Congressional Research Services, Library of Congress. April 15, 2013.
The health of the U.S. manufacturing sector has been a long-standing concern of Congress. Although Congress has established a wide variety of tax preferences, direct subsidies, import restraints, and other federal programs with the goal of retaining or recapturing manufacturing jobs, only a small proportion of U.S. workers is now employed in factories. Meanwhile, U.S. factories have stepped up production of goods that require high technological sophistication but relatively little direct labor. Labor productivity in manufacturing, as measured by government data, has grown rapidly, suggesting that the manufacturing sector as a whole remains healthy. In the context of national security, the fact that U.S. manufacturers of vital products are critically dependent upon inputs from abroad is frequently a subject of concern. International comparisons indicate that the United States is in no way unique in its dependence on foreign inputs to manufacturing. Although the output of U.S. factories contains a large proportion of foreign value added, many other countries appear to be even more dependent upon foreign value added than is the United States, at least with respect to goods traded in international markets.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41712.pdf [PDF format, 17 pages].
The Heritage Foundation. April 4, 2013.
In order to craft better job policies, it is valuable to understand when, where, and by whom jobs are created. Rigorous data analysis tells us that start-up firms are disproportionate job creators and that new firms tend to appear in cities with smaller incumbent firms. [Note: contains copyrighted material].
http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2013/pdf/ib3891.pdf [PDF format, 3 pages].
Center for American Progress. April 2, 2013.
American companies use a variety of financial incentives, from broad-based profit sharing and stock options to worker cooperatives and employee stock ownership plans, to reward their employees with a portion of the wealth those workers help generate. This kind of compensation goes well beyond simply paying wages or providing individual incentives, but rather involves granting workers ownership stakes in the company or a share of its profits based on workers’ collective performance, a concept the authors describe as inclusive capitalism. [Note: contains copyrighted material].
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/InclusiveCapitalism.pdf [PDF format, 58 pages].
Economic Policy Institute. April 10, 2013.
Though there has been some improvement over the last year, job prospects for young graduates remain dim. Thus, the Class of 2013 will be the fifth consecutive graduating class to enter the labor market during a period of profound weakness. [Note: contains copyrighted material].
http://www.epi.org/files/2013/Class-of-2013-graduates-job-prospects.pdf [PDF format, 31 pages].
Center for American Progress. March 28, 2013.
America’s infrastructure—its roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, energy grids, and telecommunications systems, to name a few—is outdated and is, in far too many places, crumbling due to lack of sufficient public investment. While pension-fund investments alone will not fill the infrastructure funding gap entirely, pension funds have the assets to contribute a significant share of capital toward rebuilding crumbling U.S. infrastructure. [Note: contains copyrighted material].
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/CooperCraigPensionFunds-1.pdf [PDF format, 36 pages].
