complicated ways over the past 50 years. In 1960, people who worked in manufacturing made up 28 percent of the non-farm workforce. That number has fallen to barely more than 10 percent in 2006. And manufacturing's contribution to the gross domestic product has fallen from more than 25 percent to a little over 12 percent.

But at the same time, the value of output has doubled, even after accounting for inflation. In 2000 dollars, manufacturing added more than $1.3 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2006; adjusted to the same values, the 1960 manufacturing contribution to the economy was $646 billion. What this means is that fewer workers add much more value than they did 50 years ago. This increase in productivity keeps important segments of American manufacturing competitive with places where labor...