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At least this is what he says in his column today. The data strongly disagree with him. In the last four years productivity growth has averaged less than 1.0 percent a year. Productivity growth measures the rate at which robots and other technology replace people. In the years from 1995-2005 productivity growth averaged over 2.5 percent annually. In the period from 1947 to 1973 it averaged close to 3.0 percent.

The data indicate that we are seeing a slowdown in technology replacing labor (which should allow for rising living standards) rather than the speedup in the robot story. As a practical matter, workers should be far more concerned that the Federal Reserve Board will take their job, by slowing the economy with higher interest rates, than a robot will take their job.

 

Note: correction made, thanks Ethan.