The debate over productivity: Tilting at Windmills?

Hyped by the Administration, the problem of productivity has lately hit the headlines. Like the Nixon and Ford governments, Carter and his entourage of economic experts have taken to loud public lamentations about the U.S.' low productivity growth. In fact, Carter has been far more pessimistic on this score than his predecessors, predicting an annual productivity growth over the next five years of a mere 1.5 percent, compared to previous Department of Labor projections of a 2 percent figure. The very day after his gloomy forecast in the Economic Report to Congress, the Labor Department unveiled the lousy productivity score for 1978—a trifling 0.4 percent increase, the worst since the 1974 depression. Carter solemnly warned the nation that this alarming drift at a time of high inflation threatened everyone's standard of living.