Willem van de Velde the Younger, Dutch ships in a calm. Public domain.
China joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001 and became the workshop in everyone else's price.
If money is tight, the cheaper shelf at the store and the closed plant on the edge of town can be the same event.
If you are in the middle, your raise competes with a factory you will never tour.
If you have savings, a global cost cut is a margin, until it is a political revolt.
China entered the World Trade Organization on December 11, 2001.
American firms gained a vast source of supply and a vast pool of labor.
Later research found that places in the most direct competition with Chinese imports lost factories and jobs, which is a local fact even when the national price index looks like a bargain.
Source: World Trade Organization, China's accession on December 11, 2001; Autor, Dorn, and Hanson, the China shock.