Poll: Voters overwhelmingly blame bad trade deals for job loss

Teamsters rallied recently against Fast Track. 

Voters on the left, right and center agree that jobs are the biggest national problem, and they overwhelmingly believe bad trade deals cause job loss, according to two new polls.

A poll by Gallup shows

Americans have a new No. 1 problem. Nearly one in four Americans mention jobs and unemployment as the most important problem facing the country, up from 16% in January.

Another poll, conducted for the American Alliance of Manufacturing, found voters by a large margin blame outsourcing for the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Dave Johnson at Campaign for America's Future writes,

The public gets it that one-sided trade agreements are shipping jobs out of the country – and they want our government to do something about it. 

A new Gallup poll shows that jobs and unemployment has risen to the No. 1 spot on the country’s “most important problem” list. At the same time another poll, this one of likely voters, confirms this and drills down to find that voters overwhelmingly see unfair trade agreements and outsourcing as a main cause of our job problem.

The findings include:

• 79 percent of voters blame trade agreements and unfair trade, and want enforcement, including 76-77 percent of Republican voters.
• 65 percent of voters blame outsourcing for the lack of new manufacturing jobs (70 percent of Democrats, 61 percent of independents and 65 percent of Republicans). 
• Only 28 percent of voters say the lack of manufacturing jobs is due to a shortage of skilled workers.
• 60 percent of voters say the U.S. needs to “get tough” with countries like China.
• Only one in four voters says it's too expensive to manufacture in America.
• Eight in 10 voters want strong “Buy American” policies in government spending.  

Thursday, Feb. 20 is a Teamster Day of Action to stop Congress from passing a Fast Track bill that would make it easier to pass corporate power grabs bad trade deals like the TPP. We're asking all Teamsters and allies to call their representative in Congress to tell them to vote against Fast Track. If you just go to teamster.org, you'll see instructions on the screen that tell you what to do.