The Manufacturing Economy

The Applied Economics Office releases an annual report of statistics on the U.S. manufacturing industry. There are three primary aspects that this report focuses on: (1) how the U.S. industry compares to other countries, (2) the trends in the domestic industry, and (3) the industry trends compared to those in other countries. Recently, a focus on semiconductor manufacturing has been included and future work will also include biomanufacturing.

Total Manufacturing    |     Semiconductor Manufacturing     |     Biomanufacturing

Some brief figures on U.S. manufacturing include the following:

• In 2021, Manufacturing contributed $2.3 trillion to U.S. GDP amounting to 12.0 % of total U.S. GDP.
  • Including direct and indirect (i.e., purchases from other industries) value added, manufacturing contributed an estimated 24 % of GDP.
• In 2020, U.S. manufacturing imported 18.2 % of its intermediate goods/services, resulting in 10.6 % of the output being of foreign origin.
• According to the Current Population Survey, there were 14.7 million employees in U.S. manufacturing in 2021, representing 9.6 % of total U.S. employment
• Manufacturing accounted for 76.6% of total U.S. environmental impact according to NIST’s Manufacturing Cost Guide
• Average compensation in U.S. manufacturing is 8.8 % higher than that for total private industry