Are you feeling unproductive lately? You’re in good company. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report on labor productivity and it is lower than it’s ever been.
In fact, productivity is lower than it has ever been since these began being tracked in 1948. The statistic adjusts for participation, population, retirement, etc.
This statistic measures output by number of labor hours. This mean that for every hour an American works, we collectively get less output from it.
Can we blame this on the pandemic? Some would say that lockdowns led to slothfulness.
“A nation of goof-offs,” as the Brownstone Institute puts it. “Zoom lifestyles and pretending to work.”
That may be a bit simplistic but there may be truth there too.
