In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes wrote a short essay called “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren,” where he envisioned technological advances enabling us to do all the work of agriculture, mining, and manufacturing with only a quarter of the human effort. Future generations, he said, would work only 15 hours a week. In fact, […]
productivity
The case for rising productivity in the U.S.
For most of the past 15 years, the U.S. has suffered from a productivity problem. Except for a spike after the 2009 Financial Crisis, productivity gains have been stuck at 1% per year over the past decade, or half the long-term average. Why does this matter? Economies that produce more with the same number of […]
