Tuesday, January 29

The Misguided Policy of "Trade Adjustment Assistance" | Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies

...for every worker who is displaced because of competition from imports or "off-shoring," 30 others lose their jobs for other reasons such as changes in technology and tastes, and domestic competition. Studies have suggested that workers displaced because of import competition were equally successful at finding new jobs as other unemployed workers. Systemic changes that help workers adjust to new opportunities, such as increasing the portability of health insurance and retirement savings, and increasing labor market flexibility to create new jobs, would be more fitting policy prescriptions for a free society and a dynamic, service-oriented economy.
The difference is that with imports or "off-shoring", people see foreigners profiting, and don't like it.

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