Robert Samuelson Is Worried Robots Will Take People's Jobs

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 (whi...