No. The "cheap labor" myth needs to die quickly.
China's advantage is, and always will be, that the costs of labor in US are bloated by a huge amount of overhead for every working resident
In 2023, the BLS reported that benefits alone accounted for about 31% of total compensation, with wages and salaries comprising the remaining 69%. [1] This 31% includes direct costs like health insurance, retirement contributions, and paid leave.
Now in addition, consider employer-paid expenses that are not benefits or employee compensation: FICA, FUTA, SUID, SDI, FMLA, etc. That depends on your geography, but it can be up to 25-40% additional costs [2]
The all-in cost is at least 35% or more in additional spend [3]
In addition, none of the above capture indirect costs of compliance/overhead, with varied state and federal schemes.
As you can see, we are at a range of ~35-50% of additional costs for each new hire
Now, importantly, try to imagine the effect of this bloat at a national level: Every US business is effectively carrying deadweight of additional ~35-50% costs on its pricing decisions to its customers. Why? Because the bloat is embedded into every domestic input, like raw materials, services, utilities, you name it. This cost spike may impact a few foreign industries dependent on US inputs, but it certainly explodes over US shores, spiking prices of the inputs that most US producers depend for their final goods and services. Now think of what happens to domestic costs of doing business and operating a physical business in US.
So when your cost of production have additional ~35-50% overhead because of all sort of market-distorting mechanisms, blaming china for "cheap labor" is a convenient scapegoat, when in reality the blame should be on US policy of making our jobs artificially expensive.... to fund the state bloat.
[1] https://www.bluedotcorp.com/blog/2023-trend-the-rising-price...
[2] https://www.sba.gov/blog/how-much-does-employee-cost-you
[3] https://www.footholdamerica.com/blog/what-is-the-real-cost-o...