Gallup: Keeping manufacturing best way to create jobs

Americans are most likely to say that keeping manufacturing within the United States is the best way to create jobs, a recently released poll found.

Gallup reported that one in four adults said ensuring that companies don’t ship jobs overseas is the top job-creating engine – about twice as much as the next two most popular choices: creating more infrastructure work (13 percent) and lowering taxes (12 percent).

Doing more to help small business and rolling back government regulation followed closely behind and rounded out the top five.

The Gallup poll, released Thursday, dropped the day before the Labor Department reported that the economy had created 216,000 new jobs in March, and also comes as policymakers in Washington continue to discuss the best ways to create jobs.

The White House called the job numbers a sign that incentives for business to invest were helping grow the economy, adding that it would look for other ways to invest in areas such as infrastructure, clean energy and education.  

For their part, Republicans also called the numbers a good sign, but have also gone on the attack against what they term the excessive government regulations and high taxes that stifle job creation.

President Obama went on the offensive during last year’s midterm elections against corporations that ship jobs overseas, saying Republicans had sided with companies over American workers.

Both Republicans and Democrats cited keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States as the top job creator in the Gallup poll. That idea also came in first in a November Gallup survey, though it has become seven percentage points more popular in the last four months.

Republicans ranked lowering taxes and reducing government regulations and involvement second and third, respectively, in the poll. Democrats put creating more infrastructure work second and doing more to help small business third.