Interviewing ITIF President Rob Atkinson about the East Coast dockworkers' strike, Rich Lowry notes in the National Review that we might think we live in a time of revolutionary technological change, but we aren’t seeing big productivity gains, because much of our new technology has been poured into the consumer market—smartphones, social media, online retail, and the like.

Dockworkers for Economic Stagnation

Reducing unemployment and getting the COVID-impacted economy back to some semblance of normality is clearly the top economic task. But when that is done the economy will still face a critical labor market problem: too many workers earning too little.

What’s the Best Way to Help Low-Income Workers? Automate Low-Income Jobs

The U.S. economy has polarized since 1980, with widening gaps between high- and low-skilled wages driving increased inequality. One study has provided a partial explanation for this trend, identifying that sectors with high “income elasticity” (where demand is more sensitive to changes in income) are more likely to employ both high- and low-skilled workers, but less likely to employ medium-skilled workers.

Fact of the Week: Sectors With High “Income Elasticity” Employ Fewer Medium-Skill Workers, Explaining 60 Percent of the Decline in Their Share of Wages Between 1980 and 2016

Emerging technologies promise to bring about a new production revolution that will increase welfare throughout society, but it is expected to have the largest impact on low-productivity jobs. This could increase the proportion of high-paying and high-productivity jobs, but it also threatens a larger disruption to society, as lower-skill workers have more difficulties changing industries.

Fact of the Week: 72 Percent of Jobs Created in the U.S. from 2010 to 2016 Were Below Average in Both Compensation and Productivity

New BLS data shows wages for the bottom fifth percentile of earners grew 49 percent in the last 10 years, versus 31 percent for the top fifth. Policymakers should spur productivity growth to keep raising incomes across all socioeconomic levels.

Wages Are Up. Let’s Keep It That Way

Wages Are Up. Let's Keep It That Way

Pundits, scholars, and activists say the cause of the reduced share of U.S. national income going to workers over the past two decades is increased market concentration. But a new report released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, shows that this analysis is largely flawed and contradicted by macroeconomic data that shows that most of the decline is from an increase in rental income, not profits.

Is Increased Market Concentration Hurting Workers?  No, Says New ITIF Report

Contrary to pessimists’ worst fears, the job dislocation impacts from AI are likely to be very manageable—and AI-based automation will be critical to boosting workers’ wages.

Top 10 Things I Disagreed With in the US Senate AI Insight Forum on the Workforce

The prevailing narrative that the U.S. labor market is experiencing an unprecedented rate of technology-driven disruption couldn’t be further from the truth, according to a new analysis examining 165 years of Census data.

U.S. Labor Market Experiencing Unprecedented Calm, New Analysis of Census Data Finds; Contrary to Perceptions, Technology Disrupting Fewest Jobs in 165 Years—a Troubling Sign of Sluggish Productivity—Says Tech-Policy Think Tank

Please join ITIF to discuss a new report arguing that the common law-based distinction between employees and independent contractor no longer serves workers or companies well and should be updated.

ITIF Community Survey: Which Factors Do You Think Put the Most Downward Pressure on Wages?

Related

Dockworkers for Economic Stagnation

What’s the Best Way to Help Low-Income Workers? Automate Low-Income Jobs

Fact of the Week: Sectors With High “Income Elasticity” Employ Fewer Medium-Skill Workers, Explaining 60 Percent of the Decline in Their Share of Wages Between 1980 and 2016