Want to Build American Manufacturing Back Better? Start With Supply Chains
By Prerna Jagadeesh
As vaccinated Americans emerge from our pandemic cocoons and venture back into the real world, many are starting to wonder why prices in stores seem to have gone up. And no, contrary to what Republicans would like you to believe, it’s not because of inflation.
As Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently explained, prices are up as a result of America’s weak supply chains — the processes by which raw materials like lumber and silicone are turned into consumer goods like furniture, cars, and computers. America’s already-weak supply chains took an enormous hit because of the coronavirus pandemic, when other nations we rely on for raw materials closed their ports and stopped sending us the building blocks we need in order to produce consumer goods. Accordingly, the Biden administration has proposed several measures to assess, regulate, and strengthen our weak supply chains.
In a new national survey, Data for Progress polled voters on the specific actions the Biden administration is planning to take to strengthen America’s supply chains and increase our global competitiveness in manufacturing — finding overwhelming majority support for each of these actions across party lines.
First, we asked voters about Biden’s proposed Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, which would convene a group of administration officials to address production and manufacturing bottlenecks caused by the coronavirus pandemic and America’s reliance on other nations for crucial goods. We found that by a +46-point margin, a majority of voters overwhelmingly support the creation of a supply chain task force. This support extends across partisan lines: Democrats support creating a supply chain task force by +67 points, Independents by +35 points, and Republicans by +27 points.
Next, we asked voters about a more aggressive step the Biden administration is planning to take on supply chain management: creating a “strike force” that would use trade policy to retaliate against companies which engage in trade practices that are harmful to the U.S. Support for a trade strike force is also strong: a majority of voters support it by +37 points, including Democrats by +49 points, Independents by +27 points, and Republicans by +31 points.
In order to scale up our manufacturing capabilities and meet rising demand from electric vehicles and solar power, the U.S. is also facing a key obstacle — the lack of access to lithium, a key element used to produce computer chips that is predominantly minded and processed in other nations. To combat this obstacle to U.S. production, Biden’s proposal directs the Department of Energy to offer loans for companies that could sustainably refine, process and recycle lithium for use specifically in electric vehicles and solar panels. Critically, we find that this component of Biden’s supply-chain proposals is supported by a majority of Americans. By a 38-point margin, voters support the DOE offering loans to process minerals used in technologies that combat climate change like electric vehicles and solar panels.
Finally, Data for Progress asked voters about Biden’s new Department of Energy requirement to ensure clean-energy technology companies receiving DOE funds manufacture their products in the U.S. We find exceptionally strong voter support for this measure: 77 percent of all voters support DOE funding only for companies making their products in America. This support for at home manufacturing extends across the partisan spectrum. Seventy-five percent of Independents, 76 percent of Republicans, and 78 percent of Democrats back the directive — suggesting that pursuing this measure could be tremendously beneficial as a wedge issue for Biden and the Democrats.
As our polling broadly indicates, boosting supply chains and making them more resilient, ensuring that they serve broader goals like fighting climate change, and creating good-paying jobs in the process is a tremendously popular endeavor. The Biden administration should feel empowered by the American people’s strong support for strengthening supply chains to take the steps they have proposed, and continue to build upon this support by passing policies that make our economy and planet more resilient. The coronavirus pandemic has prompted a society-wide restructuring, changing the way we teach, work, eat, and relax. What better time than now to strengthen our lagging supply chains in order to create an economy that enables all Americans to prosper and sets us up to tackle the challenges of a post-pandemic world?
Prerna Jagadeesh (@PrernaJagadeesh) is a writer at Data for Progress.
Methodology:
From July 2 to 6, 2021, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,154 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points. N=1,154 unless otherwise specified. Some values may not add up to 100 due to rounding.