Don’t believe it. You could eliminate all taxes and regulations and you still won’t compete with Chinese labor rates of $2/day.
The taxes and regulations are pains in the butt, but we’ve had taxes and regulations for decades and it didn’t kill jobs. It’s the lowering of trade import tariffs that killed jobs.
I will give you one thing though. Our import tariffs are about 1% but our employment taxes on domestic producers averages about 10%. So the tax structure does provide an incentive to offshore. However that’s small compared to the wage differential.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/08/column-wasik-manufacturing-idUSL1N0C04C020130308
Labor rates in China vary widely based on province and city. Currently they run somewhere around $250 per month on the low end (Sichuan province) to $1,200 per month on the high end (Hong Kong) for skilled manufacturing labor. If you divide these monthly numbers by 160/hours per month you get an hourly rate between $1.60 per hour on the low end and $7.50 per hour on the high end. Still, much cheaper than in the US, but the gap is closing.
I was shopping for an insulated 1 gallon water jug a couple of weeks ago. I went to Walmart and they had 2 models to choose from. One had a spout on the bottom and the other had the spout on the top. That was the primary difference between the 2 as they were both just lumps of molded plastic. I was starting to favor the one with the spout on the bottom for ease of pouring ice water directly into my mouth when I noticed that it cost just over $18. The other brand with the spout on top cost just over $6. I probably would have bought the $18 one (Bubba Brand) until I noticed it was made in China. To my surprise, the $6 one (Coleman) was made in the U.S.A. Go figure.