America’s labor market presents a paradox. Although the unemployment rate is just 3.9%, there are more jobs open than people who can fill them. Nationwide, there are roughly 68 workers for every 100 open jobs. Many factors contribute to this workforce shortage, but one of the most significant is a growing skills gap — millions of workers across the economy are unprepared for in-demand employment opportunities.
In construction and other industries, employers are hurting, desperate for talent, and looking for innovative ways to attract people to open positions. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that the construction industry currently has 407,000 job openings. This shortage is expected to grow, with a projected need for 723,000 workers annually due to economic expansion, worker retirements, and the changing skill needs driven by energy transitions and technological advancements. Some 88% of construction firms report having a hard time finding workers to hire.
To address this challenge, employers in construction and other industries are investing in workforce development — working to ensure current and future workers have the skills needed to succeed in high-demand careers. But employers can’t do it alone. And although federal funding is available to support skill development, it is not nearly enough. Just $28.2 billion out of a total $139.5 billion allocated annually for postsecondary education and training is spent on workforce development.
This policy brief estimates current federal spending on postsecondary workforce education and training and compares these funding levels to funding for traditional academic programs. This brief explores how investment in workforce education today compares to in investment in recent decades. Finally, it offers examples of how four states are investing in workforce education and offers policy recommendations for stakeholders and policymakers to consider for the future.
FACT: Japanese firms are the top international investors in the United States.
THE NUMBERS: Japanese population –
Children and teenagers (0-19 years):
19.5 million
70 years and older:
21.2 million
WHAT THEY MEAN:
Speaking to Congress in Joint Session last April, Prime Minister Kishida radiates confidence in the U.S.-Japan alliance and takes some pride in the Japanese place in American economic life:
“We are on deck, we are on task. And we are ready to do what is necessary. The democratic nations of the world must have all hands on deck. I am here to say that Japan is already standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States. You are not alone. We are with you.” … “Japanese companies have invested around 800 billion dollars, creating almost one million American jobs. These are good jobs with half a million jobs in the manufacturing sector alone.”
Newly-minted PPI Senior Fellow and veteran economic journalist Yuka Hayashi picks up on his themes — alliance, partnership, Japanese industry’s American commitments — in PPI’s newest global-economy research paper “Behind Japan’s U.S. Steel Bid: An Aging, Shrinking Home Market,” through the lens of Nippon Steel’s proposed purchase of venerable Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel.
To start there: Nippon Steel, the world’s fourth-largest steel producer at 43.7 million tons last year, has been a U.S. metal producer since 1984 and is currently the 50% operator of Alabama’s 5-million-ton capacity Calvert steel mill. Its 2023 bid for U.S. Steel, though approved by U.S. Steel’s Board and shareholders, has sparked some U.S. controversy and “economic nationalist” rhetoric. PPI’s Ed Gresser and Diana Moss have examined this through the lens of U.S. foreign direct investment policy and anti-trust law; Hayashi picks up the Japanese side of the story, with a picture of Japanese industrial and manufacturing excellence set against an aging population and in some ways shrinking domestic economy, and a consequent search by leading Japanese firms for options beyond the home islands.
Examined from the U.S. angle, science and industrial data add exclamation points to the PM’s point about the large role of Japanese industry in the U.S. economy. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for example, granted 48,051 U.S. patents to residents of Japan in 2022 (the last year available), which was an eighth of all the 385,433 U.S. patents awarded in total and far beyond PTO’s grants to residents of any country apart from the United States itself. Japan-based businesses, meanwhile, have a “foreign direct investment” stock of $775 billion in the U.S. – a seventh of the $5.25 trillion world total, and more than any other country in the world. (Canada is second at $684 billion and the UK third at $661 billion.) The Japanese firms employ 1.04 million American workers, paying $107.6 billion in wages and salaries — about $103,000 a year on average — and put $13 billion into U.S. research and development. And Kishida’s half a million U.S. manufacturing jobs slightly lowballs the precise figure: the Commerce Department reports 544,000 of the U.S.’ 13 million manufacturing workers at work for Japan-based firms.
Hayashi’s paper, meanwhile, illuminates the Japanese side of the story: some of the impressive investment figures reflect Japanese businesses’ response to profound demographic and economic challenges at home. Japan’s population has fallen from a 2007 peak of 127.7 million people to 124.1 million and is dropping by over 600,000 per year. The country’s 21.2 million 70-and-olders now outnumber the 19.5 million Japanese children and teenagers. This means fewer workers each year, a smaller consumer base, and lower future growth prospects. The result, she explains, is that with Japan’s home economy slowly contracting, Japanese industry seeks growth by producing and selling abroad:
“Combined with sluggish wage growth in recent decades, demand for everything from housing, cars to snack food has been shrinking in Japan. The downturn is likely to intensify. That has pushed Japanese companies, big and small, to expand abroad if they can compete. Overall, Japanese manufacturers are projected to earn 39% of their revenues outside of Japan during fiscal 2023, up from 29% two decades ago, according to a survey of 534 companies by Japan Bank for International Cooperation, a government lender. The companies planned to manufacture 36% of their products outside of Japan, compared with 26% in fiscal 2003.”
Auto star Toyota, for example, sells 1.7 million of its cars at home and 8.6 million elsewhere; therefore, it now makes only 3 million of its 10 million vehicles in Japan itself, while producing another 3 million in China, the United States, and Thailand, and three million more in factories spread across Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Nippon Steel is making similar choices. With Japan’s own steel use down from a 99 million-ton peak in 1990 to 58 million tons in 2023, Nippon Steel is closing five furnaces in Japan; meanwhile, since 2019 it has launched a massive joint venture with Euro-Indian firm ArcelorMittal in India, and bought facilities in Sweden, Thailand, and Brazil. Hence its high interest in an American partner. Hayashi concludes that the idea makes sense for both countries:
“Nippon’s emergence as a bidder for a prominent American manufacturer is an inevitable outcome of a changing economic landscape. In the past, Japanese companies came to the U.S. to build factories to escape the impact of trade friction and currency appreciation. Now they are doubling down because there is no longer enough demand at home to support their growth. The U.S. is where they see opportunities. All of this will yield significant benefits for the American economy and workers should the U.S. welcome foreign investment by friendly nations like Japan.
…
“The beneficiaries, in particular, will be American workers without college degrees, who tend to reap greater rewards from good manufacturing jobs. Increased FDI will also mean more of the funding and innovative know-how the U.S. will need to improve productivity, reduce reliance on imports and withstand competition from China. That’s particularly true for the steel industry where companies have struggled with Chinese overcapacity even as they face enormous pressures and funding requirements to shift to greener technologies. The Biden administration’s own “friend-shoring” strategy calls for closer ties and cooperation with allies and like-minded countries. The goal is to strengthen supply chains for critical products in order to strengthen national security and respond to future emergencies. It is difficult to see the wisdom of any response to Nippon Steel’s bid short of embracing the vote of confidence in our marketplace that the Japanese company’s proposed transaction represents.”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s most recent patent data.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis’ annual look at international business investment in the U.S. has figures by country and industry, and topics from employment and wages to exports, imports, and R&D. A quick table of current FDI stock value (2022, the most recent year available) for the world, top five, and all others combined:
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
When Japan’s industrial titan Nippon Steel sought to acquire U.S. Steel late last year, it set off a chorus of American opposition.
Union leaders and lawmakers railed against the deal in language reminiscent of the U.S.-Japan trade wars of the 1980s and 1990s. President Biden — nodding to swing state votes in steel country — said U.S. Steel must remain “domestically owned and operated.”
Leave aside the election year politics — and how it tests the ability of an American company to pursue what it sees as the most logical strategy for itself. The bid reflects Japan’s rise to the largest foreign investor in American businesses. And this investment surge is unlike those of years past when Tokyo’s overseas expansion was part of its rising economic clout. Today, the opposite is true.
Japan’s relentless population decline is causing its market to shrink. So Japanese companies are turning to the U.S. for growth, thereby setting a precedent for other foreign companies facing similar demographic challenges in their home markets.
It is a precedent Washington policymakers would do well to note. The Nippon Steel bid illustrates how, in the coming years, more foreign companies with declining populations are going to seek to invest in the U.S.
This is a trend the U.S. should welcome and seek to leverage while making sure investments come from trusted allies, not from strategic rivals, including China, to avoid leakage of technology.
Foreign investments — particularly those in manufacturing — create both jobs and fresh opportunities for local businesses. Rural areas such as midwestern factory towns will be beneficiaries.
Allied investments bring capital and innovation that allow the U.S. to better compete against China. The Biden administration, through “friendshoring,” is already working with allies and likeminded nations to strengthen and secure supply chains for critical products. That strategy should include embracing U.S.-bound investments from those same close allies, starting with Japan.
Big beneficiaries of this approach will be American workers, especially those without college degrees, who tend to gain from good manufacturing jobs.
Washington, D.C. — Faced with a rapidly shrinking and aging population at home, Japanese companies have been sharply increasing investments in the U.S., the world’s largest and growing consumer market. Despite Japan’s economic struggles in recent decades, the country became the number one investor in U.S. businesses in 2019, and the trend is expected to continue. Other nations in Asia and Europe with similar demographic challenges are likely to follow its lead, bringing opportunities for new jobs and economic growth to American communities.
Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a report titled “Behind Japan’s U.S. Steel Bid: An Aging, Shrinking Home Market,” which provides a fresh perspective on the Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel merger by closely examining Japan’s economic realities behind Nippon Steel’s pursuit of the American industrial icon. While Japan is just one example of an allied country struggling with domestic economic growth, other friendly allied countries are looking to the U.S. as an attractive investment destination.
“The population’s shrinking and aging has been pushing Japanese businesses to invest in the U.S. to chase growth, and those from other countries facing similar challenges will surely follow,” said report author Yuka Hayashi. “The U.S. has to decide whether to embrace this exceptionally fortunate position as the world’s prime investment destination or turn inward and spurn opportunities to grow.”
As competition with China escalates, the report emphasizes the importance of the longstanding U.S.-Japan relationship and makes the case for the joint benefits of the merger for both Japan and the United States. Allied countries like Japan are rushing to take advantage of tax credits and subsidies provided by the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, and the report argues the U.S. should welcome the influx of friendly foreign investment with open arms, while making sure critical technology doesn’t fall into the hands of adversarial nations.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.
Public school teachers are stressed out by their work. They have a gloomy outlook on the problems students face and a dim view of K-12 education’s future. These and other bleak views are chronicled in a new Pew Research Center survey of classroom teachers entitled What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?
Truth be told, teachers are just as prone as the rest of us to overstate how bad things are. Moreover, this survey is a snapshot of one point in time.
But it is important to understand teachers’ perceptions of K-12 education following Covid-19. This means listening to their voices and their unflattering reflections, as challenging as they are.
Washington, D.C. — Congress is in the process of reauthorizing and expanding the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) Act which provides the United States a plan for advancing quantum research and technological development. This bill, and others being considered by Congress, gives the United States government the ability to play an important role in supporting near-term quantum technologies that have the power to revolutionize private and public sector real-world challenges, such as electrical grid resilience, port optimization, and global supply chain management.
Today, the Progressive Policy Institute’s (PPI) Innovation Frontier Project (IFP) released a new report titled “U.S. Quantum Technology Leadership Hinges on Federal Policy in the 118th Congress,” which lays out the state of today’s quantum industry and identifies policy recommendations for the reauthorization and expansion of the NQI and related legislation. Report author Allison Schwartz, Vice President of Global Government Relations and Public Affairs at D-Wave explains the passage of these important bills will help close the gap that has emerged between the pace of quantum technological innovation and the domestic policies that guide the quantum industry.
“If the United States wants to remain a global leader in quantum technology, Congress must swiftly expand and pass the reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act,” said Allison Schwartz, author of the report. “Doing so will help solve some of our nation’s most pressing public sector issues and put the U.S. in line with other leading nations who are investing in long-term quantum technology.”
The report makes the following policy recommendations for the reauthorization and expansion of the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) Act and related legislation:
Boosting investment in long-term hardware advancements to keep up with other countries.
Ensuring that the NQI inclusively incorporates the full range of near-term and long-term technologies, including quantum annealing, gate-model, and quantum-classical hybrid technologies.
Supporting the development and deployment of near-term use cases through new quantum sandbox programs.
Enhancing access to commercial quantum systems by funding the quantum user access program (QUEST) authorized in the CHIPS and Science Act.
Building an integrated high-performance computing and quantum computing data-center domestic infrastructure.
Supporting domestic component and chip fabrication in addition to commercial-scale rapid prototyping research and development.
Enhancing international quantum cooperation agreements to include commercialization, talent development, and supply chains as well as academic research.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.
Quantum computing, a technology that uses quantum mechanics to perform computation at speeds greater than today’s “classical” computers, has the power to revolutionize private and public sector problem-solving. Pressing real-world challenges such as electrical grid resilience, port optimization, global supply-chain management, emergency management and response, infrastructure development, sustainability, and the security of telecommunication networks can all be addressed by quantum applications.
This policy report examines the current state of the quantum industry, including rapid advancements that have occurred over the past five years. Two quantum computing “modalities” will be distinguished: annealing, which is being used to solve optimization problems today, and gate-model, where the applications are mostly further off in the future. Most problems will
continue to need classical computations for parts of those problems, therefore, quantum-classical hybrid applications — where quantum computing technologies work synergistically with classical computers — are being developed to solve challenging problems.
From the policy perspective, understanding the different quantum computing technologies is important because Congress is in the process of reauthorizing and expanding the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) Act which expired on September 30, 2023. In addition, a variety of other quantum-related initiatives are being considered by Congress.
Up to now, the federal government has mostly focused on supporting longer-term basic research in quantum technology, which is important for long-term competitiveness. But the government also has an important role to play in supporting near-term quantum technologies such as annealing.
This paper offers policy recommendations for the reauthorization and expansion of the NQI and related legislation, including:
• Boosting investment in long-term hardware advancements to keep up with other countries.
• Ensuring that the NQI addresses the full range of near-term and long-term technologies, including regularly conducting technology readiness-level (TRL) assessments.
• Supporting the development and deployment of near-term use cases through new quantum sandbox programs.
• Enhancing access to commercial quantum systems by funding the quantum user access program (QUEST) authorized in the CHIPS and Science Act.
• Building an integrated high-performance computing and quantum computing data-center domestic infrastructure.
• Supporting domestic component and chip fabrication in addition to commercial-scale rapid prototyping research and development.
• Enhancing international quantum cooperation agreements to include commercialization, talent development, and supply chains as well as academic research.
In addition, the NQI and related legislation must support the development of a skilled workforce that can support the growing U.S. quantum industry, and the end users of the technology both in the private and public sectors. That means funding talent programs that permit students to access the variety of quantum computing training courses created by industry, and supporting academic programs that attract and retain talent from diverse and underserved populations.
As donors and investors gather this week in Berlin for the Ukraine Recovery Conference, all eyes are on helping the besieged nation. In Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea, the Danish government assists by jump-starting local businesses, fighting corruption—and helping Ukraine shake off its Soviet economic legacy.
The damage is evident everywhere in Mykolaiv, once a bustling port and shipbuilding hub near the Black Sea, 85 miles east of Odesa. Russian and Ukrainian forces fought hand to hand in and around the city in March 2022, followed by eight months of relentless shelling by the frustrated invading army. In November, Ukrainian troops pushed the Russians out of range, and the invaders never made it to Odesa.
More than two years later, many of the windows in the working-class city are still covered with plywood. Parking lots are pocked with shell craters. There’s a gaping eight-story hole at the center of the empty regional administration building—a reminder of the missiles meant to assassinate popular Governor Vitalii Kim that killed 37 civil servants in late March 2022.
The city’s economic engine—the port—is idle. Russians still control the mouth of the channel that connects Mykolaiv to the Black Sea, and no cargo has come or gone since February 2022. The nearly 300-year-old town teems with displaced persons from southern Ukraine, but a quarter of the city’s prewar population of 480,000 has yet to return.
Welcome to the first of PPI’s weekly bulletin charting the course of the UK General Election, from PPI’s Claire Ainsley.
Claire is based in the UK, directing PPI’s project on center-left renewal, and is former director of policy to Labour leader Keir Starmer. She is supporting the Labour campaign, as a media commentator, as well as on the ground ahead of polling day on Thursday 4th July.
The UK is now just four weeks away from what is promising to be the most important election in more than a decade. Incumbent Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took everyone by surprise – including whoever holds the PM’s umbrella, it seems – by making a rain-soaked announcement on the steps of Downing Street that he was calling a General Election months earlier than anyone expected.
With the Conservatives entering the race 20 points behind in the opinion polls, and a large 80-seat majority to defend, it wasn’t immediately obvious why go now. A clue can be found in PPI’s recent research on working-class voters, covered here in the UK Guardian, showing that the Conservatives are under increasing pressure from Reform UK, a new political party that is mobilising voters primarily concerned about immigration. Our poll showed Reform has doubled their support amongst working-class voters between September 2023 and May 2024. The English Channel boat crossings are likely to rise over the summer months, and combined with an economy that voters don’t believe has turned a corner, perhaps Sunak thought things could get worse later in the year.
If anything, things have gotten worse for Sunak, and sooner than he might have expected. The polls have showed little sign of budging in his direction, despite some internal Labour politics clouding an otherwise assured start from the opposition. And on Monday, Nigel Farage decided to abandon his role as a Trump campaign champion, and enter the UK race as the newly-installed leader of Reform UK. Within days, opinion polls are showing that Reform is eating into the Conservative vote in particular. But so too are Reform having an effect on Labour too, with polls showing a dip for both the main parties.
What is underlying all of this is the dissatisfaction voters feel about how ineffective the Conservative government has been at tackling the challenges they face on the issues that matter most to them. This poll from PPI featured in the Mirror shows that working-class voters, a crucial electoral base for the center-left, think the Conservatives are failing them on the economy, the NHS, and on immigration.
So far, we haven’t seen much of a debate about the substance of the programmes and policies that the parties propose to remedy the country’s ills. But with another four weeks to go, and manifestos published in the next fortnight, expect to see a greater competition on policy and more heat on all the parties to convince voters they have the answers they’re looking for.
U.S. allies will converge in Washington next month for this year’s NATO summit, which also marks the 75th anniversary of the most successful collective security pact in modern times.
Amid the prosaic business of managing a 32-nation alliance, one urgent question will hover over the gathering: Are the transatlantic partners doing enough to prevent Russia from snuffing out Ukraine’s sovereignty?
If they fail, it won’t just be a tragedy for Ukraine. Its defeat or dismemberment would reward Vladimir Putin’s aggression and whet his appetite for regaining control over other former Soviet possessions, such as Armenia, Moldova and the Baltic states.
Last week, Senator Roger Wicker, the GOP ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called for increasing U.S. defense spending from roughly 3% to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) over the next five to seven years to prepare for increased geopolitical tensions with Russia, China, and Iran. That would require at least $5 trillion in new federal spending over the next decade, for which Senator Wicker offers no offsets.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans also want to spend an additional $4 trillion over the next decade to extend the Trump 2017 tax cuts, most of which are currently set to expire in 2026. Even if there were national security merits to Senator Wicker’s proposal, Republicans have offered the country no explanation for how they intend to finance $9 trillion in spending, which would reverse the $1.5 trillion of savings they secured in last year’s Fiscal Responsibility Act several times over. By comparison, the most recent Biden budget proposed $4.1 trillion in new spending over the next decade, and much of that was offset by proposed tax increases.
Wicker’s plans for a dramatic ramp-up of defense spending were swiftly endorsed by Mitch McConnell and several other prominent Republicans. However, the proposal does not spell out a clear strategic rationale for such a high defense target. In an op-ed defending the proposal, Wicker cites the unfunded priorities lists annually requested by the Pentagon as one justification for this increase. However, the spending increase that would be required to fully fund all these priorities is less than one-tenth of what Wicker is calling for. Moreover, there is clearly some room for the Pentagon to pay for these priorities by spending smarter rather than spending more. The Inspector General’s Office, the Government Accountability Office, and the Defense Business Board have all suggested that smarter procurement and personnel decisions could save money with few negative consequences for military readiness.
But if our country faces threats dire enough to justify this new spending, you’d expect a party that has repeatedly threatened to crash the economy in the name of “fiscal discipline” to come up with ways to pay for it. Yet Republicans have instead chosen to do the opposite, calling for even more tax cuts for affluent Americans by making their 2017 tax bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), permanent. Although TCJA made some positive changes to simplify the individual tax code that are worth extending, it also lavished almost two-thirds of the overall benefits on the top fifth of income earners. And contrary to GOP claims that the law would pay for itself, even sympathetic estimates say only about 14% of the total cost is estimated to be recouped through faster economic growth.
America cannot afford the GOP’s reckless spending proposals. The federal government spent $2 trillion more than it raised in revenue last year — a deficit that cannot be justified at a time of strong economic growth and record-low unemployment rates. Interest costs as a percent of GDP are now higher than at any other point in American history, and they are projected to more than double over the next 30 years even if current law remains unchanged. If this growth continues unchecked, interest costs will begin to crowd out other important priorities, including national defense. This scenario is hardly hypothetical, as interest payments on the debt eclipsed defense spending for the first time last year. If the GOP truly wanted to ensure military readiness, they would ensure that defense spending is sustainable rather than pitch unrealistic spending surges.
Ultimately, these GOP proposals highlight how unserious their party is on improving the nation’s fiscal outlook. Despite their routine demonization of fiscal proposals from the other side of the aisle, they fail to recognize the complete incompatibility and hypocrisy of their own $9 trillion priorities. Republicans want to spend now and pay later — by sticking young Americans with the bill. Policymakers in Congress and the Administration should be having a serious dialogue about what is necessary to correct the nation’s fiscal trajectory, not making it worse.
Washington, D.C. — Climate change, coupled with flawed historical forestry practices, has exacerbated the frequency and intensity of wildfires in the United States. Due to a shortage of dedicated firefighting resources, military units — including active-duty forces — are deployed to suppress wildland fires ever more often. Meanwhile, the U.S. armed forces’ extensive foreign commitments show no indication of abating, especially considering China’s burgeoning military strength and Russia’s continued aggression in Ukraine.
Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report titled, “Redefining the Military’s Role in Wildfire Suppression,” which makes the case for increased investments in civilian firefighting resources and new modern forestry and fire reduction techniques in an effort to reduce reliance on the U.S. military. While military forces have served an indispensable role in U.S. fire suppression, creating new fire management plans and reinforcing nonmilitary firefighting assets will help bolster the nation’s ability to respond to intensifying wildfires while leaving the armed forces with leeway to address their primary commitments.
“The increasing demand for the military to engage in wildfire suppression threatens to undermine global force posture in a climate of growing instability and multipolarity,” said Alec Evans, Energy Policy Fellow at PPI. “It is critical for the U.S. to enhance its dedicated wildland firefighting resources in order to safeguard its military strength, especially as U.S. wildfires continue to intensify and the prospect of great power competition returns to prominence.”
The report evaluates the military’s role in wildfire suppression and examines the legal and command framework behind military wildland firefighting assignments, offering policy recommendations to prepare the U.S. military and civilian agencies for the growth of future fire seasons. As climate change increases the threat posed by wildfires and the armed forces become further engaged in great power competition, the United States must implement proactive reforms now to prevent greater future climate catastrophes.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.
Wildfires are becoming more widespread, frequent, and destructive due to climate change and historical malpractices in forest management. As civil agencies become overwhelmed, U.S. firefighting efforts have become more dependent on military resources. Between 2017 and 2021, the National Guard’s man-hours spent fighting wildfires grew more than tenfold; wildfire costs ballooned to almost $82 billion over the same period.
The armed forces field unique capabilities that can benefit firefighting efforts, particularly the ability to rapidly deploy large forces to remote locations. However, overrelying on the military to combat wildfires could impair its capacity to ensure U.S. national security. If the current model of double-tasking military units persists, the country would be unable to mount an adequate response if faced with both a high-intensity conflict and a severe wildfire season. Therefore, given the armed forces’ increasing commitments abroad and the expanding threat of wildfires to the homeland, other government agencies and private contractors should shoulder the growing burden of fire suppression and implement more efficient fire practices so that military units can remain dedicated to their core missions.
With cyberattacks on the rise, our data privacy has never been in greater peril.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s work helping keep that information safe has been welcome, including his recent call for Meta to step up efforts to thwart hackers. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, protections can go too far. And now we need his leadership to set things straight.
As schools and universities grapple with preparing young Americans for the world of work, American employers struggle to find enough workers to fill jobs they have available. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in May 2024 the U.S. labor market had 8.5 million job openings and 6.5 million unemployed people, which is about 1.3 jobs for every unemployed person.
A great deal of ink has been spilled and dollars spent trying to bridge this disconnect between worker supply and demand. Much of that effort assumes that the traditional pipeline from high school to a two- or four-year college to the workforce or some variation on this approach is the only, or best, way forward. But many Americans, including employers and young people, are questioning whether a college degree is the best pathway to a good job and adult success.
They want other education and training pathways that prepare individuals for employment and adult success. These new avenues include apprenticeships, which typically integrate paid, on-the-job training with formal classroom instruction. These “learn and earn” pathways offer an alternative to the traditional college campus experience by creating a school and workplace campus experience.
These new apprenticeship pathways are just beginning to take shape. Early returns are very promising. This means it is an area ripe for philanthropic impact. Individual donors and foundations wanting to create more pathways to opportunity for individuals in their communities should consider funding apprenticeship programs. In doing so, they foster opportunity pluralism.
FACT: ILO: $236 billion in worldwide profits from forced labor, three-quarters of it from forced sex work.
THE NUMBERS: ILO estimates of forced labor worldwide, 2021 –
Total:
27.6 million
Sex work
6.3 million
“Industry”*
6.3 million
Services
5.5 million
Governments:
3.9 million
Agriculture
2.1 million
Domestic service
1.4 million
Other:
1.9 million
* Includes construction, manufacturing, mining and quarrying, and utilities.
WHAT THEY MEAN:
From the International Labour Organization, two reports describe the shadow-world economy of forced labor:
The first Global Estimates of Modern Slavery Forced Labour and Forced Marriage, released in 2022, develops a human picture by estimating the scale of forced labor in the world, describing the various forms it can take, and providing details by industry, age, gender, and other characteristics. The core number: in 2021, 27.6 million of the world’s 3.4 billion workers — 0.8%, just under one in a hundred — were in various forms of “forced labour,” defined as “work that is both involuntary and under penalty or menace of a penalty (coercion)”. The most common form, representing 36% of the 27.6 million workers — 9.9 million people — involves workers trapped in jobs by withholding pay. Others include debt bondage, threat of violence by criminal gangs (often in sex work), and in 1% of cases chattel slavery.
By industry, the ILO estimates 3.9 million people in state-driven forced labor programs, and 6.3 million in forced sex work, including 4.9 million women and girls and 1.4 million men and boys (or, alternatively, 4.6 million adults and 1.7 million children). Another 6.3 million are in private-sector “industrial” work; 5.5 million in services; 2.1 million in agriculture; 1.4 million in domestic service such as maid and nanny work; and 1.9 million in other fields. By region, 55% of the total — 15.1 million people — were in Asia/Pacific countries, a figure slightly below Asia’s 59% share of the world workforce; the highest forced labor rate, proportional to workforce, was in the Middle East, and the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. ILO also finds cross-border migrant workers at especially high risk, making make up 15% of the 27.6 million — 4.1 million people — but only 5% of the total world workforce. The report does not speculate on how much-forced labor goods production enters international trade flows. It notes, though, that forced labor rates appear “highest in severity and scale” in “informal micro- and small enterprises operating at the lower links of supply chains in high-risk sectors and locations,” and that with respect to trade destined for wealthier countries, forced labor is likely most common in “raw materials production in the lower tiers of supply chains of consumer goods.”
The second report, “Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour,” came out this past March and adds financial numbers. Two large ones stand out:
1. A quarter trillion dollars in profits: According to this report, forced labor enterprises generated $236 billion in profits worldwide. To put this in perspective, the IMF estimates the world’s 2021 GDP at $97 trillion, and McKinsey consultants have guessed that corporate profits in general have been about 8% to 10% of world GDP over the last decade. With the caution that GDP estimates in general are blurry and estimates of the size of criminal enterprises especially so, these figures suggest that forced-labor profits amount to about 2% of about $10 trillion in total business profits, and about 0.2% of world GDP. Looked at from a different angle, in 2021 the world’s most profitable company (Saudi Aramco), reported $110 billion in profit.
2. Three-quarters of forced-labor profit comes from forced sex work: The ILO believes about $173 billion of this $236 billion in profit — essentially three-quarters of the total — comes from forced sex work. (Again, the 6.3 million people in forced sex work are about a quarter of the world’s forced labor victims.) The remaining $64 billion includes $35 billion from industry, $20.9 billion from services, $5 billion from agriculture, and $2 billion from domestic service. The report also provides a ‘profit per victim’ range, illustrating the especially high profits drawn from victims of forced sex work: $27,252 for forced sex work, $4,944 in industry, $3,407 in services, $2,113 in agriculture, and $1,570 from domestic service. ILO suggests that the very high extraction of profits from forced sex work reflects the fact that “in most cases people in forced commercial sexual exploitation are paid very little or nothing at all,” are particularly likely to be held in debt bondage, and typically have “limited or no access to justice.”
FURTHER READING
The ILO’s 2022 look at the human world of forced labor (as of 2021), with totals by region, industry, and explanations of different varieties of abuse.
And follows up this March with an investigation of profits.
Policy:
The ILO reports illustrate a world. How might governments and observers respond? With many different varieties of forced labor, responses vary but include a mix of police work and courts, media and public exposure, diplomacy, Customs enforcement, and other options. Two contemporary cases — the eradication of government-sponsored forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry over the 2010s, and the Biden administration’s more recent work to eliminate forced labor from Malaysian rubber-glove production, offer some insights on successful approaches.
Uzbek cotton:
Put briefly, Uzbekistan’s cotton industry is a large part of the national economy, accounting for about 20% of Uzbekistan’s export earnings. For the first 25 years of its post-Soviet history, the Uzbek government required residents of cotton-growing districts to participate in autumn cotton harvesting. As such, it was a state-led forced labor program rather than a collection of small-scale private enterprises the ILO report suggests account for most world forced labor. Over the 2010s, a combination of international pressure and internal reform led the Uzbek government to abolish this system and convert cotton harvesting to paid work. Core factors in this reform include:
(a) A fifteen-year international activist effort through the “Cotton Campaign” involving businesses, labor unions, and human rights groups, to bring attention to forced labor in the cotton industry and discourage purchases of Uzbekistan cotton.
(b) International government pressures, in the U.S. case including regular human rights reports published by the State and Labor Departments, and a “review,” entailing possible cancellation, of the tariff waivers Uzbekistan received through the Generalized System of Preferences.
(c) Contingent factors, in particular, the death in office of post-Soviet leader Islam Karimov and his replacement by a new leader, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, whose government hoped to repair the reputational damage associated with forced labor and put sustained effort, with ILO advice and monitoring, into reshaping the cotton industry.
A March 2022 ILO report announcing an end to “systemic forced labour and child labour” in Uzbek cotton harvesting.
And via the Uzbekistan Embassy in D.C., remarks from Tanila Narbaeva (Chair of National Commission on Combatting Human Trafficking and Forced Labor) on the abolition of forced labor and next steps in labor reform.
Rubber gloves:
A more recent Biden administration program — the investigation of rubber gloves produced by six Malaysian companies from 2019 through 2021, and remediation afterward — addresses a situation closer to those the ILO reports are most common. The line workers in these glove factories are mostly migrants from other countries; U.S. Customs and Border Protection investigators in 2021 found credible evidence of unfree recruitment, debt bondage, confiscation of passports, and other abuses. CBP accordingly prohibited imports from these companies and their subsidiaries through a “Withhold Release Order”. Following this, a program of consultation and reform, including through the Malaysian government, the ILO, and the companies, enabled CBP to find that many of the companies had remediated the conditions and reopen trade. A chronology:
The Department of Labor reviews Customs and Border Protection’s initial Withhold Release Order, July 2020 through September 2021.
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
