{"id":303262,"date":"2026-02-21T18:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/303262\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T18:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:46:12","slug":"nobel-economist-joseph-stiglitz-warns-blue-collar-job-loss-is-among-biggest-threats-to-u-s-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/303262\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz warns blue-collar job loss is among biggest threats to U.S. economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nobel Prize\u2013winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has a poor prognosis for the state of the economy: \u201cNot great right now,\u201d he said on CNBC\u2019s Squawk Pod<\/a> on Thursday. \u201cAnd the prospects are that it\u2019s going to get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a criticism of President Donald Trump\u2019s economic policies, Stiglitz said one of the greatest threats to the precarious health of the U.S. economy was slumping blue-collar jobs, including a scarcity of manufacturing roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know what happened to jobs in manufacturing in the last year? They\u2019re down,\u201d he said. \u201c[Trump] didn\u2019t succeed over the last year in bringing back manufacturing jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Joint Economic Committee analysis<\/a> published earlier this month revealed 108,000 fewer manufacturing jobs last year, nearly double the estimation from Bureau of Labor Statistics data in November, which found 59,000 fewer jobs<\/a>. Jobs data from February 2025 to last month shows a 166,000 total loss in blue-collar jobs<\/a>, which also includes construction, mining, and warehousing. Stiglitz alluded to tariffs being a reason behind the collapse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decline in blue-collar jobs is even larger,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd you look at, where is the increase in jobs in the United States\u2014health care. Does that have anything to do with the tariffs? No.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Stiglitz noted the growth of the health care sector is the result of more people growing older and is less dependent on broader macroeconomic trends.)<\/p>\n

U.S. companies such as Ford have sounded the alarm on shortages in blue-collar labor. CEO Jim Farley said a dearth of blue-collar workers<\/a> would not be bad news just for manufacturing, but also for the wider tech industry, as it would slow down data center construction.<\/p>\n

The White House claimed early in Trump\u2019s second term that manufacturing had come \u201croaring back\u201d<\/a> under his administration, with the president claiming his aggressive tariff strategy would be a catalyst for American reshoring<\/a> of manufacturing jobs by disincentivizing foreign production. These efforts are now in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday the Trump administration cannot impose tariffs<\/a> under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), setting up $175 billion in estimated tariff revenue to potentially be refunded to companies hit by the taxes and raising questions over the future of Trump\u2019s tariff policy.<\/p>\n

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said trillions of dollars in investments are fueling American manufacturing, reflected in a surge in specialty trade construction jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith both productivity and real wages for manufacturing workers surging, the best is yet to come as the president\u2019s policies continue taking effect,\u201d Desai said in a statement to Fortune.<\/p>\n

The irony of Trump\u2019s tariffs<\/p>\n

Economists have warned Trump\u2019s tariffs have not only backfired as American households and companies foot the bill for the import taxes<\/a>, but the levies have also partly caused the manufacturing slump they were meant to fix.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is striking how soft manufacturing has been because, in theory, you put tariffs in place to protect domestic manufacturing, so that domestic manufacturing employment grows,\u201d Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Fortune<\/a> in November. \u201cAnd we have seen the opposite of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ullrich said the economic uncertainty tariffs have brought has disincentivized companies from hiring. A September 2025 note from Pantheon Macroeconomics analysts Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen posited that shrinking wage growth in the U.S. was a result of firms with high tariff exposure trying to preserve slim margins by cutting labor costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOftentimes when there is heightened uncertainty, it\u2019s just difficult for businesses and people to make decisions in real time,\u201d Ullrich said. \u201cAnd so that slows down employment. It slows down all those processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manufacturing jobs may be uniquely vulnerable to tariffs as a result of heavy taxes on intermediate goods<\/a>, including raw materials like steel and aluminum that are key in producing finished goods. Tariffs on these goods can raise input costs, further pressuring manufacturing companies. When President George Bush implemented steel tariffs during his second term in 2002, steel manufacturing unemployment was depressed, even years after the tariffs were removed, a study<\/a> published in November 2025 in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy found.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you tax the intermediate goods, that\u2019s going to manufacturers directly,\u201d Ullrich said. \u201cThat\u2019s part of what we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nobel Prize\u2013winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has a poor prognosis for the state of the economy: \u201cNot great right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,54,184,85,46,3961,4319,12981],"class_list":{"0":"post-303262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-labor","14":"tag-manufacturing","15":"tag-tariffs-and-trade"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}