Worker Productivity In The News

From a recent Washington Post editorial...

But consider that, despite the recession, the productivity of U.S. workers has increased fourfold since the 1950s. Put another way, as of 2000, employees work one hour to produce what it took four hours to create a half-century ago. Meanwhile, the buying power of wages has remained stagnant and in recent years has even begun to decline. Someone is getting rich off the exponential rise in productivity, but it is not the American worker.

In the past, unions struggled not only to raise pay but also to shorten the hours that their members had to work. The trend toward shorter hours continued unabated from the Civil War through the end of the Great Depression and the enactment, in 1938, of the Fair Labor Standard Act’s 40-hour-week provision. But during World War II work hours increased sharply, and it has not been a significant public issue since.