Peoria County, Illinois is leading the nation in wage increases as the region experiences a manufacturing boom for American workers.
In the first quarter of 2018, American workers in Peoria County enjoyed a 24 percent hike in average weekly earnings when compared to the same time last year. This makes Peoria County the leading county in the country for wage increases. The wage hike is six times the national average wage growth.
CEO of the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council Chris Setti told the Chicago Tribune that the wage increases can be attributed to a major manufacturing boom in the area:
“We have seen a real bounce back, especially in the manufacturing sector, and those are good-paying jobs and we have lots of them available,” said Chris Setti, CEO of the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council. Caterpillar had a hiring fair recently for jobs starting at $20 an hour, its competitor Komatsu has radio ads playing offering jobs starting at $24, and their suppliers are hiring as well, he said.
Manufacturing and coal job booms are a direct result of President Trump’s “America First” economic nationalist agenda, where he has imposed tariffs on foreign imports and cut regulations.
Most recently, an Alabama coal mine reopened after closing under President Obama’s crippling coal regulations, as Breitbart News reported. The coal mine rehired its 22 coal miners and even named their new excavator “Trump” in honor of the president that cut coal regulations, allowing them to reopen.
In Gary, Indiana, U.S. Steel announced a $750 million investment into their steel manufacturing plant, the oldest steel mill in the country that once employed the most steelworkers in the world before free trade deals gutted the American steel industry.
“We are experiencing a renaissance at U.S. Steel,” President and CEO David Burritt.
Research by the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) revealed that Trump’s tariffs on imported foreign products and materials like steel and aluminum have resulted in at least 11,100 new American jobs, Breitbart News noted. There are 20 times as many U.S. jobs created by Trump’s tariffs than jobs lost due to the tariffs.
Since 2001, free trade with China has cost millions of Americans their jobs. Between 2001 and 2015, about 3.4 million U.S. jobs were lost due to the country’s trade deficit with China, as Breitbart News reported.
Of the 3.4 million U.S. jobs lost in that time period, about 2.6 million were lost in the crippled manufacturing industry, making up about three-fourths of the loss of jobs from the U.S.-Chinese trade deficit.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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