Benefits of Buying American-Made Products

Voting with your wallet is a very important type of influence, and you do this every time you purchase a product. Where that product is manufactured has all sorts of ramifications on society and the environment as a whole. By purchasing goods made in the United States, you not only support your own country, but you give a little less power to countries around the world which don't have the interests of their workers or their environment at heart. Best of all, buying American doesn't take nearly as big a bite out of your wallet as you would think.

Safe Working Conditions

Who wants to support unsafe working conditions? Unfortunately foreign labor standards are in general a pale comparison to the safety laws upheld in the United States. Children, for example, still are employed in many countries. Reports from companies like Foxconn, which manufacturers Apple products in China, include conditions that Americans would never tolerate, so bad that they were even attributed to high suicide rates amongst workers.

Helps the Economy

Of course this advantage only pertains to you if you live in the United States, but it's the classic reason why buying American-made products is beneficial. Make sure, however, that the "whole" product is actually created in the United States. Take New Balance, for example, a company which regularly advertises its products as being American Made: on their website they clarify that only 1/4 of their shoes are made or assembled in the United States. Every Envi wall heater, by contrast, is made in the USA.

Cleaner Manufacturing Processes

If you care about the environment, you should care about the country in which the products you purchase were manufactured. The smog in Beijing has been made famous in recent years, pollution which in fact makes smoggy American cities like Los Angeles look like a paradise. Products made in the USA are much more environmentally friendly, though some companies take better care of the environment than others.

Livable Wage

Although the term livable wage does not mean the same overseas as it does in the United States, the wages paid outside the U.S. are still generally below the standard of living held by workers in countries like China. While wages in the United States have been largely stagnant in the last decade, workers are still able to earn what many consider an honest day's work compared to many other countries around the globe. At the very least, the U.S. maintains a minimum wage and increases it periodically, whereas other countries may not even have a minimum wage at all.