Economic Benefits of NAFTA

National Center for Policy Analysis has a new analysis on the economic benefits of NAFTA. NAFTA critics most frequently point to the "lost jobs" but here are some facts:

• U.S. employment rose from 110.8 million in 1993 to 137.6 million in 2007, an increase of 24 percent.
• The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 5.1 percent for the first 13 years after NAFTA, compared to 7.1 percent during the 13 years prior to the agreement.

As I've pointed out before, any "lost jobs" tend to be those leaving states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, to low tax, right-to-work states.