According to data from the Census Bureau released last week, construction spending by US manufacturers more than doubled over the past year. For April 2023, the annual rate reached nearly $190 billion compared with $90 billion in June 2022, with manufacturing accounting for around 13% of non-government construction.
The US has added around 800,000 jobs in manufacturing employment over the last two years, employing around 13 million workers per the May Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report
According to Kearney’s 2022 Reshoring Index, 96% of American companies have shifted production to the US or are evaluating reshoring operations — a spike from 78% in the 2021 index.
following the passage of three large-scale economic packages loaded with tax incentives and direct funding for industrial projects and operations, investment in manufacturing construction shot up to $189 billion in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, more than doubling pre-pandemic levels.
We are seeing a reverse Marshal Plan. European manufacturing is fleeing energy shortages and soaring costs created by bans on cheap Russian natural gas and green energy policies. At the same time, US exports of expensive LNG have gone way up.
As Ursula von der Leyen would say, “Take that Putin!”
Do you want to increase manufacturing here in the US at an even faster rate? Would you like to put the biggest dent in the world’s pollution without spending a government dime? All our corrupt government would have to do is simply not allow any products here in the US, that were manufactured elsewhere in the world and were not manufactured at the pollution standards required if they were made here. I watched our manufacturing leave…because of the dumbasses in Washington. I’ll not give them any credit for this. Maybe Brandonites will but…they swallow about everything the shepherds feed them.
I will mine the data a little.
At first glance what I see is Keynesian math (broken window fallacy) being called an economic boom.
Works this way. (Hypothetical)
1940 NYC spends $10 b/yr on construction (1,000 jobs)
WW2 breaks out government builds a $10b shipyard (1,000 jobs)
Newspaper article reads"
“The Economy is Booming! Construction Spending doubles!! Construction jobs double!! The war has nothing to do with it. The president is a freaking economic genius whose wonderful policies saved the economy!!”
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Why do I say that?
What the article tells us is
In April 2022 construction spending by US manufacturers was $90b/yr (ttm)
That same month Congress passed a $220/b CHIPS act to increase that number.
I would temper enthusiasm by pointing out that these numbers are inflation driven and this really shows up in construction project contingency cost projection.
The US was spending $90b/year to construct new factories
Add
14-50% cost increases PLUS a $220b spending bill designed to increase spending in that area.
Result
Spending in that sector increase $100b.
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Good news? Maybe but knowing what we know now, it would be wrong to declare either “the economy is doing great” or “Biden is an economic genius.”
It would not be much better to look at those facts and declare “Cons are a hypocrites.”
All that said,
I think most cons support re-shoring in general and the basic idea of the CHIPs bill. I certainly do.
On some level, more spending to build US manufacturing means we are seeing those good things really are happening . . . the real culprit on this thread is the Hill article from the OP. (That article was pure shill.)
