Sugar Subsidy Costs Jobs

The US Commerce Department is preparing to release a report (Subscription Required) saying the U.S' sugar subsidies cost the U.S. 10,000 jobs. From the WSJ (I hate linking to the WSJ because no one has a subscription but I couldn't find this anywhere else):

The report blames government policy and artificial sugar prices in the U.S. for the loss of 10,000 U.S. jobs from 1997 through 2002 at companies that produce chocolate, candy, breakfast cereal and other sugar-rich food products. Meanwhile, employment grew by more than 30,000 jobs in the same time frame at food companies not heavily reliant on sugar.

In 2004 U.S. companies paid 23.5 cents for a pound of refined sugar while the "world price" was 10.9 cents, the Commerce Department said, adding that it put U.S. food companies "at a competitive disadvantage" to foreign competition.

The candy and chocolate industries were some of the hardest hit when U.S. sugar prices rose as much as three times the world price in the late 1990s, the report said. Some were forced to shut down or move factories to Mexico or Canada.

Rep. Mark Kirk, (R., Ill.), who asked for the Commerce report in 2004, said he did so because he wanted substantial proof that U.S. sugar policy is responsible for sending jobs out of the country. "We're losing jobs in Illinois," Mr. Kirk said. "We saw the bankruptcy of Fannie May and the departure of Brach's [Confections Inc.]. Chicago used to be the candy capital of the world."

The Commerce Department agrees that U.S. sugar policy has exacerbated a "trade imbalance" in sugar-containing products.

Simple economics; subsidies neither protect jobs nor reduce prices.