policies help foreign economies grow. When foreign economies grow, the people in these countries will demand more products. Some of these products will be made in the United States. This benefits the U.S. economy, as more workers are needed. This will help create more demand from American workers for products made in the United States.

Globalization allowed Americans to purchase products made in other countries at a lower cost. This was especially true for products like computers that were made overseas. While the computers were made overseas, new jobs were created in the United States to service these computers and to develop computer networks within American companies. Also, with the use of computers, American companies became more productive and more efficient.

Globalization has forced American workers and the American economy to be more flexible. American workers were able to move into newly created jobs in different fields. About twenty-five percent of American workers now work in jobs that didn’t exist fifty years ago.

Globalization impacted the American economy in many ways in the 1990s and beyond.

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the United States economy has become increasingly globalized as the U.S. government has promoted free trade policies and transportation costs have fallen. Economists disagree about whether or not globalization has been a benefit or hindrance to the U.S. economy, but all agree that globalization has permanently altered its nature.

On a macroeconomic level, globalization has seemed to benefit the U.S. economy. The ability to import products from nations with low wages (such as China) has greatly reduced the price of many products; this has increased consumer spending power.

However, microeconomic data indicates that perhaps globalization has not been quite so beneficial. As a recent Economic Policy Institute study found, globalization has increased demand and, consequently, wages for college-educated workers but has also decreased wages for U.S. workers without college diplomas. Since manufacturers can export low-skill jobs to nations which have low or no minimum wages, U.S. workers without college degrees are less in-demand; consequently, their annual wages have fallen 5.5%, or $1,800. The ultimate result of this process is that wealth inequality (the difference in average wages between the rich and the poor) is increasing.

Workers hurt by globalization have begun to push back against it during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Both Donald Trump (Republican) and Bernie Sanders (Democrat) have vociferously opposed the free trade policies which prompted globalization and have said that if they are elected they will push to institute policies which protect American workers disaffected by globalization. 

Looking specifically at the United States, globalization had a mixed impact on the economy.

On the one hand, globalization was helpful to consumers in the United States.  Globalization allowed consumers to benefit from lower prices that could be gotten by importing things from low-wage countries.  This process was seen most clearly in the rise to power of Wal-Mart during this decade.

On the other hand, globalization hurt specific sectors of the American economy.  Most specifically, it was workers in relatively low-skill jobs in manufacturing who were hurt.  They tended to be outcompeted by workers in poorer countries.  Manufacturing jobs also declined due to increasing automation as US firms tried to become more efficient so that they could compete with foreign companies.