An auditable policy instrument asking: how much of America's critical industrial base can the country actually make, source, staff, and sustain?
Think of the MII as a Big Mac Index for domestic production, with a serious audit trail underneath. A high score means U.S. factories, mines, workforce, and supply chains can cover strategic needs with less fragile dependence. A low score exposes where resilience is more slogan than capacity.
If global trade stopped tomorrow, how much of America's own critical stuff could it still make?
Raw materials. America's ability to source critical minerals domestically — from rare earth elements for electronics to lithium for batteries. Graphite and manganese, to pick two, are heavily imported.
Manufacturing readiness. The human side: workforce availability, technical capabilities, operational readiness, domestic value creation. We track vocational training, automation adoption, capacity utilization, and the share of a product's labor performed inside U.S. borders.
Strategic goods. Finished-product capacity in critical sectors — aerospace, transportation, energy, electronics, medical equipment, industrial essentials. The U.S. is famously vulnerable in semiconductor fabrication and battery production; it is stronger in aerospace and heavy machinery.
Supply chain. Even with domestic final assembly, networks matter: subcomponent self-sufficiency, supplier diversity, logistics independence, inventory stockpiling. Low scores here expose the hidden dependencies that make "Made in America" deceptively shallow.
The public score uses four weighted pillars: raw materials and minerals, strategic goods production, supply-chain independence, and manufacturing readiness. Each number needs to show where it came from, how current it is, and how much confidence to place in it.
The goal is to help a staffer, analyst, or policymaker see whether a bottleneck is about raw materials, factories, workers, logistics, or weak data.
MII is in Phase 2 beta. The first version already shows the core structure, confidence levels, limitations, historical snapshots, and a demo of what drives each score. Current work is focused on making the index harder to fool: clearer source tables, release notes, changelogs, exports for analysts, and outside reviewers.
Researchers, policymakers, congressional staff, industrial-base specialists, supply-chain analysts, and methodology reviewers interested in early access or criticism are welcome to get in touch.