December 16, 2014
The NYT’s Upshot section ran a major piece headlined “as robots grow smarter, American workers struggle to keep up.” The gist of the piece is that robots are rapidly replacing workers, leading to a lack of jobs. The piece focuses on the drop in employment in the last decade, which it attributes to the spread of robotization and computer technology. It includes comments from several economists pontificating about the impact on the distribution of income.
If robots and computers are leading to the rapid displacement of workers, they are managing to keep it a secret from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). BLS actually measures the rate at which the economy is becoming more efficient through the use of things like robots and computers, it’s called “productivity growth.”
Fans of data know that, contrary to what you read in the NYT, productivity growth has actually been rather slow in recent years. In the last decade it has averaged less than 1.5 percent annually. By comparison, in the twenty six years from 1947 to 1973 productivity growth averaged 2.8 percent annually. Contrary to the concerns expressed in this article, the rapid spread of technology in that period was associated with low rates of unemployment and high rates of wage growth for the bulk of the population.
The more obvious reason for the drop in employment over the last decade is the loss of demand that resulted from the collapse of the housing bubble. (Did they miss this one at the NYT?) That happens to fit the data like a glove, unlike the speculation on productivity.
Also,if we are discussing demand and employment it is probably worth mentioning the trade deficit. This translates into more than $500 billion in lost annual demand (@ 3.0 percent of GDP). The trade deficit implies demand being created in Europe or Japan, not the United States.
What the hell is the problem with papers not being able to talk about the trade deficit, is there censorship on the topic? This is basic national income accounting. This means it is not an arguable point, those who don’t recognize the trade deficit as a drain on demand in the context of an economy that is below full employment (as discussed here) are simply wrong. The NYT should be able to find people to write on economics who passed Econ 101.
Finally, the genuflecting about the lack of jobs is especially bizarre in the context of the news stories about the Federal Reserve Board being prepared to raise interest rates. The point of raising interest rates is to slow the economy and keep workers from getting jobs. So if we are worried that technology may be displacing workers, why doesn’t someone relay these concerns to the folks at the Fed so that they won’t aggrevate the problem by raising interest rates?
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