I find that premise ("lack of industry") difficult or impossible to believe. The real (inflation adjusted value) manufacturing output of the US is doing just fine, it's manufacturing employment that's taken it on the chin. The US is still doing a lot of the higher value stuff, including R&D which employs scientists.

A big problem with industrial employment of scientists is that the deliberate stuffing of the pipeline (e.g. by the NSF starting in the '80s) to keep the price of science labor low also lowers the income of industry scientists. Basic supply and demand.