U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown
Cracking Down on Currency Manipulation Could Create Jobs in Ohio

This week, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) helped unveil a new report showing that cracking down on currency manipulation could create 5.8 million jobs in the U.S., including more than 250,000 jobs in Ohio alone.

Sen. Brown, who is the lead sponsor of a bipartisan bill that would stand up for American manufacturers by punishing countries like China that cheat by manipulating currency, urged Congress and the Obama Administration to crack down on currency misalignment.

“We can create millions of jobs—without adding a dime to the deficit—by addressing currency manipulation. As our trade deficit continues to widen, our need to level the playing field for American manufacturers and workers becomes more urgent,” Sen. Brown said. “Ending currency manipulation could create 5.8 million jobs for Americans and more than 250,000 jobs for Ohioans. Congress should stand up for American workers by passing our bipartisan bill that would create jobs by standing up to countries like China that cheat trade law by manipulating currency.”

Sen. Brown’s bipartisan legislation, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act, would use U.S. trade law to counter the economic harm to American manufacturers caused when countries unfairly undervalue their currency to give their exports an unfair price advantage. The bill would provide consequences for countries that fail to adopt appropriate policies to eliminate currency misalignment—all without adding a dime to the federal budget.

The new Ohio specific report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that ending currency manipulation could:

Create more than 250,000 Ohio jobs;

Reduce Ohio’s unemployment rate by up to 2.7 percentage points;

Create up to 75,900 Ohio manufacturing jobs;

Increase Ohio’s Gross Domestic Policy (GDP) output by up to $17.4 billion; and

Raise up to $3.7 billion for Ohio and its local communities as output growth leads to increased tax revenues and spending reductions.

The new national EPI report found that ending currency manipulation could reduce the U.S. trade deficit by as much as $500 billion within three years, increase GDP by as much as $720 billion, and create as many as 5.8 million American jobs—all while reducing the federal budget by as much as $266 billion. The report concluded that, “ending currency manipulation is the best available tool for stimulating demand for domestic output and ending the hangover of excess unemployment from the Great Recession.”

Further, a December 2012 report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics concluded that currency manipulation by foreign governments had cost the U.S. from 1 million to 5 million jobs and increased the U.S. trade deficit by $200 billion to $500 billion per year. With the Administration currently negotiating provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Sen. Brown urged President Obama not to support trade deals that fail to level the playing field for U.S. manufacturers by punishing currency manipulators.

Immediately following today’s call, Sen. Brown released county by county data on the number of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) certifications between 1994 and 2012, obtained through the U.S. Department of Labor. TAA is a federal program that provides aid to workers who petition and are certified they lost their jobs or whose work hours and wages are reduced as a result of increased imports from foreign competitors. Sen. Brown also released data on the number of jobs