Reason #4 For Weak Productivity Growth: Labor Is Cheap

Neil Irwin noted the incredibly weak productivity growth of the last six years and then considered three possible explanations. Unfortunately he left out what may be the plausible one: labor is cheap.

The high unemployment of the last seven years has left many people desperate for work. As a result, they are willing to work for very low wages. If businesses can get people at very low wages, they don't mind having them do relatively low productivity tasks. For example, Walmart will have large...