ABSTRACT
Who hasn’t picked up a newspaper to see a headline that reads something like: “PRODUCTIVITY HAS INCREASED OVER THE LAST TWO QUARTERS”? Typically this headline is given as a positive proclamation that somehow we (the people of the United States or perhaps some other country) are better off than before the increase. When productivity increases some people are better off. These are generally people with large direct investments in businesses or large investments in stocks somehow mysteriously associated with businesses. This group of people is a fairly small segment of the population-less than ten percent of all United States citizens. Most people in the population are not bene¿ting by increases in productivity. An increase in productivity means that the amount of output per worker has increased. This condition can only exist under one, or some combination, of the following circumstances: existing workers working harder to produce more output, fewer workers producing the same or more output, new technology assisting existing workers so they can produce more.
