Made in USA

I remember she would just be like laying on my chest or in my arms or on my lap, and, you know,

I used to buy like really kind of crappy fast-fashioned clothes, like I just like grew up shopping at like the $5 store which I loved, and I remember being like, "Oh, I really want to buy at least like good t-shirts, so that her little face and her little mouth that she sleeps on me is like on something that I can feel good about her like laying on." So then I set out for like a year and a half to try to find a t-shirt that I could feel good

about. A t-shirt that looks good, that feels good, that is good for the environment, and then ideally the last layer was like good labor practices. Sarah Gonzalez usually covers economics. I mean, I don't cover fashion. She's a reporter and host of the NPR podcast Planet

Money. We're an economics podcast and we're like fun and narrative. So Sarah found herself in a pickle that a lot of us might relate to, which is this eternal question, "How do we buy clothing ethically? Is that even possible?" I mean, it's so hard to be a good chopper, you know, and then you have like children,

“they grow out of things, and so you have to buy them more things, I'm like a bad consumer.”

I'm like, "Where should I buy this t-shirt that I can feel good about?" And then I did an interview with a remarkable woman for me, Ms. Isha Baron Blatt, she is the CEO of this group called Remake. Their whole thing is like we want to like remake the fashion industry. I was asking her like, "You tell me, where do you shop? You've dedicated your life to this."

So like, what do you do? There are certain companies that I like very much, but for the most part, for the last decade I'd say I bought very little. Like, you come see my closet, and there's, you know, six classic pieces, I do a little rental, a little vintage as something like that. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You have like six pieces of clothes in your closet?

Yeah, yeah, six dresses, that's it. So she has six pieces of clothing that she like owns, and I was like, "Oh my gosh." She's kind of like the moment when I was like, "What?" And she's like rents. She rents clothes, and does like that kind of thing, and thrifts, and like swaps with her friends.

I just, I know too much to want to have very much from this industry. I know too much to want to have very much from this industry.

“I don't think she was like preaching like, "This is what you should do, or that even”

she is the best consumer." Ever, I think, the short answer was basically, "You cannot

buy your way out of this problem of badly reconditions, bad for the environment." Like buying clothes is not going to solve the problem. Not even if those clothes were made in the USA. Who doesn't like the idea of things being made in America? I mean, not for like patriotic reasons, just like made in the USA has to be like the

first step, like we're getting to better labor conditions and better for the environment. And she was like, "Why would you think that?" Like, "Where did you get that from?" And I was like, "I don't know." Like, isn't that like the goal is made in the USA?

Made in the USA is not the bastion of virtue that Sarah imagined it was, and that I imagined it was, honestly. But I had no idea what the garment industry in the United States actually looks like, I remember being like, "Where are the garment factories?"

Like, "Where do you, like, I've never seen one?"

I've never been like, "Oh, look, they're making clothes there." Like, "Ever, I used to live in New York City. I'd never like stumbled upon these things in any real way." And most of them are like tiny, tiny operations. Like, 76% of our garment factories in the US have less than 10 workers, because they're

like so hidden. You can't even, you don't even know where they are. Like, I went to some garment factories, and I would show up, and I would be like, "This is like a house on a street with all the other houses." But technically, it's a garment factory, but it just you couldn't tell.

In New York, it's like some unit on top of a restaurant. They're so small that they're not, it's not like, "We may close here, you know?" So they exist, but they're kind of like, "Hidden, they're really, really difficult to find online." But really, they're quite hidden.

But Sarah Gonzalez has pulled back the curtain on the US garment industry for an episode

“of Planet Money that I think is one of the best pieces of fashion journalism I've ever”

heard. I couldn't not share it with you. I started working on it, setting out to like find a teacher that I can feel good about. And then all of a sudden, like, the conversation was made in the USA, made in the USA. And then I was like, "Wait, I don't know if this is the future.

We actually want."

Before we start today's show, we want to shout out another member of the Radio Topia family,

Radio Diaries.

“For almost 30 years, radio diaries has been helping people document their own lives and histories.”

Now they're back with a new series called "Ortson Wells and the Blind Soldier" about a small town crime that sparked the desegregation of the US military. In 1946, a Black World War II veteran named Isaac Woodard was blinded by a white police officer. Nobody knew who the officer was or where the attack happened. But when famed director Ortson Wells found out about the attack, he pledged to not only

broadcast it, but solve it on the radio, week by week. Wash your hands off a syrex, wash them well, scrub and scour. You won't blot out the blood of a blinded war veteran.

You're going to be uncovered.

We will blast out your name. I will find means to remove from you all refuge of the syrex you can't get rid of me." This series is a riveting true crime investigation told by dissentants, activists, and the last known witness to the attack.

“Listen to Ortson Wells and the blind soldier out now wherever you get your podcasts or”

at radiotopia.com. She doesn't speak any English, but she does know some, like, sizes, she knows sizes. She knows label, ticket, all words related to her job, manager, the bastard, the bastard, you can just call a mister, Mrs. Missy, Missy, Missy is the boss of the girl, Mrs. Missy, Missy is the guy, Missy is the guy.

Missy over here, Missy over there, she says, "You got a call, your boss is Mr.

or Mrs.," she says. And I'm like, "This is all English, Maria." Oh, Mr. Missy is, Mrs. Maria is a garment worker in the U.S. One of not that many people have left. She's originally from Boibla, Mexico, Boibla, Zamothira. Sweet potato city, she says, proud, nodding your head and making a little kiss to herself

when she says it. Maria is only 73 years old, but she has the presence of both a much older, comforting grandma, and somehow also like this easily delighted kid. She has so little grandma sandals on and a little white flower tucked behind her ear. Whenever Maria sees a flower, she picks it up and puts it in her hair. There's a ninja, there's a chiquita, you've been doing this interior a little girl.

Maria makes her happy, a little flower in her hair. Maria has been in the U.S. almost 30 years and she has done the exact same job the entire time. She's a trimmer. She's a trimmer.

Oh, trimmy. At a garment factory in Los Angeles. Half of what is left of the garment manufacturing industry in the U.S., is in Los Angeles. You make a trimming.

And when I ask Maria what a trimmer does in a U.S. garment factory, Maria reaches for my shirt. She tucks her hand under the bottom of my shirt at the hem, the back of her warm fingers on my bare stomach, though it only a grandma can do. That was so cute.

She taps all the places on my top where a piece of thread would be left behind when a hem or a seam or a stitch ends. The side of my stomach, at the side seam, my shoulder, where a sleeve was sewn on, the back of my neck, where the tag was sewn on, and when she's tapping me like this, it feels like something my grandma's sister would do actually, like this blessing.

And when I tell Maria, she looks at me like, I understand. Maria's job is to cut off all the left over thread.

“That's what a trimmer does, all day, crouched over.”

And as we're talking, Maria notices a little spot at the hem of my shirt where a tiny piece of thread was left over, like half a centimeter. And she goes, I guess the trimmer working on this was in a rush. But then again, they're all in a rush. The shirt, I'm wearing this day with Maria, made in Vietnam, my pants made in Bangladesh,

my bra, made in China, but the clothes that Maria works on are made in the US, in Los Angeles, California. And a lot of people love the idea of making things like clothes in America. One of the Trump administration's goals is to bring manufacturing in general back to the US.

from the made in America we have now. When you start out as a garment worker, you often start out as a trimmer, like Maria.

When you might get trained on a sewing machine, but Maria never moved on to a machine.

She likes being a trimmer, but really, she just likes having a job. She's like, every job she's ever had, she says. Because you get me, yeah, for the net, oh, see. When she first started out trimming, she was not the best. She'd nick the clothes, leave a little hole, but she'd show up with a little needle and thread

set. Hands up real quick. You couldn't even tell the whole was there, she says. And she said, "No, that's it." All right.

And her boss loved that she could patch things up, actually. Maria brought me a lot of intelligent intelligence, he told her, "Oh, this is much a lot, no much a one." But what the garment industry really prizes is speed, speed more than anything else. And in the beginning, Maria was not so fast.

And she didn't have to move the scissors, she said, so she'd do like 100 pieces of clothing today.

“She's very petite, but the mystery posts, no, but the only thing that tells me is rapido,”

and me got rapido, the mystery. The boss would be like, "friend, friend, faster, faster." And she did get fast. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language)

- Okay, so when you first started, you were doing like 100 pieces a day and now you're 700, 800 pieces.

What you've seen, this piece has a million, it's done, it's done, it's done.

- 100 pieces a day is a lot, it's a lot. (speaking in foreign language) I brought my idea, a garment that was made in the US so we could talk about the work that goes into it. It's a purple sports bra for me, fancy,

pricey, American brand, the nice, thick cardboard tags has made in the USA and sold for $62 and it's good quality, definitely you can feel it in the fabric. But all my ESEs is the amount of loose threads that she would need to trim on a piece like this.

(speaking in foreign language) - There's not much she says. (speaking in foreign language) 'Cause you want something like this, this is an easy job for you. (speaking in foreign language)

- Oh, this is like potato chips.

- Like a piece of cake, you know?

You can really make money doing the trimming on a bra like this, she says. (speaking in foreign language)

“- If you want to earn money, you have to do a fast, what?”

Why? (speaking in foreign language) - Why does she have to work fast to get money? Maria gets paid by the piece, meaning the faster she works, the more pieces she does, the more money she makes.

It's called peace, rate, pay, and it is very common in this industry. This is why Maria likes a nice simple garment. Jeans? No, you don't like working on jeans, no, I don't know.

- A button up shirt, oh, the worst. (speaking in foreign language) - The buttons, the buttons take a while. You have to trim all the loose threads. You don't make much money when there's buttons involved.

(speaking in foreign language) - Left over button thread just really slows you down. You get paid by the quantity you produce, right? The number of garments you get through. And the pay?

- Well, when Maria started out as a trimmer in 1994, the pay was, (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - Three to five cents per piece.

That's the pay she started at. - Maria would do a hundred pieces a day, make five dollars and she'd walk out, happy, she says, feeling great about her five dollars a day. - Today, Aureta (speaking in foreign language)

- A 15 cents per piece. - Yeah, the SSA cents. - Aureta, 15 cents today. - Today, Maria makes 15 to 16 cents per piece. - And that can be, okay, pay.

If she gets a nice easy sports bra, but if she gets, I don't know, a jacket, a jacket with buttons, working as fast as you possibly can, sometimes you do not get close to making minimum wage. Many times in her career, Maria has taken bundles

of garments home, set up to two, three in the morning, just trimming, trimming, trimming more and more pieces, trying to earn enough money to pay her bills. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language)

It's so weird that they're like, "Yes, you're take the clothes here." They're a big brand, like take the clothes home and do work on it at home.

“And like, would you get the clothes dirty at your house?”

- Oh, no, no, no, no, no. She's like, "Oh, no, no, no, you do not get the clothes dirty." (speaking in foreign language) - And many workers who get paid by the piece

Their whole families will work on the clothes together.

Now, sometimes, when Maria gets a bundle of really time consuming garments, she will ask for more pay. Again, she doesn't speak English, but she makes gestures to the boss. She says, "And gets by, just fine." (speaking in foreign language)

- She'll be like, "Mister, come, come, look. "Little, how much trimming this garment needs?" (speaking in foreign language) Okay, okay, this is Santa Bo? - No, those people are like, "Okay, I'm on an extra cent."

No, two cents, she'll say. - Okay, okay, this is an opera dilemma. - And she's got an end. But that would get her like an extra $10 for the day. Now, peace repay varies depending on what you're doing.

The trimming is considered the finishing touches before a garment gets ironed and sent out to a store brand. The person on the iron in LA might get 50 cents per garment. It's more dangerous. The person who sewed on sleeves did the bottom hem, maybe 12 cents.

- Well, actually, that's better. When I started an industry over 30 years ago, we laughed and called it a penny a pocket,

“because that's what they were paid for every pocket”

they would put on. - In the US? - In the US. - Lynn Burradi is the head of the Department of Design and Merchandising and Oklahoma State University.

But back in the '90s, Lynn actually also helped figure out what garment workers working for US brands would be paid. Like she'd watch them on the assembly line, sewing on a pocket, sewing on a seam. - Say you've got an 18 inch seam that you have to make.

They pick up the two pieces, put it together, put it through the machine, cut the thread, the end, and lay it down. 18 inch seam takes X amount of seconds to make. I would keep track of that cycle and write down the cycle, watching their movements, et cetera.

- If you're standing there with a stopwatch, it's like, okay, she did that in 30 seconds. - Oh yeah? - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah.

- Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. - Yes, and I'm marking that down right in front. Yes, it was very awkward.

You didn't do it all the time. You did it to set the piece rate and to set the cost of the garment. - So you were, your job was to determine how many cents to pay, or to charge. - I gave the data to the people.

I gave the data to them. - We're blaming you Lynn, we're blaming you. - I know, I feel so terrible though, but, you know, this is just something that you're taught. This is one of the main ways the garment industry in the U.S.

and globally has always paid, pennies on the piece.

- This is a long standing tradition, at least since the Industrial Revolution. Peace rate pay was meant to incentivize workers to work harder. - So the people working harder and producing more would make more money than the people

who were working slower.

“- And everyone sounds like it's a fair system, right?”

- But Lynn has some regrets about this now. And she says peace rate pay means workers often wreck their bodies working as fast as they can. - When you sew, you have one foot on a pedal, and so your weight tends to be on your other leg,

do thing that for eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, perhaps or more, that can cause issues. - We spoke to workers who have gotten burned, scarred, knee surgery on their shoulder. - Doing the same arm repetitions every single day.

When you do hundreds of these units. - Okay, wait, let me show you. So this is my garment that I bought. - Okay, I show Lynn the purple sports bra. - There's like a little keyhole right here.

- Oh, that's nice. - Yeah, let me see the shoulders. - When I show this garment to my aunt, she could really only tell me about the part she does, the trimming.

But Lynn can tell us how many people worked on a garment like this and how much they each got paid. - Okay, so you've got a front and a back. You've got the band along the bottom, and then you've got the piping pieces

on the armhole and the neckline. It's a very basic bra. - This is not a structured bra. There are no cups, no liner pads,

“no holes for the liners, no wired, nothing like that.”

And still Lynn says, it could have taken 13 different people to make it. Each doing a different step. - Just to sew the bra. I'm not talking about any of the prep work.

Like laying out the fabric, cutting out the fabric, bundling the pieces, would like a generous estimate be like every single person who touched this piece got no more than 30 cents for what they did, or 40 cents.

- 40 cents is probably too high. - 40 cents is too high. Okay, so we'll go with 30 cents. - 30 cents, times 13 people would mean that potentially theoretically workers were paid

three dollars in 90 cents to make this bra. - Yeah. - Which was selling for 62 dollars. - Correct. And this is like made in America.

- So this is like as good as it gets. - Yep. - This is as good as it gets. - Well in terms of people actually being paid. - Yeah.

- Basically as good as it gets in terms of pay.

Dr. Pan, Belgium actually do pay garment workers more

than the US does, but generally in countries that make most of our clothes, workers would make way, way less than $3.90 total to make a bra like this. - Oh, Penny, it's like a 50 cents in other countries.

- So why don't they do it tomorrow? Is it because they want to be a brand that says we use American labor? - It that's worth money, absolutely. - Do you think that your average consumer of this product

“thinks, oh wait, that's what American labor is?”

It's like someone getting paid 18 cents to 30 cents to work on this? - No, absolutely not. I think we have the image of a well-run factory that's air condition where people get nice brakes

and go home to their families at night. And it's just not that I've seen worse factories from America than I have seen overseas. - Most of the garment factories left in the US over 76% of them are small operations

with fewer than 10 workers.

You'd walk by some of these and never even know

there was a garment factory there. In New York City, a factory could be on top of a restaurant in Little Italy in Los Angeles, it could be on a residential street looking like any other single story house on the block.

There aren't that many factories or that many domestic garment workers. In 1990, there were like 900,000 of payroll manufacturing jobs in the US. Today, there are 82,000.

“The US lost most of its garment industry”

in the 90s when brands and retailers started sourcing more and more products overseas and paying other countries to make more and more clothes. And when that happened, the US kind of stopped investing in the factories that were left stopped innovating.

So walking into some of these factories today can feel like going back in time. - It's tiny, some contracted, overcrowded factories with these juky machines. - This is Isha Berenblatt.

Her work running a nonprofit called Remake has taken her inside garment factories all over the US and abroad. - Come look at the factories in Salte, not just even China, in Cambodia, in Bangladesh.

Some of these are state-of-the-art facilities innovative, you know, with robotics and AI and using clean technology, we don't have that. - We have some, not many. The governments in a lot of the countries

where our clothes are made today actually subsidized, those state-of-the-art fancy factories. And unless the US were to do the same,

“Asha says, she cannot imagine that there would be”

the right incentives for anyone to invest in more US factories. - This is an aging workforce, you know, who is going to do the skill development that's needed. Without investment in workforce,

without investment in R&D, in technology, in actual factory development, and patience. It's not as though these jobs are just going to come back. Can they just say that? These jobs are not going to make iPhones in America,

and we're not going to make all our clothes in them. We don't know how to, like, let's just put that out there. - Yeah, the US outsource. A lot of its garment-making expertise, a long time ago. Other countries got really good at making clothes.

Not just sewing clothes, but like the pattern-making fitting, making a bra. A simple sports bra, like our purple bra, like a legit, structured, support bra with cups in the whole thing. And she says, the US doesn't really know how to make those bras.

- No, look in your closet and see why most of your bras come from Sri Lanka, probably. It's hard, you know, it's a technical garment. I mean, the wire, the clasp, the sizing, the different, like, rounded, and folded parts.

- Yeah, different countries have become experts. A different things. One country might be a really great at making cheap pearl buttons for our clothes. Another great at working with silk.

The US is apparently not known for its silk work. You really want to go to where silk production originated for good silk work. So, China. But there is a garment manufacturing industry

in the US, right? That's what Maria does. - And Trime, Iganas tuvinetro. And if you're wondering why there is any industry left at all, when clothes can be made cheaper,

sometimes even better abroad, a year's life. Some US brands like to have factories nearby for things like prototyping and making samples. They just want a few pieces right away, why haven't made all the way in China.

And then there are clothes for the niche customer, like consumers who really want clothes that aren't shipped from across the world, because they really care about emissions, for example. Specialized clothes for people with physical disabilities,

the US makes a decent amount of that. And here's another big reason.

Basically, all of the clothes for the US military

have to buy law under the very amendment

The fabric, the fiber, top to bottom, made in the USA.

“Because the US military doesn't ever want to have to rely”

on a particular country in case we ever like go to war with that country or something. This is the part of the garment industry that the US government does prop up. And there's a perception, right?

That made in America must mean better labor conditions maybe, better pay, good for the environment, even. Why do you think that's there? That's not true. That's absolutely not true.

I chose non-profit does these reports,

where they basically grade brands on labor issues like pay

and worker well-being and environmental issues, like the raw materials brands use and where their clothes get discarded. There's this perception that somehow if I'm paying more, or if it's a luxury item,

then the workers are paid better. And time and time again, you know, they've been scandals with sweatshops in Italy, and they've been high-end brands, luxury brands. There's math out there, something like 20 cents

for a $20 t-shirt.

“But the same holds true for $120 t-shirt.”

A $20 t-shirt, a $120 t-shirt, the workers are likely got 20 cents to work on it either way. I just says you generally cannot buy your way into better wages for workers. There has been an effort in California

where Maria and half of all US garment workers are to raise the pay.

But the thing about making clothes

is it has historically gone somewhere else where you can pay workers less. That's after the break. Hi, I'm Nicole Phelps, global director of Vogue Runway in Vogue Business

and host of The Run Through Podcast. Every Tuesday, join me for the latest fashion news like the shake-ups of Balenciaga and Dior and what's trending in Paris and Milan. You'll also hear interviews with top designers

from Mark Jacobs and Rick Owens to Daniel Rosebury, Sarah Burton, and many more. On Thursdays, Chloe Mall, editor of Vogue.com in Chomonnati, head of editorial content at British Vogue, take you behind the scenes at Vogue

and share their thoughts on fashion through the lens of culture.

“You'll hear interviews with some of your favorite stars,”

like Julianne Moore, Ferrell Williams,

and Celebrity Stylist Law Roach. Join us to get your fashion and culture news twice a week, listen to the run through with Vogue, every Tuesday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. So we know that Mediya gets paid by the piece,

but here's how they added up. Every day when Mediya walks into work, she gets bundles of clothes that need trimming, sorted by size. And Mediya keeps track of the cut, the style,

and the number of pieces in a notebook, and then figures out her total pay at the end of the week. And the Mr. or Mrs. will do the same accounting on their end. And sometimes their math might be $5, $6 short, and Mediya will be like, no, no, no, no.

Check your math again. - See, ask the Guenta Bianchi, but ask. - Okay. - Mediya does feel like she has to fight for every dollar she gets. Working a regular average day where the garments she's working on

is not so easy and not so hard. Mediya might do like 500 pieces at 15 cents a piece. So $75 a day. - If they've gotten in cash, - 50, I don't think that's.

- Working full time, she could make $375 a week, $1,500 a month. If Mediya was making the minimum wage in California though, she'd make $2,640 a month. When you convert piece rate paid to hourly wages,

it can add up to much less than the minimum wage. According to a Department of Labor Survey of garment workers in Southern California, some workers made as little as $1.58 an hour. And in California, the way that Mediya is getting paid.

By the piece is actually not legal. It's wage theft, and Mediya knows it. - See, it's in Rojo de Salario. - Mediya is a member of a group called the garment worker center in Los Angeles.

The center, and also Isha's nonprofit, pushed for this law in California that prohibits peace rate paid in the garment industry. It passed four years ago. So now, by law, Mediya is supposed to be getting paid hourly

at minimum wage or better, not by the piece. But getting all the brands and factories to comply with the law is another story. Sometimes garment workers are asked to clock in and clock out every day, even though they are not paid by the hour.

Factory's do this to try to avoid being caught by stayed investigators. They'll even coach workers on what color the paycheck would be if they got a paycheck not cash, so that they can be more believable to investigators.

Our purple sports bra, the one we bought, we spoke to a worker who says they worked on those bras. Paid by the piece. And the company that made it was actually fine for using factories in California

that were committing wage theft and issuing fake checks.

that pay garment workers per piece.

According to the Department of Labor, it's been contractors and manufacturers

“that make clothes for Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Luluz, Dillards.”

So it's not just the bad fast fashion brands doing this, it's luxury brands, it's good American brands that boast about being made with US labor, like our sports bra. And if factories get wind,

that maybe someone is poking around on how they're paying workers, there's this thing that can happen. The factory can close up, relocate, change their name, to avoid having to back pay workers. Lynn, Lynn, who used to have the stopwatch timing workers

sewing on seams, she says she saw factories do this all the time. - But they were caught doing anything and the government came in, they would say, sorry, that company no longer exists.

We're this owner, we're the new company now.

- But it would be the same owners, of course. - Of course. - Of course. - And how can they do that? - Oh, it's all illegal.

It is the very definition of a sweatshop, but you have to catch them at it. - Yes, sweatshumps. It's a term people toss out a lot, but the actual definition of a sweatshop

is poor working conditions, low pay, long hours. And the problem with trying to make wages and conditions and hours better is that you can risk losing the industry altogether. For example, the long California

that prohibits peace rate pay in the garment industry, the California Chamber of Commerce labeled it a job killer.

People said that if California is the only state

in the country that bans peace rate pay, factories and brands will just make clothes one state over where they can still pay workers by the piece. There has been a years long push to eliminate peace rate pay nationally,

but I mean, then the worker just go to another country. These jobs have already moved from China to Bangladesh and Vietnam where the labor is cheaper. We did talk to a garment worker who has been paid hourly, not by the piece.

- What is he in English like, what you do for work? - I way to do for what? - What do you do? - Oh, what are you doing? - What are you doing?

- Where, I, this is Batheko. She is a sewer in LA who is made clothes for the US military. - Las camisas para los soldados. - Ah, para los soldados. - This is for the soldiers.

- Como el camo flaso? - Sí, sí, sí, sí. - But even getting paid minimum wage, parcha cosas, there is pressure to do things fast. - Que das todo lo que puede es fisicamente.

F fisicamente mentalmente porque tienes que saludar un hecho. - You give everything you can physically,

“she says, and mentally, because you have to do really good work.”

And then it will soon end in sub-bacteries, at least. And if you don't work fast, Pachecco says, sometimes they can just take the work away from you. - Did he say, "Oh, es que trabajo bajo." The way that they're going to say it's going to be a lot of work.

The next few days, we'll call you when there's more. And you get the message, she says, to work faster and exam. Pachecco says, sometimes she actually made more money when she was paid by the piece. And now, we are not using Pachecco's full name

because she fears workplace retaliation. This is also why we're not using mighty as full name, or the names of their employers. But the garment worker signar, which fights labor violations, says, this kind of thing happens all the time.

And Pachecco has a lot of regrets about investing so much of her adult life in this industry. She says, "She has nothing to show for her work. No savings, no career advancements. She feels broken by it."

Pachecco says, "You've lost a lot of time.

“"See, well, because I think that I don't want to do it.”

"I don't want to have a job in work and life and have more." Pachecco, Maria, they say, "This is not a job. "They would want. "For a job, they would want." "For a job, they would want."

"For a job, they would want." "For a job, they would want." "For a job, they would want." "For their loved ones, like Pachecco's kids, "or Maria's grandkids, who will graduate to college."

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no." "No, it's not for her, she's not." "No, not this job for them, Maria says." "Well, no, I don't want to do it." Maria says, "She wants them to be something in life."

I tell her, "You're something?" "You're something, Maria." "Yes, I'm something." She says, "But she rains her kids." She says, "She rains her kids."

And she's proud of herself, but she cannot imagine. Many Americans would want this job. She's like, "No, I don't want to do it."

She's like, "Come on, you think they'd be crouched over all day?"

“She can actually barely contain herself at the thought.”

She's like, "No, no, no, no, I didn't." After doing that story, it still sticks with Sarah.

"I will never look at a shirt or bra or pants and not see, like, oh, 15 people probably worked on that.

Like, I never knew that it took that that many people touched one garment in the United States.

“To this day, she cannot look at a piece of clothing without imagining all the many hands that touched it.”

It took 15 people to make a bra.

It took 20 people to make a t-shirt.

It took 35 people to make, like, a men's button up, dress shirt. That's what I see.

“Of course, there's like, you know, the do-gooder factories.”

But for the most part, it doesn't matter how expensive the clothes is. If it costs, if it's a t-shirt that costs $120 or a t-shirt that costs $20, the workers who worked on both of those shirts likely got 20 cents to work on it either way. You know, it's like, knowledge ruins everything. Take it away with the credit, Sarah.

I'm Sarah Gonzalez. Today's show was edited by Mary Ann McCune and fact checked by Sierra Juarez, who also helped with research. It was produced by Willa Rubin, with help from Emma Peasley and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Also, super, super, extra special thanks to Shane Liu who really helped us understand why the

garment industry exists in the US at all and what it looks like. This episode, I added music by Lellotone, Sassami Ashworth and Ray Royal, but... I have not found a perfect sample white t-shirt if you have any tips. Actually, if you want my humble suggestions for simple, relatively ethical, good white t-shirts, go to articles of interest.substack.com.