May 10, 2017

A Quick Look at Manufacturing Jobs

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Donald Trump is bragging today that “Manufacturing openings, hires rise to highest levels of the recovery.” Well of course they have. As long the economy keeps expanding, openings will set a new record every month, more or less. Like so:

If you want to know how manufacturing is really doing, you want to look at it as a percentage of all job openings. Here you go:

Meh. Manufacturing job openings have been declining since 2012, but have shown a small uptick since the start of 2016. Nothing to get excited about, though.

I know, I know: who cares? Well, what can I tell you? I’m just trying to take my mind off the whole, incredible Comey thing. It’s mind boggling. Maybe today is a good day to start sniffing glue.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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