America’s political obsession with reviving the “hard-hat economy” has deep roots — and deep emotional appeal. From Ross Perot’s warning in 1993 about the “giant sucking sound” of jobs heading to Mexico under NAFTA, to Donald Trump’s vows to bring factories roaring back, to Joe Biden’s promise to rebuild “the backbone of America: manufacturing, unions and the middle class,” the call to restore industrial might has echoed across decades.
It resonates because it taps into something powerful: the image of steelworkers in hard hats, the dignity of assembly lines and the pride of making tangible goods. But nostalgia is not a strategy. The case for making manufacturing central to the U.S. economy again makes little political or economic sense.
The Political Limits of Manufacturing Revival
Politically, the strategy has delivered mixed results at best. Research on the 2016 election found that manufacturing job losses did not uniformly drive voters toward Trump. While predominantly white manufacturing counties showed increased Republican support, more diverse counties with similar losses moved the other way. More recently, in 2024, many Rust Belt counties that benefited from Biden-era industrial incentives still voted for Trump. Manufacturing revival has proved less politically decisive than either party hoped.
An Economy That Has Moved On
Economically, the case is even weaker. Manufacturing now accounts for less than 8% of U.S. employment. For comparison, agriculture — once the backbone of the 19th-century economy — employs less than 2% of Americans today. Few serious policymakers argue that the U.S. should restore farming to its former economic dominance. Yet the same logic often goes unquestioned when applied to manufacturing.
Trump’s preferred tool — tariffs — illustrates the problem. More than half of U.S. imports consist of capital equipment and intermediate goods used by American manufacturers to produce finished products, many of which are exported. According to surveys from the National Association of Manufacturers, the vast majority of firms rely on imported components. Raising tariffs on those inputs increases costs for domestic producers, reducing competitiveness. Steel prices in the United States, for example, are higher than in most global markets, putting downstream manufacturers at a disadvantage.
Industrial Policy and Its Constraints
Biden’s strategy differed in method but not necessarily in outcome. Through legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, his administration directed billions into industrial policy to spur domestic production, particularly in semiconductors and clean energy.
Yet manufacturing output has not surpassed its pre-pandemic level and remains roughly where it stood two decades ago. Manufacturing employment has shown no sustained revival. While factory construction surged for a time, investment in industrial equipment lagged. Some economists argue that the spending drove up costs — including wages, materials, capital goods, interest rates and even the dollar — making production more expensive. Meanwhile, “Buy America” provisions tightened trade barriers without delivering a broad-based renaissance.
Even infrastructure spending has produced underwhelming results. Analyses by economists such as Jason Furman of Harvard’s Kennedy School suggest that real spending on some traditional infrastructure categories contracted despite large federal outlays.
Structural Shifts and Strategic Exceptions
The broader story is one of economic evolution. The United States has gradually shifted from producing goods like cars and electronics to providing services such as finance, healthcare and technology. This progression mirrors the path taken by other advanced economies as incomes rise and productivity increases.
Over the past two decades, the number of manufacturing firms in the U.S. has declined significantly, even as the overall number of businesses has grown. Productivity in manufacturing once allowed output to rise even as employment fell. But about 15 years ago, productivity growth in the sector stalled — even as broader economic productivity continued improving.
There remains a strong argument for targeted industrial support. Certain sectors — advanced semiconductors, defense-related manufacturing and key energy technologies — carry national security or strategic importance. A nation as large and influential as the United States cannot afford to lose capacity in areas critical to resilience or technological leadership.
But that is different from attempting to restore manufacturing to its mid-20th-century share of jobs and identity. Manufacturing workers do earn more on average than many service workers. Yet that reality suggests a different policy focus: raising wages and improving conditions in the service sector, where most Americans now work.
Nostalgia vs. Strategy
The romantic image of grease-stained overalls and factory floors should not drive economic policy. Protectionist tariffs can raise costs for consumers and weaken domestic producers. Large-scale subsidies risk distorting markets without delivering durable job growth. And neither approach appears capable of reversing long-term structural shifts in the economy.
The U.S. economy has changed — and matured. Trying to recreate an earlier industrial era may satisfy political nostalgia, but it does little to address the real challenges of growth, competitiveness and rising living standards in a service-driven, technologically advanced society.
