How do we get back to building things?
It’s no secret that American industrial capacity has been hollowed out. We’ve gone from 19.6 million manufacturing jobs at the 1979 peak to about 12.8 million today, a 35% drop in under 50 years. It’s a constant talking point culturally and politically, but the reasons for why this happened, how it played out, and who is trying to fix it haven’t really been explored in an approachable, easy to follow way.
Rust Belt Industrials is a newsletter about the state of industrial capability in America, how these systems work, how we got into the situation we’re in today, and who is working on fixing it. We cover energy, manufacturing, supply chains, materials, defense, construction, and anything else that gets at how industrial capacity actually functions.
New issues every two weeks. Free, concise, and written to be worth your time.
A biweekly look at industrial America. Energy, manufacturing, materials, supply chains, and the people working in them.