West Virginia Manufacturers Association

We are pleased to provide you with a link to a PDF of The Manufacturing Institute's 2008 update of the widely-cited manufacturing "cost study." The report was released November 13, in Washington, D.C.  The study can be found at www.nam.org/coststudy .

The study shows how a combination of favorable U.S. policy changes advocated by the NAM, actions by manufacturers to innovate and manage structural costs, and rising costs among our major international competitors have contributed to lowering the aggregate cost burden faced by U.S. manufacturers over the past two years.  Still, an excessive cost burden of 17.6 percent is a serious impediment to our ability to compete, and, in particular, U.S. companies pay the second highest corporate tax rate in the world.  One of our first goals to get our economy growing again must be to bring our corporate tax rates under control.

We hope you find this report useful in our shared efforts on behalf of manufacturers nationwide.