50's

There is a way that the US can bring back manufacturing jobs. Begin to place import taxes on cheap goods from overseas. This will raise the price of goods to US consumers and their wages will rise accordingly. As people make more money and things cost more the standard of living will not change much. In time US manufacturers will once again be competitive in goods like appliances and electronics. This will spread to hard goods like steel and other heavy manufactured items. Wage price inflation will return and things might begin to resemble the 1950’s, when wages were rising slightly ahead of inflation and people got a raise every year and felt like they were getting ahead. There were jobs for people right out of high school where they could make a decent living. As the US reenters the manufacturing market they will do so with new more efficient factories and prices will increase more slowly than wages. Stores will be filled with products made in America. Lower energy prices will help all manufacturing as well as helping family budgets. While this is going on the infrastructure can be modernized and the GDP will gradually increase to the 4% level needed for solid growth. The economy overall grew by 37% during the 1950s. At the end of the decade, the median American family had 30% more purchasing power than at the beginning. Inflation, which had wreaked havoc on the economy immediately after World War II, was minimal, in part because of Eisenhower's persistent efforts to balance the federal budget. Except for a mild recession in 1954 and a more serious one in 1958, unemployment remained low, bottoming at less than 4.5% in the middle of the decade.