Clinton: Through friends accidentally gave child double dose of ibuprofen Today, a decade later, Marlin Steel is outcompeting not just Chinese factories but German ones as well. Its sales are six times the 2003 level, and it has almost double the number of employees. The staffers have health insurance and 401(k) accounts (five employees are on pace to be 401(k) millionaires) and an average wage four times what it was a decade ago. The little Baltimore factory runs double shifts. Most remarkably, Marlin is still making wire baskets--just not bagel baskets. Or at least not very many.