Buy Quality First / BuyUSfirst.com
Products Made in the USA – Reasons to Buy American-Made Goods
Stroll into any of the superstores, randomly select a product off the shelf, and take a good look at the label. The probability that you’ll see a tag with these three words: “Made in China” is very high! “Made in Mexico” or “Made in Taiwan” are other very popular three words you’ll see on tags as well depending on the product but you’d rarely see “Made in the USA.”
Things haven’t always been like this. Decades ago, most of the products in our stores were made in America however, since the late 90s, there’s been a steady decline in American-made products. Most of the companies in the US have relocated their factories along with the employments they offered to other nations (such as Mexico and China) with lower production costs and cheap labor.
Nevertheless, there is substantial evidence that this trend is beginning to turn around. A report by the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit organization whose aim is to restore manufacturing jobs in the US, states that over three hundred companies have relocated their production units back to America, providing around 240,000 new jobs consequently, since year 2010. For this reason, the “Made in USA” labels, even though still uncommon, are gradually finding their way back on our shelves.
Reasons to Purchase Products Made in America
A report published by Consumer Reports in 2015 stated that about 80% of the American consumers actually have a preference for products manufactured in America. Over 60% said they wouldn’t mind paying up to 10% extra for a product made in America.
There are various reasons consumers have for opting for goods made in America and they include:
Jobs. The commonest reason consumers give for purchasing products made in America is to help in saving or creating jobs in the country. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in its report published in 2015 says that about 5.7 million jobs in manufacturing were lost in the U.S. from 1998 to 2013. Although this loss was partly due to the Great Recession, it was mostly brought about by trade inequities with foreign countries like Mexico and China.
Lower Carbon Footprint. Goods made abroad produce more carbon footprint than American-made goods. China-made or Indian-made products must be transported from across the ocean to get to the stores in America, burning fossil fuel and emitting greenhouse gases along the way.
Less Pollution. Many underdeveloped nations have little or no laws protecting their water and air and that’s one reasons production costs are cheaper there. A lot of factories abroad that manufacture goods to be exported to America also create large quantities of dangerous chemicals that contaminate the water, air, and soil. According to a report by some Chinese researchers documented in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. has successfully contracted out to China, a large amount of its air contamination, where the goods produced for export emit over 33% SO2 (Sulphur dioxide), about 25% of NO (Nitrogen Oxide) and CO (carbon monoxide).
Human Rights. Almost all the countries where goods are produced for America have no regulations protecting the employee rights in addition to having very weak laws regulating the environment. According to a report obtained from Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights in 2015, in China, where toys are produced for top American companies like Mattel, Hasbro, and Disney, the workers labor for 12 – 13 hours daily and fall asleep on wooden bunk beds in overly crowded, filthy, and cold halls. It was reported earlier in Bangladesh (2006) that a child labor factory produced clothing sold by JCPenney and Walmart. Sometimes, the conditions in these foreign sweatshops can become deadly, just like the clothing factory in Bangladesh that collapsed in 2013 and killed over 1,000 workers.
Health. In addition to the absence of environmental and safety regulations abroad risking the lives of foreign workers, it’s also capable of threatening the American consumers health. In the year 2007, numerous kinds of kid’s toys produced in China were removed from the market because they were dangerous. According to The New York Times, some contained hazardous chemicals such as kerosene and lead paint, while others posed a choking hazard.
A Stronger Economy. When you buy goods made in America, you are doing much more than just supporting the people that manufacture these products. The benefits have ripple effects on the whole economy. Once factories in America are prospering, construction firms in America will be hired to build more structures, indigenous accounting firms will be hired to manage their money and energy suppliers will be needed to supply these factories with power. The estimation by EPI is that an extra 1.4 jobs in other economic sectors is being supported by every U.S. manufacturing job.
How to identify US Made Products
1. UPC (most reliable)
According to Snopes.com the first three digits of a Barcode or UPC will tell you the country of origin.
BARCODES- UPC
00 – 13 USA & CANADA
30 – 37 FRANCE
40 – 44 GERMANY
49 – JAPAN
50 – UK
57 – Denmark
64 – Finland
76 – Switzerland and Lienchtenstein
471 – Taiwan
480 – Philippines
628 – Saudi-Arabien
629 – United Arab Emirates
690 – 695 China
740 – 745 Central America
2. Product labeling (Beware)
Watch our for:
Buy Quality First
The world is changing. Where once the majority of manufacturing jobs were in America, we’re seeing more and more instances where this isn’t the case, where jobs have been shipped overseas or just gotten rid of altogether. America no longer leads in terms of goods made, and more and more people are grudgingly okay with buying goods that are most often made in China. While this is the case now, it doesn’t have to be. People can choose to buy American if they want to. This would bring American jobs back and keep the ones that are already here.
The main issue with bringing American jobs back is the issue of pay. Many companies outsource their work to other countries where the pay isn’t as high as it is back here in America. Following money over quality of product, these companies have no problem with closing down American factories so that they can make a higher profit margin by moving somewhere else. This is a bit of an epidemic in our country, and it needs to stop now. The best way to do this is to vote with your wallet. If the American people were to collectively stand up and buy American first before even considering goods from other countries, there will be no issue of American jobs being taken away.
In this post, we’re going to look at why it’s essential to buy American first as well as what you can do about the outsourcing and loss of good American jobs back home.
*You’ll be supporting your fellow Americans.
When you buy US first, you’re sending a message that you won’t tolerate the inferior quality of foreign made goods and instead will have faith in the goods made right here in America. Chances are you won’t go far before you find a person who does or used to work in a factory.
While this kind of a job can be repetitive, workers can still take pride in the fact that they’re creating things for the purpose of helping out their fellow Americans. They are the ones who are keeping our country together through the creation of goods that we can all profit from.
Your neighbor could be a factory worker. Your community leader might be one or know someone who works in a factory. You never know until you ask, and when you hear these stories of their working life, you understand that it’s much bigger than you. These changes can put thousands of Americans out of jobs, with many of them unable to find employment once that factory job is gone. Unemployment can lead to depression and other serious consequences that affect real American lives.
*It’s the patriotic thing to do.
With the way our capitalistic system works, the best way to change things is to vote with your wallet. This will frustrate companies that outsourced jobs and factories to make an extra buck, but this is a good thing. When average people stand up and refuse to patronize companies that get rid of American jobs, they send a powerful message that they want American jobs back.
If you love your country and agree with its policies, one of the best ways to share that message is to purchase American items first. We understand that not all goods have American equivalents, but you’d be surprised by how many items you can get that are made right here in America.
You can also get in touch with your local lawmaker and insist that they put tariffs into place to dissuade companies from shipping jobs overseas. If these overseas companies face a stiff fee to ship their goods here, they’ll be far less likely to do so. This will open up the door for American companies to step in and produce their own goods.
*You’ll be helping the economy.
We’re all interconnected as people and as customers of various companies. When more American jobs are created, the middle class tends to spend more, which only helps the economy and make it more resilient as a result.
When the economy is doing well, we’re all doing well. Unemployment will plummet and stocks will go up as a result. If you look back into history, you’ll see that when the middle class is doing well, the whole country is doing well.
We see reports constantly about where the economy is heading, to the point where we can think that our choices don’t matter, that we aren’t a voice that can be heard. The truth is, though, that we have tremendous power over the fate of our nation. Government is one thing, but it’s we the people who make the real decisions that matter. It’s we the people who make financial choices that impact not just America but the world. It’s we the people who hold in our hands the capacity for financial and economic change in this country.
*It’s the right thing to do.
We all have a conscience, and we can tell when our choices are out of line with our beliefs. We can rationalize that our financial choices are ours alone, but we know that this isn’t true. We comfort ourselves saying that we’re just one person, that our choices won’t sway or affect anything.
However, this couldn’t be more far from the truth. As individuals, we have tremendous power. After all, this country and this world are made up of individuals who collectively make up communities, cities, states, and nations. All of our choices matter, especially our financial ones. No man is an island, and we all need to be conscious of what we are doing. We can’t afford to blind ourselves from the truth and stick our head in the sand. We need to pull together and make the decisions that benefit our workers and our people.
If we all have a conscience and we all can tell when it’s not aligned with our choices, the only logical thing to do is to make choices that do align with our conscience. This includes actions that are distinguished by right or wrong, but it also applies to choices like which product to buy or which store to patronize.
It isn’t only goods that you need to focus on. Plenty of stores sell foreign-made goods almost exclusively. If you notice that the majority or even the entirety of a store’s goods are made in China or elsewhere, you can simply stop patronizing that establishment.
*It saves jobs.
It can get pretty easy to tune out bad news that we see on TV and in our Facebook and Twitter feeds. However, we can’t turn a blind eye to the plight of the American worker who is put out of a job because a factory is being built overseas that can do the same job for cheaper.
Not just does this affect the American job losses, but it also affects the foreign workers as well. For instance, Chinese companies have take to installing nets on the outside of their buildings in order to prevent the high number of suicides that would occur there. If a company has to resort to installing preventative measures for suicide, it shows just how wrong their policies must be.
Companies have not had to take such measures as what the Chinese have done, but that doesn’t take away the fact that scores of jobs are being lost and replaced overseas. In some situations, literally, thousands of jobs are lost when a single factory closure happens. What are these workers supposed to do to keep their homes and feed their children.
The economy isn’t some abstract concept we can’t make sense of. It’s based on financial patterns that we ourselves make. If we make the ones that are in the best interest of our fellow man, we will all benefit together.
Right now, companies in this country have been able to outsource jobs and factories with relative impunity, not having to worry about fallout or the damage that they’ve caused by shutting down vital factories in this country. But when these companies are hit in their wallets, they tend to pay attention quickly. Since the only thing they care about is their bottom line, it behooves us as Americans to hurt that bottom line and to hurt it together.
*It empowers us.
Your One Stop Shop To buying American Made Products!
When we buy American goods first, it empowers not just the buyer of the product but also the maker of that product. It shows them on a visceral level that they’re supported in what they do and that their struggle is understood and acknowledged.
When one of us is empowered, we all are. This is not just something that affects the workers whose jobs are saved but it helps us in a fundamental way as well. Besides the aspect of knowing that you did something good for your country, you also ensure that the economy is doing well and is growing over time.
It’s important that we instill values of hard work and fair play into our children from a young age because the companies in this country are not going to do it. It’s time we stop seeing these corporations as monolithic entities that can’t be touched. If they exist, then they can feel the effects of mass dumping of their brand.
Just as soon as we can dump one company for outsourcing its jobs, we can support those that keep their jobs right here in the United States. This might seem like idealism that can’t happen, but just like with voting, every voice does matter. We might seem small in the grand scheme of things, but added together as a whole we can make huge changes and decisions that will affect us all.
When we band together as people in a united cause, there really is nothing that can keep us down. It starts with a small change and it ends with companies being dramatically affected by our choices. So start up a community that rejects these outsourcing companies, contact your local lawmaker, and get the job done.
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Note: Our searches do not always produce products that are exclusively made in the USA. However we are continually refining our processes to improve the results produced. Sometimes when no other option can be found results are returned with US owned companies. Please read product descriptions to insure product selected is Made In The USA. If you find a product listed on our site that is not US made please feel free to report it to reportImport@learnandserve.org. We will review and make any required corrections.