Opponents of giving the president "fast track" authority in negotiating trade agreements claim that expanded trade costs the U.S. jobs, while some free trade advocates argue that trade creates jobs. However, most economists say neither contention is true.

Trade doesn't affect the total number of jobs, say economists; rather it moves them around, creating new ones in exporting industries and reducing employment in import-competing industries. However, because trade reallocates workers and capital to activities in which the U.S. is more efficient, trade raises living standards and wages to a higher level than they would be otherwise.

• Empirical research shows that trade accounts for virtually none of the slowdown in overall U.S. wage growth since the mid-1970s, and no more than 10 percent to 20 percent of the decline in relative wages for the least skilled workers -- those with less than a high school education.

• Growth in U.S. real wages depends on the growth rate of domestic labor productivity, which since the mid-1970s has grown more slowly than in the immediate post-World War II period, and this factor alone accounts for slower U.S. wage growth.

• However, workers' productivity in exporting industries has exceeded the national average for the private business sector, and the productivity growth rate over the period 1986 to 1994 was nearly three times the national average, says the Commerce Department.

• As a result, wages of workers whose jobs are supported by exports were 13 percent higher than the national average in 1994. Today, the overall rapid pace of job growth is yielding strong gains in real compensation.

Source: Kenneth L. Deavers, "Fast Track -- Good For American Consumers, Workers and Business," Issue Backgrounder, September 3, 1998, Employment Policy Foundation, 1015 15th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005, (202) 789-8685.