Under Headlines: Mexico: The New China, the article discusses the opening of production facilities in Mexico and the advantages of quicksourcing close to the United States as opposed to outsourcing in China. In this question, you will be asked to analyze wage data to determine what happens to wages as the result of offshoring.
The source of the data is the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), and they are available Federal Reserve Economic Data. To access the data:
1. Type “real” and “wages” in the search block and hit return.
2. For the first option, “Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over,” select the box for the series “Quarterly, seasonally adjusted.”
3. Click the box “Add to graph” immediately above the options. This will open a graph of the wage data.
Now you will utilize the FRED data to examine the wages of manufacturing workers in the United States. These data are available Federal Reserve Economic Data. To access the data:
1. Type “wages” and “manufacturing” in the search block and hit return.
2. For the first option, “Average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees,” select the box for the series “Seasonally adjusted.”
3. Select the box “Add to graph” immediately above the options. This will open a graph of the manufacturing wage data.