No matter what data we seem to show about U.S. trends (manufacturing share of employment fell below 10% last month from a high of 40% during WWII; manufacturing output is at an all-time high; U.S. living standards, per capita, have increased four-fold since WWII), this ridiculous fear still remains.
While you might have questions about the reliability of the following chart, it is interesting to ponder nonetheless. Note that official Chinese sources are not publishing employment data for the manufacturing sector at this point, so I had to stop in 2002. I can only imagine why.
