That does sound like an interesting experiment! Hope you'll keep up with the story (I often don't have time to watch the news).

I like to support American companies when possible, but I don't necessarily go out of my way to make it happen (though I probably should).

I would buy domestic products if I knew where they were! I can't remember the last time I saw a "Made in USA" sticker on something.

I'm interested to see their findings. I think some things just *aren't* made domestically.

I like to support "Made in USA" products when I can. If it's a few cents more than an import I'll "splurge" on the domestic. I feel like it's just the right thing to do.

I also want to mention that when I'm wishy-washy about wanting/needing something, if it's an import that usually tips me into the "no, forget it" category. Keeps my home clutter-free.

I also want to mention that when I'm wishy-washy about wanting/needing something, if it's an import that usually tips me into the "no, forget it" category. Keeps my home clutter-free.

As a labor lawyer, I do try to seek out and purchase American-made products for the home. But finding these well-designed products is difficult. And you will pay a higher price for them. I have made a few purchases from Room and Board, which sells a lot of made-in-the-USA home furnishings.

Good luck.

Is there a way AT can add links to some great Made in America furniture websites?

I support not just Made in USA, but also handmade in USA whenever possible. I feel like we are losing our "maker" identity and I want to see America regain its standing in the design world.

Room and Board does a fantastic job of promoting and selling furniture made by craftsmen in the USA. That's never been a deciding factor for me, but it certainly is a bonus.

When you say products, does that many anything including cars, food, clothes, etc? Or just furniture?

If you need to buy not-imported furniture just buy reused-recycled. Also, think of all the developing countries that rely on exporting goods to America to feed their own people. The strength of America is in innovation/software/cutting edge services, not in the furniture industry. The workforce needs to go back to college and get a degree in technology, we don't need artisans.

I hope they post the makers/companies of all the "made in America" items. I tried to research this once and could not find any good collective resources.
I always buy American furniture - living in the great furniture-making state of North Carolina it would be a shame not to! For other stuff- I try to stick with artisan made (Etsy!) or vintage. Still, there are some things that are just plain hard to source and SO much is made in China.

Does a latte bought at my neighborhood Starbucks count?

This year, we bought a new artificial Christmas tree and did some research to find one made in the USA. We only found one manufacturer still making trees here. We ordered a tree from them, and it's really well made, and we're very happy with it. It possible to find American made products, but only if you're willing to go beyond the big box stores and do some research.

@carmenlu--
Uh...did you just say that America doesn't need artisans and MEANT it?

How flat and boring we would be if we all had the same interests, talents, and occupations.

The ONLY time I have ever fully outfitted a home/apartment with items Made In America was when I was into my retro kitsch phase, because it was all manufactured in the 50s.

That said, the last "modern" thing I bought that was marked "Made In America" were ice cube trays.

Would I buy more items made in this country? Hell yeah! Too bad they're virtually impossible to find outside artisan websites like Etsy.

there's a place here in Alexandria, VA called Authentically Amish--pretty sure all the furniture there is American made. It is possible to find, just more costly than Ikea

If I could find day-to-day items made in America, I would happily pay a little more- but I hardly ever find these. I'd love to see some future posts with tips for buying American-made products.

I'd love to see them check back every few years, to see how the American-made items hold up in comparison to imported goods.

I think it's a great idea for an experiment! But I wonder if the reporters are just going to take anything with a "Made in USA" tag at it's face value. Like mtlyorel pointed out (in his totally capitolist/republican way) very few products are made entirely in the United States. In the clothing industry it is perfectly legal to have little fingers in a 3rd world country manufacture a shirt and still label it "Made in USA" as long as the buttons are sewn on in a US territory. That being said, there are a lot of companies still getting parts and manufacturing right in the US. My dad works for a foundry that makes cast iron parts that go in Toro lawn mowers, for instance. As an Etsy seller myself, I also hope they focus on HANDMADE in America as well.

I second riverrun2's quesion. I'd love it if AT could provide links to domestic furniture and appliance sites.

One of the big problems is that pure design is so much further ahead in other countries, like Italy, Japan and Scandinavia. You can find cool styles and colors in all sorts of things made in Italy, for example (take furniture, household appliances, light fixtures, lamps etc.) But when I look for cool design in the U.S., it's inevitably as if styling is completely ignored. (Whatever it is, the America model is clunky and only comes in gray.) So I feel forced to look to other countries just to find something nice to look at. When it comes to innovative designs and being adventurous, America has become lazy and boring.

We always try to buy American, but it's hard to find the products & they can also be more expensive. I'd appreciate any links AT could offer.

Here is a new site that is launching soon and only selling products that are made in America.
http://www.chocolateinpeanutbutter.com/
It's going to be officially launching next month.

This would be great in Canada, too. Ironically, a lot of stuff here is 'made in the U.S.A.' So maybe you should move here? Lol.

I find the idea interesting but it's also very very difficult to actually know where a product is made. Etsy for instance (since it's been brought up and *the* place to buy handmade) doesn't just sell handmade by one person products anymore. There are loads and loads of Chinese manufacturers on the Etsy website who *say* a product it handmade but it's not by the Etsy tou terms. There are also many "handmade" sellers who buy parts made in china, barely do anything to it, and call it handmade too.

There's so much that goes in to making a finished product that it's difficult to say what is and isn't handmade/manufactured in the USA.

Agreeing with Amanda the Geek.
I paint and am also working on a diy iPad case, and while my stuff is technically made the usa, its components are often not.

It would be sad if that room was the best one could do purchasing domestically (or at least within Nafta) manufactured goods, but luckily there are high design companies which manufacture here - think Indiana and Michigan.

Interestingly, I think PeteG put his finger on something; we make a lot more than we think - we DO export a lot of goods, but big box stores don't sell them, you have to seek them out at smaller, independent retailers (I recall one example of seeing American made wrought iron lanterns being sold in Sweden, much to my surprise).

I'm not an economist, but does anyone else think this is being way, way oversimplified? There are almost no specifics. Is it $3 per year? Per month? How often do we have to spend the $3 to sustain those jobs? Surely there is a better, more coherent way to create jobs than to have everyone throw $3 at a Made in the USA... something.

Does it matter to anyone that there's almost nothing worth buying for $3, regardless of where it's made? Everything at that price point seems destined for a landfill.

Also, does this mean we're giving up on just spending less money?

If I had the money, I'd have a home entirely filled with American-artisan made furnishings and decor. I'd love hand-crafted wooden tables and chairs made individually with skill and passion -- but my income runs to IKEA and thrift, sadly!

As it is, I seldom buy new furniture, and when I do, I have so many contraints (size, shape, color, most especially cost) that I am sure what I buy is mostly imported.

I have my doubts that everyone spending $3 on American made products really WOULD create 10,000 jobs, mainly because so much of our manufacturing has been driven overseas by companies trying to increase shareholder profits. They would find a way to provide more stuff without adding those jobs, almost for sure.

It's a difficult problem. I'm originaly from Michigan, so I have some empathy for the plight of the auto industry there. But when my car died recently (an Acura) I replaced it with a Prius. Why? Because in my research, no American made car satisfied my requirements for fuel efficiency, owner satisfaction, and affordability. I can't afford to subsidize industries by buying products I don't like just because they are American. What I get needs to live up to my demands. When it's American, I buy American. When it's not, I don't.

So we should just give up on buying IKEA? I don't think so.

(I have to agree with those who have a more nuanced approach to the Made in the USA concept, given our intertwined global economy. We forget that while it is American companies that go overseas to build the products, profits remain here -- at least among shareholders, anyway.)

Continuing...IKEA is a great example of a Swedish-based multinational company that invests heavily in the US and is responsible for generating jobs in the US and tax revenues for the cities and states where their operations are located.

Bravo to AT for posting on this important subject!

If anyone is concerned with the 10% unemployment rate, underemployment, local and state government deficits, the amount of US debt that's owned by China and "Green" living - paying attention to the source of the items you purchase is a great first step.

I was disappointed on a recent trip to Macy's scouting out new bedroom dressers to find so many foreign-made goods - even the Ralph Lauren piece that looked so good on the website had a big "Made in China" lable on the back...
...but after doing some scouting on the internet, I've been able to find numerous pieces by such manufacturers as Bernhardt, Stanley and Lexington that are just as stylish and similarly priced and clearly marked "Made in the USA"

As far as clothing, Made in the USA means just that, not that the buttons were sewn on a Vietnamese-made shirt as one person here posted - if an item has multiple sources, it was indicate that, such as "Made in the USA of Imported Fabric"...
...and as far as cars, the Monroney Sticker on the window clearly indicates not only where the car is assembled, but what percentage of components are made in the US, plus the country where the transmission and engine are manufactured.

"We forget that while it is American companies that go overseas to build the products, profits remain here -- at least among shareholders, anyway.)"

So if you're unemployed because your manufacturing job was sent overseas - how does that benefit you? You don't have income to invest in a 401k to benefit from these corporate profits.
Even if you're not unemployed, your neighbors may be - so they are contributing to the debt of your local, state and federal governments because they're taking unemployment & welfare payments and not paying state or federal taxes.

"IKEA is a great example of a Swedish-based multinational company that invests heavily in the US and is responsible for generating jobs in the US and tax revenues for the cities and states where their operations are located."

This is a proven fallacy.
The low cost-basis of the items sold at IKEA are not a great source of state sales tax revenues, as the overall bill is lower than what one would pay at a comparable local store - and municipal sales tax is not collected since the store is frequently located outside the city limits. IKEA and other big-box stores such as Wal-Mart also demand state and municipal tax breaks on earned income to locate their stores in a given area, which therefore deprive states and municipalities of tax income, unlike your small local merchant in town which gets no tax breaks. Big-Box stores are also notorious for employing workers at lower wages, giving them fewer hours which makes them part-time workers and therefore entitles them to lower benefits - or simply doesn't allow them to purchase benefits on their low income - and providing less service than local Mom & Pop merchants employing full-time workers.

ALL CLAD pans and KitchenAid mixers are made in the USA-- Pennsylvania and Ohio, respectively. Vita mix is also an Ohio made product.

I pay a bit more for things "Made in the USA" if I can. I love seeing Made in USA commercials for Menard's (local Chicago version of Home Depot), in which they feature items made in the usa and give a short profile of where the item is from.

We carry both foreign and domestic products, we try to work with small businesses like our own whenever possible. 95% of the pillow we carry are made in the US, as are our throws, soaps/ body stuff, lots of our candles, a leather line, several local artists...and? I think that's it?

We'll probably never be able to carry all US made products, but we have a pretty significant selection :)

Seconding the Room and Board mention. The vast majority of their products are made in the US, and I've been really happy with the quality. Good company all around.

"Made in America" doesn't actually mean anything. It is still "made in America" if I source all the parts from China, but assemble it in the US. Conversely, many Americans have jobs designing items and do the manufacturing in Asia. Don't buy those goods because they're not "made in America" and you negatively affect the American designer's job. It's all intertwined.

I love my made in the USA Petrie sofa from C&B.

What I do when I'm going to buy something is I'll Google the item I'm interested in + the words made in USA, or Made in us, etc. (i.e., wool blanket made in usa, etc) I've found some great products and companies this way.

The more people request or made purchasing decisions based on this, the more products will be made here to fill that demand.

Lodge cast iron cookware (not the enameled stuff) and Anchor Glass storage containers are made in USA and are affordable.

I can't afford to subsidize industries by buying products I don't like just because they are American.

This.

I also enjoy craigslist so much that a bunch of times my money is going to someone semi-local to me, which concretely means that at least that person is a little better off and I "saved" something from a landfill or whatever.

But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in this thing, gimmick or not. The companies can always use the exposure, and maybe the products will be legitimately awesome.

FYI I bought this couch from Macy's 3 years ago, the corona- http://www1.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=251335&CategoryID=30249 because it was made in America (at least it was at that time) and it was over $1000 cheaper than the only other ones I was finding that I liked and were simple. Its been an absolute workhorse of a piece of furniture and is holding up amazingly. I can't say enough good about it. Macy's, of all places!

I recently noticed that the blue plastic covers on my glass Pyrex storage containers were made in the US. When I was looking for couch pillows I found the "perfect" pair yet was on the fence about purchasing them. However, when I saw that the inserts were made of down feathers and the entire pillow was made in the US, I gladly spent the extra few dollars.

I have a lot of vintage furniture from the 1950's and 1960's. All of it was made in the US. I frequent thrift stores, Craigslist, and etsy to find things I want and desire. Most of it is made in the US. I wish I could find more clothing made in the US though.

Interesting discussion. I think most of us buy what we can find easilty and afford - which may not be made in the U.S. We do the best we can.

There are actual trade regulations regarding what can be labeled "made in USA"...with regards to furniture, oftentimes imported (read: Chinese) furniture has formaldehyde used to treat the wood, or artificial fillers that won't last as long and are toxic as they break down. You aren't just supporting the USA when you buy American-made furniture, you're doing yourself a favor.

That isn't to say the same is true for all industries. Look at American cars, for instance. Though many American cars are made overseas and many foreign car companies have plants here (Kia, VW, Mercedes). It comes down to the product. For instance, the pet food scare from a couple years ago? Buying quality American-made food means never having to watch your dog die from heavy metal poisoning.

When it comes down to it, Americans may not be better workers, but our industries are better regulated. That's what you pay for when you buy "Made in USA" over "Made in China/Philippines/Thailand/Mexico".

If you need to buy not-imported furniture just buy reused-recycled. Also, think of all the developing countries that rely on exporting goods to America to feed their own people. The strength of America is in innovation/software/cutting edge services, not in the furniture industry. The workforce needs to go back to college and get a degree in technology, we don't need artisans.

posted by carmenlu on January 28th 2011

Insanely elitist. We need artisans, we need people who can use their hands and their minds. To build an economy on techonology is building a house on sand. We need people who can farm, who can run factories, who can create and build. Sending these jobs overseas has left millions unemployed. Should we let our country decline so that China can feed it's people?

I love this challenge! I think with a little education it's easy to know where to buy made in the usa. Go on The American Craft Council website or support local fine art and craft shows in your area. There are 1000's of craft shows nation wide every year. Also you can narrow down your search on etsy to buy strictly from the usa, state or specific city.

While the do-gooder spirit of the idea is commendable, the notion is actually alienating.
Buying something simply because it is "made in America", means that you are compromising on something else. Where is that give? Unfortunately, I think that rather than a positive force for local job creation, it turns into a segregating stance of "us vs. them". Too much emphasis has been placed for a very long time on being "the fastest growing (blank)" rather than "the best", which has translated into everything having to compete for cheaper-faster-more, rather than striving for sustainable, global, nurturing development of quality over price.
I am very curious about the results.

I am a Longaberger consultant, based in Dresden Ohio. All the baskets and many other products are made in America. Gives American workers jobs, and baskets continue to increase in value. See site:
www.longaberger.com/cathymarble

Check out my new blog on this very topic:
www.designpatriot.blogspot.com