In a speech in Henderson [no relation], Nevada on July 30, Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance stated, “We believe that a million cheap, knockoff toasters aren’t worth the price of a single American manufacturing job.”
Let’s see. With a quick on-line search, I found that the cheapest toaster and, sure enough, it’s imported, is this one for $14.66 before tax. So one million toasters would fetch $14.6 million. This means that Vance thinks one manufacturing job per year is worth at least $14.6 million per year. The reason is that to save that job for a year would mean giving up one million toasters that year and so saving a job for, say, 10 years would mean giving one million toasters a year for 10 years.
When various economists have given estimates of the cost of saving particular jobs, we often come up with numbers ranging from $100,000 to $1 million per job per year. We often don’t bother to argue that a job that pays, say, $50,000 a year isn’t worth saving if the cost is $500,000. We tend to think it’s obvious. But then we don’t tend to run into people as innumerate, or as uncaring, as J.D. Vance.
Why uncaring? Who does Vance think would do without the $14.66 toaster? The person in Pebble Beach or Beverly Hills? No. It’s much more likely to be the person in Watts or Modesto.
I’ve got a new motto for the Trump campaign that fits the Vance idea more closely than MAGA. It’s MTLA. Make Toasters Less Affordable.
Good article. I suspect Vance is speaking out of his hat and playing to the audience, and more widely, the voter. I'd like to think that if he thought a bit about the literal ramifications of that statement, in private, he'd acquiesce.
This would be an excellent critique were it not for the fact that the political alternative this year would be substantially worse.
That said, we’ll have to see whether or not Trump-Vance ‘24 do as Trump-Pence ‘16 did - talk populist but govern conservative (except, sadly, on spending) - or if they actually do govern as they speak this time.
Let’s at least hope we get a chance to find out, as the alternative - not just for manufacturing jobs, but for almost everything else - is far worse to contemplate.