Make Manufacturing Jobs an Issue in this Presidential Election

Election season is upon us – and now is the time to make sure the presidential candidates know about the importance of manufacturing job growth.

Ask the 2016 candidates what they would do as president to grow manufacturing jobs.

I know I don’t have to tell you how important manufacturing is. More than 12 million Americans are directly employed in manufacturing, and many more are employed indirectly.

These good-paying manufacturing jobs are key to a healthy middle class. It’s no coincidence that the middle class is shrinking at the same time manufacturing is struggling.

Manufacturing certainly faced a tough 2015. There were only 30,000 new jobs created nationwide. We still only have gained back 40 percent of the jobs lost during the Great Recession.

It’s a far cry from where we hoped we would be by now. During the 2012 campaign, President Obama pledged to create 1 million new national manufacturing jobs in his second term – but only 370,000 jobs have been created.

Whoever is elected next will need to pick up the job-growing torch.

Please ask all the candidates to share their plan to create more manufacturing jobs.

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