“In a recent paper titled “Industrial Headwinds: Reducing the Burden of Regulations on U.S. Manufacturers,” published in the May 2024 Club for Growth Policy Handbook, economist Daniel Ikenson writes, “For manufacturing firms, the cost of federal regulations in 2022 was roughly $350 billion, or 13.5% of the sector’s GDP—a burden 26% greater than the inflation-adjusted cost of regulatory compliance in 2012.”
He adds that while the average U.S. company pays a regulatory compliance price of $13,000 per employee, large manufacturers shoulder a cost more than twice as much—$29,100. However, even some small-sized manufacturers face annual compliance costs of $50,100 per employee. This helps explain why manufacturing automation is so popular and why our fastest-growing companies are in service-sector tech, not manufacturing.”