One of the favorite research institutions is the labor backed Economic Policy Institute.

They have just released a study that is so damning, it really deserves a full bore blog post. For now, some snippets:

The growth of U.S. trade with China since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 has had a devastating effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy. Between 2001 and 2007 2.3 million jobs were lost or displaced, including 366,000 in 2007 alone. New demographic research shows that, even when re-employed in non-traded industries, the 2.3 million workers displaced by the increase in China trade deficits in this period have lost an average $8,146 per worker/year. In 2007, these losses totaled $19.4 billion

and it goes into details, but here is something I think should raise all eyebrows!

• Rapidly growing imports of computers and electronic parts accounted for almost half of the $178 billion increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2007. The $68 billion deficit in advanced technology products with China in 2007 was responsible for more than 25% of the total U.S.-China trade deficit. The growth of this deficit eliminated 561,000 U.S. jobs in computer and electronic products in this period. Other hard-hit industrial sectors include apparel and accessories (153,000 jobs), miscellaneous manufactured goods (134,000), and fabricated metal products (102,000); several service sectors were also hard hit by indirect job losses, including administrative support services (139,000) and professional, scientific, and technical services (128,000).
• More than two-thirds of the jobs displaced by China trade deficits were in manufacturing, which tends to employ a higher-than-average share of workers with a high school degree or less (43.7% of workers displaced) and to provide those workers with good wages and benefits. More than half (55.6%) of the jobs displaced came from the top half of the U.S. wage distribution, and among this group a disproportionate share came from the top 10th of all U.S. wage earners. African Americans (230,000 jobs lost), Hispanics (339,000), and other ethnic groups (219,000) all suffered from the loss of jobs such as these that pay substantially more and offer better benefits than jobs in other industries

More later but for now I just want to bring your attention to this study which implies this is negatively affecting US diversity (something I personally try to amplify) either directly or indirectly due to existing discrimination in the United States and how High level jobs, the top jobs are going abroad.

The EPI link goes directly to the study.