Stick this in your ear, Lou Dobbs

If you want to stop manufacturing job losses in America, put the breaks on technological innovation, not on free trade. Also be prepared to see reductions in real wages, not gains. This is according to a new study from the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute called "Trading Up: How Expanding Trade has Delivered Better Jobs and Higher Living Standards for American Workers.” The key take-aways:

Trade has not caused a net loss of jobs in the U.S. economy, and accounts for only 3 percent of annual job displacement. Further, the study shows that “between 1997 and the first half of 2007, the U.S. labor market did in fact shed a net 3.3 million manufacturing jobs, but that has been overwhelmed by a net gain of 11.6 million jobs in sectors where the average wage is higher than in manufacturing.”

Critics claim that the “average real wage” has declined since the 1970s, but this study shows that the average real wage is a flawed measure. A more accurate measure of earnings is “real hourly compensation,” which takes into account not only wages but benefits. “In the decade since 1997, as the U.S. economy has become more globalized, real compensation per hour for American workers has risen by 22 percent.”

The study also finds that household income has been rising and middle-class families have been moving up the income ladder. The real median net worth of U.S. households has risen 31 percent in the past decade while the share of income needed to finance debt has remained stable. [emphasis mine]

In other words, increased trade has made our society better, not worse, richer, not poorer, and changed and grown economic opportunity, not shrunk it.

Protectionism is not "progressive." If you really want to be progressive, support free trade.