A Lansdale gymnastics mat maker is on the ropes, and so is U.S. manufacturing | Maria Panaritis

Bob Mancino can’t catch a break.

First, the U.S. gym-mat producer was slammed by coronavirus shutdowns of schools and gyms, his wholesale market. Then he was slammed by Amazon and Walmart selling Chinese-made mats for cheap to parents stuck at home with their kids.

It is no exaggeration to say that the global economy has long been merciless to U.S. manufacturing. But imagine being a survivor through 2020 who then gets hit hard by COVID-19, only to be beaten to a pulp by retailer behemoths serving up the junk-food spoils of offshore manufacturing.

Mancino and the local company founded by his late father in 1966 are like the Karate Kid. They keep being hit by cheap shots, only there’s no crane kick to save the day.

“I don’t know,” Mancino said when we recently met and talked. “I just want this to be over. I don’t want this to take down my company.”

The state of the U.S. economy and its hemorrhaging manufacturing sector is not a new story. Middle-class jobs have been vanishing over decades of globalization. This has left a hole in and around Philadelphia, and in the U.S. labor force. The vacuum has been politically poisonous and damaging to livelihoods.

But its casualties are growing and cannot be ignored. Mancino Manufacturing’s crushing coronavirus odyssey offers just one look, in our own region, of how tricky things have become.

Just this week we heard of the Biden administration’s concerns over a global shortage of computer chips. A supply-chain crunch is so bad that it is causing Ford Motor Co. to slow vehicle production. This is what happens when the U.S. lacks enough of its own domestic factories to be nimble in crisis. We saw the same with last year’s shortage of personal protective equipment.

As the Washington Post laid it out: “U.S. semiconductor companies account for 47 percent of global chip sales, but only 12 percent of global chip manufacturing occurs in the United States. ... In 1990, about 37 percent of global semiconductor production happened in the United States, but the U.S. share has dropped as U.S. companies and others build factories overseas.”

Mancino Manufacturing in Lansdale doesn’t make superconductors for electronic products. But they face many of the same pressures that are playing out with the chip shortage. Mancino’s story is revealing of a broader problem with our economy.

I had only heard about Mancino by accident. I was scouring the web for folding gym mats to buy as a gift. I saw a Facebook post about a used “Mancino” — a high-quality mat made in our region. On Amazon, Walmart, and Target, I had seen nothing about Mancino mats for sale. Only products that were selling for a steal: Mats that, with shipping included, would cost me $80, or $100, or $125.

I located the company in Lansdale and called their 75,000-square-foot factory headquarters a few days ago. Maybe they would sell me a 4-by-8 right off the factory floor.

Bob Mancino told me about business. It had been battered by the pandemic.

“About 95% of what we do goes into schools,” Mancino said. “They’re all closed.”

His dad, Angelo, founded the company in Philadelphia. The family kept it for decades in Germantown until Bob moved it to an expansive factory in Lansdale a few years ago.

Before COVID-19, Mancino employed 32 full-time workers, including sewing machine operators, office staff, and him and his wife. The pandemic forced him to slash payroll to 20. Orders vanished with the closure of gymnastics, martial arts, and school gyms. A few weeks ago, he trimmed it even further, to 13.

“I couldn’t keep the employees employed,” the 68-year-old proprietor said, “without the work.”

We continued our conversation a few days later when I visited the factory. I saw only a few sewing machine operators stitching vinyl sheets onto padding purchased from U.S-based factories.

Yes, there had been an industry surge in demand from parents this past year looking to buy one-offs for home during the endless quarantine, Mancino said. But he hasn’t been able to capitalize on that.

A 4-by-8 mat from Mancino would have to sell for around $190 to cover costs. Amazon and Walmart, he said, are moving Chinese-made mats — shipping included — for easily $50 to $70 less than he would have to charge.

“Most of what I see on Amazon is being imported from China,” he said. “I can’t sell into that market.”

The pressure from China has intensified in just the past few years.

Under the Trump administration, tariffs were imposed on the vinyl sheets that Mancino imports from China. But fully constructed mats imported from overseas? They come into the U.S. market tariff-free, he said.

Broken, broken, broken.

I asked Mancino if readers were welcome to go to his facility and buy folding mats off the factory floor. He said yes — as long as they called ahead before reaching 1180 Church Rd., Suite 400, Lansdale, PA 19446. The number is 800-338-6287; their website is www.mancinomats.com.

Why not take a road trip? It’s a good break from cabin fever. Plus, we consumers may not untangle the macroeconomic mess, but we can show we value more than just the cheapest, two-day-delivered consumer product made in Wherever, Earth. It’s something.