# Unemployment and Trump's Promises of jobs, jobs, jobs **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 7, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244 "2017-02-07T17:17:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/21 "2017-02-08T21:28:27Z")
> [@CapnPitt](#): > > I wish people would/could retrain. I know Trade Adjustment Assistance has helped some people hear, but it’s not easy. Part of the problem is the politics of who is setting up the retraining. Where I am, the lame-turkey governor has pushed for types retraining that just have no basis in reality in this state (I’m surprised he isn’t trying to train people to make 5¢ cigars). He wants “manufacturing” to come back to our state, but evidently out of thin air. One of the pushes is for metal working skills. (He also, for political reasons, wants to shove $9/hr as a living wage down the throats of the unemployed so he can crow about “how wasteful a $15/hr minimum wage would be.” Christie, we couldn’t keep you FED on $9/hr…) Yes, its true that a lot of skilled machinists are retiring and leaving the work force, but companies refuse to fill the holes the retirees leave with new trainees or to provide in-house training to bring any trainees up to speed. The vast majority of the companies in that field are very small family outfits where if you are not born into the family, you have no shot at a job. There are one or two companies that are bigger and may provide some training, but they are so far away from population centers that getting to them is problematic. Also, due to Veterans Preferred programs, you don’t get to apply on a level playing field. Someone who just got a paycheck last month jumps right past you when you you might not have had a paycheck in a year. Don’t get me wrong, its useful training; you’ll learn to repair everything and anything around your house ( You’ll also be checking garage sales / Face Book / and Craigslist constantly to see if you can find “old tools”) but its nothing but a pink elephant to employers looking for a minimum of 5 years experience… or who are hiring for your original field. Also, nothing generates a “who cares?” look faster than when you are interviewing, and you have to account for what you’ve been doing, and you have to explain that you’ve been in a training program that has nothing to do with your field. “So, you can not only do the office job… but if anything in the office breaks or if there’s any emergency, you can fix almost anything, make spare parts or defacto tools out of scrap, and get us all safely down 40 floors to the street level during any natural disaster too? _Yawn_ Can you juggle? Because I’m sitting here in this conference room after lunch & I want to see a little juggling…” :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2017, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/22 "2017-02-09T00:53:59Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Another relevant aspect is that every time the Obama administration tried to introduce legislation that would support infrastructure development, retraining, and other job creation measures, the Republican Congress blocked it because they didn’t want Obama to appear successful. > > It is very true that the decline of good blue-collar jobs is largely due to irreversible, and in many ways beneficial, technological developments. However, it should be borne in mind that there are a lot of things government could do to offset the impact of those developments and help workers adjust to them, if only government weren’t so largely controlled by avowedly anti-government ideologues. Another factor was Republican-led union busting that goes back to Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/23 "2017-02-12T15:26:48Z")
More than anything else, what I saw Trump do throughout his campaigns (first for the nomination, then the election), was that he took, in a very simple-minded way, all of the excuses and cover stories and other myths that all the OTHER politicians and pundits have been pushing for decades to try to shut the unhappy Americans up, and said “Okay, lets do all that stuff/attack all that stuff.” The availability of cheap immigrant labor is one of those cover stories, invented to explain away a whole host of American complaints. The threat of foreign terrorists was another. He had a personal concern about government regulations, but as with the other items, he only has a cartoonish viewpoint about them, born more of his resentments and frustrations, than any careful investigation of the reasons for and problems addressed by any of them. Because others have fussed about unbalanced international trade agreements, and used them as an excuse for trying to crush trade unions and reduce worker benefits, Trump decided to blindly oppose all of them. I don’t think Trump understands that none of those things are really true as described, even though he isn’t sincere about his concerns about them. He seems to enjoy believing in plots and grand schemes, for personal reasons or psychology. Both the politics, and the economics of all of this, are far more complex and subtle than we’ve touched upon here so far. It is neither as simple as some wanting to keep “buggy whip makers” employed, nor is it true that the economy will magically balance itself, without tremendous pain and suffering on the part of it’s “component parts (i.e. the working people).” If more people had a serious education in History, they would know that. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/24 "2017-02-12T15:38:11Z")
> [@CapnPitt](#): > > … > I wish people would/could retrain. I know Trade Adjustment Assistance has helped some people hear, but it’s not easy… I understand that Hillary had specific plans in that area but 1) she did a poor job of promoting her ideas, and 2) people couldn’t see past her _“EMAILS!”_ ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/25 "2017-06-21T15:55:40Z")
> [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > The factories such as Carrier and Ford that Trump has dissuaded from relocating to Mexico are modern and automated not sweat shops with labor intensive and tedious tasks. Actually the Ford factory Trump has dissuaded from relocating to Mexico is going to China instead: > [@](#): > > Ford will shift production of the Focus compact car from the United States to China. And in a first for the automaker, it will ship many of these cars back to the U.S. to sell. > > But the move is more bad news for Mexico than it is for the United States. While the Focus has been built at the Michigan Assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan for years, Ford (F) had previously announced plans to shift its production to Mexico. > **[Ford to build the Focus in China instead of Mexico](https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/20/news/companies/ford-focus-china/index.html)** > > Ford to shift production of Focus from Michigan to China for export back to United States. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/26 "2017-06-21T16:51:54Z")
That’s fine, there’s already a wall there. The greatest! ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/27 "2017-06-21T18:26:41Z")
Does anyone have ideas/cites to data on employment changes under Trump? I’ve imagined that at least some portion of his support was from the un/underemployed, who believed him when he said he would bring back many manufacturing, mining, and other jobs which would pay a living wage. Of course, the devil is in the details. How many jobs are part-time minimum wage without benefits, etc. I’ve wondered whether the failure to create decent jobs would be a significant factor in alienating his base. But I have NO IDEA how it could be calculated - not to mention effectively communicated. Sure, some pissed off miner, out-of-work factory worker, or downsized middle manager will know that HE/SHE PERSONALLY is no better off, but will the admin be able to persuade each individual that others are doing better? Or will they message that things AREN’T improving, but it is someone else’s (China/dems/whomever) fault? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/28 "2017-06-21T19:36:47Z")
> [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > You’re putting forth a narrative that white working class are smart enough to see what’s going on. Liberals only see the cartoonish version of Trump. Trump can’t create all of the jobs himself. He’s eliminating the barriers and incentives to offshore and use illegal immigrant labor. We, Americans unshackled, will take it from there. He can create _some_ jobs by [having the family brand 100% made in the USA](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-decries-outsourcing-family-brand-manufactured-abroad/story?id=37502012). I’m guessing none of them have moved in the past 18 months. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244/29 "2017-06-21T19:46:26Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > He can create _some_ jobs by [having the family brand 100% made in the USA](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-decries-outsourcing-family-brand-manufactured-abroad/story?id=37502012). I’m guessing none of them have moved in the past 18 months. He said himself he was doing the right thing for business reasons. Much the same as buying steel and aluminum from the Chinese. Didn’t stop him from ripping other businesses for doing the same thing. Hypocrisy, he haz it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-and-trumps-promises-of-jobs-jobs-jobs/779244.md?page=1)