Technology Change Not the Culprit in Wages Falling Behind US Productivity Gains
There was just a post on a related topic, technological unemployment, on SlateStarCodex. Quoting the conclusion below:<p>Here are some tentative conclusions:<p>1. Technological unemployment is not happening right now, at least not more so than previous eras. The official statistics are confusing, but they show no signs of increases in this phenomenon. (70% confidence)<p>2. On the other hand, there are signs of technological underemployment – robots taking middle-skill jobs and then pushing people into other jobs. Although some people will be “pushed” into higher-skill jobs, many will be pushed into lower-skill jobs. This seems to be what happened to the manufacturing industry recently. (70% confidence)<p>3. This sort of thing has been happening for centuries and in theory everyone should eventually adjust, but there are some signs that they aren’t. This may have as much to do with changes to the educational, political, and economic system as with the nature of robots per se. (60% confidence)<p>4. Economists are genuinely divided on how this is going to end up, and whether this will just be a temporary blip while people develop new skills, or the new normal. (~100% confidence)<p>5. Technology seems poised to disrupt lots of new industries very soon, and could replace humans entirely sometime within the next hundred years. (???)<p>This is a very depressing conclusion. If technology didn’t cause problems, that would be great. If technology made lots of people unemployed, that would be hard to miss, and the government might eventually be willing to subsidize something like a universal basic income. But we won’t get that. We’ll just get people being pushed into worse and worse jobs, in a way that does not inspire widespread sympathy or collective action. The prospect of educational, social, or political intervention remains murky.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;slatestarcodex.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;02&#x2F;19&#x2F;technological-unemployment-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;slatestarcodex.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;02&#x2F;19&#x2F;technological-unemploym...</a>