1971: The Productivity Slow-Down

Abstract

Ever since 1966, there has been a pronounced slow-down in the rate of productivity growth in the American economy. The significance of this development has passed largely unnoticed, even by the nation’s economists who have tended to attribute it to the 1966–1969 retardation in the rate of economic growth generally, and to the 1969–1970 recession. As I shall demonstrate in this chapter, the productivity slow-down is much greater than has occurred in past periods of slow economic growth, and appears to be primarily the result of other unfavorable socio-economic developments of the past four or five years. If this is so, it is a matter of concern to all of us to determine the negative forces at work so that they may be corrected before too much damage has been done to the actual and potential performance of the US economy.