AP-GfK Poll: Americans prefer low prices to items ‘Made in the USA’

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

By JOSH BOAK and EMILY SWANSON
WASHINGTON (AP) — The vast majority of Americans say they prefer lower prices instead of paying a premium for items labeled “Made in the U.S.A.,” even if it means those cheaper items are made abroad, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.
While presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are vowing to bring back millions of American jobs lost to China and other foreign competitors, public sentiment reflects core challenges confronting the U.S. economy. Incomes have barely improved, forcing many households to look for the most convenient bargains instead of goods made in America. Employers now seek workers with college degrees, leaving those with only a high school degree who once would have held assembly lines jobs in the lurch. And some Americans who work at companies with clients worldwide see themselves as part of a global market.

Nearly three in four say they would like to buy goods manufactured inside the United States, but those items are often too costly or difficult to find, according to the survey released Thursday. A mere 9 percent say they only buy American.

Asked about a real world example of choosing between $50 pants made in another country or an $85 pair made in the United States — one retailer sells two such pairs made with the same fabric and design — 67 percent say they’d buy the cheaper pair. Only 30 percent would pony up for the more expensive American-made one. People in higher earning households earning more than $100,000 a year are no less likely than lower-income Americans to say they’d go for the lower price.

“Low prices are a positive for US consumers — it stretches budgets and allows people to save for their retirements, if they’re wise, with dollars that would otherwise be spent on day-to-day living,” said Sonya Grob, 57, a middle school secretary from Norman, Oklahoma who described herself as a “liberal Democrat.”

But Trump and Sanders have galvanized many voters by attacking recent trade deals.

From their perspective, layoffs and shuttered factories have erased the benefits to the economy from reduced consumer prices.

“We’re getting ripped off on trade by everyone,” said Trump, the Republican front-runner, at a Monday speech in Albany, New York. “Jobs are going down the drain, folks.”

The real estate mogul and reality television star has threatened to shred the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. He has also threatened to slap sharp tariffs on China in hopes of erasing the overall $540 billion trade deficit.

Economists doubt that Trump could deliver on his promises to create the first trade surplus since 1975. Many see the backlash against trade as frustration with a broader economy coping with sluggish income gains.

“The reaction to trade is less about trade and more about the decline in people’s ability to achieve the American Dream,” said Caroline Freund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It’s a lot easier to blame the foreigner than other forces that are affecting stagnant wage growth like technology.”

But Trump’s message appeals to Merry Post, 58, of Paris, Texas where the empty factories are daily reminders of what was lost. Sixty-eight percent of people with a favorable opinion of Trump said that free trade agreements decreased the number of jobs available to Americans.

“In our area down here in Texas, there used to be sewing factories and a lot of cotton gins,” Post said. “I’ve watched them all shut down as things went to China, Mexico and the Philippines. All my friends had to take early retirements or walk away.”

Sanders, the Vermont senator battling for the Democratic nomination, has pledged to end the exodus of jobs overseas.

“I will stop it by renegotiating all of the trade agreements that we have,” Sanders told the New York Daily News editorial board earlier this month, saying that the wages paid to foreigner workers and environmental standards would be part of any deal he would strike.

Still, voters are divided as to whether free trade agreements hurt job creation and incomes.

Americans are slightly more likely to say free trade agreements are positive for the economy overall than negative, 33 percent to 27 percent. But 37 percent say the deals make no difference. Republicans (35 percent) are more likely than Democrats (22 percent) to say free trade agreements are bad for the economy.

On jobs, 46 percent say the agreements decrease jobs for American workers, while 11 percent say they improve employment opportunities and 40 percent that they make no difference. Pessimism was especially pronounced among the 18 percent of respondents with a family member or friend whose job was offshored. Sixty-four percent of this group said free trade had decreased the availability of jobs.

___

The AP-GfK Poll of 1,076 adults was conducted online March 31-April 4, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Respondents were first selected randomly using telephone or mail survey methods and later interviewed online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn’t otherwise have access to the Internet were provided access at no cost to them.

___

http://ap-gfkpoll.com/featured/ap-gfk-poll-americans-prefer-low-prices-to-items-made-in-the-usa

Another bummer for the Trumpmeister.

[sinkspur]

“In our area down here in Texas, there used to be sewing factories and a lot of cotton gins,” Post said. “I’ve watched them all shut down as things went to China, Mexico and the Philippines. All my friends had to take early retirements or walk away.”

Sewing factories?  I bought polo shirt at Wal-Mart for $8.00 yesterday.   Could somebody sew those seams on that shirt (it's well-made) and have it go through the process, be packaged and distributed for less than
$8.00?  They'd have to or the shirt would cost more. 

Textiles is one area that will NEVER return to American shores and we should be thankful for it.  What demeaning, demoralizing work!!

[Bill Cipher]

I'll take inexpensive over nationalist any time.

[kevindavis007]

I'll take inexpensive over nationalist any time.

Same here..

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I'll take inexpensive over nationalist any time.

THere's a lot of factors, including quality. If I see a tool that is a few cents more expensive but "Made in the USA" I'll certainly buy that tool. Brand names have a certain implicit guarantee of quality. However I do shop a lot at Harbor Freight, the quality varies but the prices are usually excellent.

[massadvj]

They had to take a poll to discover this? 

Thanks to free trade Americans now enjoy the greatest standard of living in the history of human civilization.  Step back 30 years and imagine telling someone that he can talk to anyone of significance in the world at anytime, from anywhere, for free.  Imagine telling him that for the same relative price he was paying for his car in 1985, his new car would have a navigation system system that gave him directions, a backup camera, electronics that enabled him to access about every piece of music ever recorded, and a system that detected when the car was about to crash and prevented it from happening.  All of these things, and much more, have come about because of globalization and technology.  And still, a portion of the electorate (apparently 37 percent of half) wants to put up walls and tear down the bridges we have built with the rest of the world.

It seems to me that the "angry white male" is not angry, but spoiled.

[kevindavis007]

They had to take a poll to discover this? 

Thanks to free trade Americans now enjoy the greatest standard of living in the history of human civilization.  Step back 30 years and imagine telling someone that he can talk to anyone of significance in the world at anytime, from anywhere, for free.  Imagine telling him that for the same relative price he was paying for his car in 1985, his new car would have a navigation system system that gave him directions, a backup camera, electronics that enabled him to access about every piece of music ever recorded, and a system that detected when the car was about to crash and prevented it from happening.  All of these things, and much more, have come about because of globalization and technology.  And still, a portion of the electorate (apparently 37 percent of half) wants to put up walls and tear down the bridges we have built with the rest of the world.

It seems to me that the "angry white male" is not angry, but spoiled.

Also a bad case of living in the past..

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

And still, a portion of the electorate (apparently 37 percent of half) wants to put up walls and tear down the bridges we have built with the rest of the world.

It's not just Trump supporters that hate trade. I would guess close to 100% of Bernie supporters and maybe a certain percentage of Hillary supporters as well.

China is a convenient scapegoat for your own crappy life.

[massadvj]

China is a convenient scapegoat for your own crappy life.

I have a reason to live now that I know Trump will save me from the evil Chinese and Mexicans who have wrecked my country and my life. /s

[Leto]

Yeah pounding your chest and calling for a trade war is so much better than changing out tax and regulatory policies so businesses want to make stuff here.

[Bill Cipher]

THere's a lot of factors, including quality. If I see a tool that is a few cents more expensive but "Made in the USA" I'll certainly buy that tool. Brand names have a certain implicit guarantee of quality. However I do shop a lot at Harbor Freight, the quality varies but the prices are usually excellent.

True enough.  At the individual level, a few pennies here or there won't break the bank.  And the trade off of cost for quality goes for everything.  If I'm a professional mechanic I can justify spending thousands for professional grade tools; if I'm a weekend mechanic who doesn't do anything serious but once or twice a year, then it's much harder to justify as anything other than ego. 

[LMAO]

They had to take a poll to discover this? 

Thanks to free trade Americans now enjoy the greatest standard of living in the history of human civilization.  Step back 30 years and imagine telling someone that he can talk to anyone of significance in the world at anytime, from anywhere, for free.  Imagine telling him that for the same relative price he was paying for his car in 1985, his new car would have a navigation system system that gave him directions, a backup camera, electronics that enabled him to access about every piece of music ever recorded, and a system that detected when the car was about to crash and prevented it from happening.  All of these things, and much more, have come about because of globalization and technology.  And still, a portion of the electorate (apparently 37 percent of half) wants to put up walls and tear down the bridges we have built with the rest of the world.

It seems to me that the "angry white male" is not angry, but spoiled.

Looks like Milton Friedman in your avatar.

His "Capitalism and Freedom" and Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative" is how I developed my political philosophy

[massadvj]

Looks like Milton Friedman in your avatar.

It is.  He is a personal hero of mine, along with Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

True enough.  At the individual level, a few pennies here or there won't break the bank.  And the trade off of cost for quality goes for everything.  If I'm a professional mechanic I can justify spending thousands for professional grade tools; if I'm a weekend mechanic who doesn't do anything serious but once or twice a year, then it's much harder to justify as anything other than ego.

My FIL is a mechanic at a factory and his personal tools are 100% SnapOn. I don't understand how anyone can afford that, hehe.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

True enough.  At the individual level, a few pennies here or there won't break the bank.  And the trade off of cost for quality goes for everything.  If I'm a professional mechanic I can justify spending thousands for professional grade tools; if I'm a weekend mechanic who doesn't do anything serious but once or twice a year, then it's much harder to justify as anything other than ego.

Yep, thanks to 7 years of Obamanoics made the in the USA is usually not my top priority. The only exceptions are tools I plan on putting a lot of mileage on. Then I go for Craftsmen, because of the money back guarantee. Supply and demand always rule the day.