He writes that white people like New Balance shoes because they're produced in Maine by overpaid union shlobs, not by impoverished Vietnamese children (like Nike shoes). Clander thinks paying Vietnamese kids $2/hr to sew shoes is a bad thing. He also thinks most white people agree.
Clander is dead wrong, at least about the immorality of paying Vietnamese ten times the country's average daily wage to cross-stitch sneakers:
- Vietnam's average monthly household income: $32
- Average monthly income at a Vietnamese Nike factory: $59
By buying Nike shoes, you're almost doubling the buying power of Vietnam's poorest residents. Kind of puts a damper on the anti-globalism fervor of "Stuff White People Like", doesn't it?
Whoops!
In contrast, the average wage in Maine is $16.90, or $33,080/year. In New Balance's factories in Somerset, Maine, workers are paid $15,904/year. That's HALF the going rate in Maine.
That statistic bears repeating: In Vietnam, Nike workers are paid TWICE the nation's average pay, but in Maine, New Balance's worker are paid HALF the state's average pay.
Nike: 200%.
New Balance: 50%.
Nice try, Clander. You fail at economics.
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