But such gains were short-lived. Manufacturing jobs began to slide again in May and haven’t stopped declining. 72,000 manufacturing positions have been lost since April’s tariffs announcement, including 8,000 roles in December alone.
What gives?
“What we’re seeing is certainly a continuation of trends that began before the Trump administration,” Gordon Hanson, an economist and professor in urban policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, told Yahoo Finance. “But the tariffs haven’t helped.”
Indeed, millions of manufacturing jobs have disappeared from the US since 1979 amid a combination of “powerful” trends, Hanson said, including automation, “the continuing effects of the China trade, and the fact that the US has not done a lot of the things you need to do to restore manufacturing prowess.”
Asking about taxes in the late 1970s under Carter. I found he dropped taxes and industrial production began to tail off. Jobs were shed.
Yes, the federal corporate tax rate was reduced during the Jimmy Carter administration. Specifically, the Revenue Act of 1978, signed by President Carter, lowered the top corporate tax rate from 48% to 46% effective in 1979, and also reduced rates for smaller corporations.
Key details regarding corporate taxes under Carter:
- 1978 Act: The legislation reduced the corporate tax rate for large companies from 48% to 45% (effective Oct 1, 1978) and further to 44% in 1980.
- Small Business Relief: The 1978 act reduced taxes on the first $25,000 of corporate income from 20% to 17%.
- Overall Approach: While some proposals aimed at increasing taxes on specific industries, the administration generally focused on stimulative tax cuts for businesses to boost investment.
That last part was not stimulative. Instead, we began to offshore at a quicker pace.