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31 Oct 2020

13. The proportion of U.S. workers belonging to unions has declined dramatically since the early 1950s. Which could be one of the possible reasons?

a. The shift from manufacturing to service industries

b. A reduced desire for unions because of the workplace protection laws now in place

c. The force of globalization and increased competition from foreign producers

d. all of the above

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Raushan Raj
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31 Oct 2020

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Background When you look at news reports of any kind, there can be a tendency to take them at face value, accepting what they tell us as the truth. This is usually a grave mistake. News typically moves quickly, with tight deadlines to get information and there is almost always a bias at play. Numbers are an easy way to manipulate the truth--and truth itself can be pretty flexible when it comes to human relationships. The value of the truth can also be flexible depending on your point of view. For example, in the second quarter of 2015, the U.S. dollar is strong--meaning it has a high value against foreign currency. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? If you're a consumer, it's generally a good thing in the short-term. It means items imported to the U.S. cost us less to buy. Go us! If you are a growing business that exports, it's a bad thing because your costs make it difficult to compete with locally produced goods in foreign markets. If you're traveling out of the country, it's good because the dollar goes farther. If you have a business that benefits from foreign tourism, it's bad because visitors have less money and may chose to go to other places where their money gives them more buying power.

find an article (you might try MSN Money or CNN Money or something similar) and then write at least 600 words. how strong the position the article takes is. Questions to consider include: What are the weaknesses to the article? How are numbers used effectively? What's missing? How are the numbers being used to disguise something?

ARTIcle

President Obama slapped a stiff 35% tariff on Chinese tires in 2009 after American companies complained about unfair competition. They said China was flooding America with tires at low prices making it tough for U.S. companies to compete. The tire tariff gradually waned, and finally ended in 2012. The tariff saved 1,200 U.S. tire jobs, which had been in sharp decline. And U.S. tire production rose after a major decline. "Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires," Obama said in his 2012 State of the Union address. But a study from the Peterson Institute of International Economics found that the tariffs cost Americans in many other ways. Americans paid more for tires. Some Chinese-made tires cost as much as 26% more -- rising on average to $39 per tire, from about $31. And U.S. tire makers, facing less competition from China, also raised prices on American-made tires 3.2%. According to Peterson's model, higher prices from the tire tariff cost Americans an extra $1.1 billion, which translated to an estimated 3,731 retail jobs lost. Plus, China fought back by imposing penalties on U.S. shipments of chicken parts. The Peterson study estimates that China's retaliation cost American chicken producers $1 billion in sales. "Tire safeguards did not change Chinese policies in a helpful way, nor did they boost U.S. employment," wrote Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert at Peterson, who authored the report. Indeed, the tariffs didn't bring the tire-making jobs back to previous levels -- a similar trend that's played out for the rest of U.S. manufacturing. But they did help to stem the job losses. In 2008, there were about 60,000 American workers making tires. Now, there are about 55,000. That's better than the low point reached in 2010 but not back to pre-tariff levels. Related: Trump's 35% tariff on companies: Easier said than done An Obama administration official, who requested anonymity, disputed some of the calculations and assumptions in the Peterson study. For instance, the official claimed tire prices did not go up by as much as the study claims. Hufbauer said no one until now had contested any of his analysis in the four years since it was published. He noted that the administration official didn't provide an alternative estimate for price changes. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney criticized Obama for the tariffs in his 2010 book "No Apology." "President Obama's action to defend American tire companies from foreign competition may make good politics by repaying unions for their support of his campaign, but it is decidedly bad for the nation and our workers," Romney said. U.S. tire makers still applaud Obama's tariffs. Morry Taylor, CEO of Titan International, a U.S.-based tire company, is one of them. "He did what he should have done and he should have done more of it," says Taylor, who voted for Trump. His company has plants in Ohio, Wisconsin and Illinois (they also have operations in Brazil and Russia). Related: 3 ways Trump can go after China and Mexico Taylor argues that if the tariffs weren't put in place he might not have any business today to speak of. By 2012, Taylor still had 1,800 tire-making workers, about the same amount as before the tariffs. Today, however, his firm only has a little more than 900 workers. His problem today is what he describes as unfair competition from India, where firms make cheap tires and sell in the U.S. at prices he can't afford to sell at. He hopes Trump considers higher tariffs on tires, saying it would save jobs. To be clear, Obama wasn't trying to "bring back jobs" so much as protect the ones already in America, which he accomplished. Trump wants to bring manufacturing jobs back from other countries. Some trade experts believe that would be difficult task, since many of jobs overseas are low-skill positions and many U.S. manufacturing firms now want highly skilled employees. In any case, U.S. tire production recovered but didn't surge. Instead, U.S. tire imports from all other countries excluding China rose dramatically, Hufbauer found. In other words, the Chinese tire jobs didn't come to the U.S. -- they went to the next cheapest countries. In the end, Hufbauer argues the tariffs didn't make a difference. "The best thing about the tire tariffs is that they expire," Hufbauer wrote in 2012. CNNMoney (New York) First published January 3, 2017: 3:41 PM ET

1. “Total compensation” includes:

a. Wages and salaries and all fringe benefits

b. Wages and salaries and public (legally mandated) fringe benefits only

c. Wages and salaries and private (nonmandatory) fringe benefits only

d. Wages and salaries and all fringe benefits net of all personal taxes

2. Fringe benefits currently account for approximately what percentage of total compensation?

a. 5% – 10%

c. 25% – 30%

b. 15% – 20%

d. 35% – 40%

3. As a percentage of benefits, the largest share goes to:

a. retirement and savings

c. paid leave

b. insurance

d. legally required benefits

4. The proportion of total compensation paid out as fringe benefits tends to be larger in:

a. high-paid industries compared to low-paid industries

b. service industries compared to manufacturing industries

c. white-collar occupations compared to blue-collar occupations

d. retail trade compared to transportation and public utilities

5. The share of fringe benefits in total employee compensation:

a. grew steadily in the 1960s and 1970s but has fallen since 1980

b. was unchanged in the 1960s and 1970s and has fallen since 1980

c. shrank in the 1960s and 1970s and has remained constant since then

d. grew steadily from 1960 through the mid-1990s

6. Which one of the following is not a valid explanation for why workers may prefer an extra dollar’s worth of fringe benefits to an extra dollar’s worth of cash?

a. workers may prefer to bind themselves against their own tendencies toward immediate gratification

b. certain fringe benefits effectively trade current taxes for future taxes

c. people generally prefer in-kind benefits to cash

d. certain fringe benefits are untaxed

7. Because there is a _______ marginal rate of substitution of fringe benefits for wages, a worker’s wage-fringe indifference curves are typically _______:

a. diminishing; convex to the origin

b. constant; straight lines

c. diminishing; concave to the origin

d. negative; straight lines

8. The slope of a wage-fringe indifference curve reflects:

a. the overall utility level of a person

b. a worker’s willingness to give up an extra dollar of wages in exchange for an extra dollar of fringe benefits

c. the firm’s cost of paying an extra dollar of compensation as wages rather than fringe benefits

d. an increasing marginal rate of substitution of fringe benefits for cash 2

9. An individual wage-fringe isoprofit line shows:

a. combinations of wages and fringe benefits that result in constant dollar values of total compensation

b. combinations of wages and fringe benefits that result in the same profit to the firm

c. the greatest possible profit attainable from a given level of fringe benefits

d. the greatest possible profit attainable from a given level of wages

10. The slope of a wage-fringe isoprofit curve reflects:

a. the overall profitability of the firm

b. a worker’s willingness to give up an extra dollar of wages in exchange for an extra dollar of fringe benefits

c. the relative “price” of fringe benefits compared to wages

d. an increasing marginal rate of substitution of fringe benefits for cash

11. The firm’s wage-fringe isoprofit curve typically has a slope less than 1 (absolute value) because:

a. fringe benefits confer tax advantages on workers

b. on average, it costs firms more to purchase fringe benefits than workers

c. the composition of fringe benefits may increase worker productivity

d. increasing the proportion of compensation received as fringe benefits reduces a firm’s profit level

12. If a firm can offer fringe benefits worth more than one dollar for a one dollar reduction in wages:

a. the wage-fringe isoprofit line will be upward-sloping

b. the wage-fringe isoprofit line will have a slope less than one in absolute value

c. the marginal rate of substitution between wages and fringe benefits will be greater than one at the wage-fringe optimum

d. as a proportion of total compensation, fringe benefits will likely exceed one half

13. The employer’s share of the Social Security and Medicare components of the payroll tax has increased, from 6.13% in 1980 to its current rate of 7.65%. Because employers pay no payroll tax on many fringe benefits, this change in tax rates has effectively:

a. reduced the “price” of fringe benefits, increasing the slope of the wage-fringe isoprofit line

b. increased the “price” of fringe benefits, increasing the slope of the wage-fringe isoprofit line

c. reduced the “price” of fringe benefits, reducing the slope of the wage-fringe isoprofit line

d. increased the “price” of fringe benefits, reducing the slope of the wage-fringe isoprofit line

14. The trend of fringe benefits as a percentage of total compensation can be partially explained by the fact that:

a. tax reform has rendered many types of fringe benefits fully taxable

b. “in-kind” benefits restrict workers’ consumption choices

c. the firm may be able to purchase fringe benefits more cheaply than workers

d. many types of fringe benefits are income inelastic

15. Fringe benefits will tend to be a greater proportion of total compensation, the:

a. more income elastic are fringe benefits

b. more they increase worker turnover

c. lower the employer’s share of the Social Security tax

d. less there are economies of scale in purchasing fringe benefits 3

16. Which of the following is not a cause of fringe benefit growth?

a. Tax advantages to the employer

b. Efficiency considerations

c. Economies of scale

d. Fringe benefits are income inelastic

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