One Effect Of Money's Influence On Policies

A new briefing paper from the Economic Policy Institute titled The China Trade Toll [PDF document] says that since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 our China trade policy "has had a devastating effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy."

The report shows that since 2001 California has lost 325,800 jobs (55,400 of these just in the last year) to China due to these policies. And since 2001 2.3 million jobs were lost nationally. According to the report even those workers able to find new jobs saw their wages drop an average of $8,146 per year. (These figures are only for jobs and income lost to China and do not include jobs and income lost to other countries.)

And, of course, this effect is not limited to the workers who lost their job. This also has an effect on works' ability to ask for raises and imporvements in working conditions. ....