About three years ago I did a story about patriotic clothing and where it was made. We weren’t too surprised to find most of the stuff came from Vietnam, China even Jordan not the USA. But with the lead in toy scare of season’s past and the economic downturn, more people than ever are wondering if buying American-made products are the answer.
What do you think? I know a lot of shoppers would like to buy local, but when times get tough, we look to save money. And unfortunately more times than not, the products not made here are cheaper.
However, tonight a public policy think tank released a study it says shows how important it is to buy local. Matt Entenza, the chair of Minnesota 2020 said, “If just 25% of gifts purchased this season were purchased from local stores with local goods we would infuse hundreds of millions of dollars back into our local economy.”
“If you buy a product that is made in Minnesota, 68 cents of every dollar remains here in the local economy,” said researcher Lee Egerstrom. “If you buy something from one of the big box stores, not based here in Minnesota, it drops to 43 cents.”
It is certainly a different way of looking at how we all play a role in what happens here economically.
“If you want to look at how you can help stimulate the economy this season you can think about how much of it do you want to stay at home, how much of it do you want to be unintended foreign aid to China and other countries that are exporting to our stores,” Egerstrom said.
Minnesota 2020 has put together a gift guide of more than 300 products made in Minnesota.
Here are a few sites that list companies with products that are “Made in the USA”. No one site is all inclusive, but they can at least direct you to some places you may not have considered:
Made in USA.org
Buy American Mart.com.
