Creating Economic Opportunity for More Americans Through Productivity Growth

Author

Chad Syverson

, Eli B. and Harriet B. Williams Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Download the Report


Abstract

The U.S. economy in recent years has been characterized by slow average productivity growth and increasing productivity dispersion within industries. These trends have coincided with analogous changes in wages—slow average wage growth and greater wage inequality between workers. In this essay, I discuss research into the potential causes of these patterns and outline several policy changes that would yield expected productivity and wage benefits under general conditions.

Longform Publications Section 4: Strengthening Practices to Improve Job Quality

Tools: Employee Ownership

View tools and resources related to employee ownership.

Blog Posts Job Quality Fellows Profile Series Longform

Centering Workers in Workforce Development

The Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance collaborates with employers and stakeholders to boost employment, earnings, and equity for local workers.

Blog Posts Job Quality Fellows Profile Series Longform

Lessons and Leadership To Foster Economic Justice for Illinois Workers

LEP trains workers to promote equity, enforce rights, build unions, develop leaders, ensure workplace safety, and advance economic justice.

Blog Posts Job Quality Fellows Profile Series Longform

Worker Owned and Worker Driven

While the rideshare apps have increased convenience, they’ve eroded job quality. See how the Drivers’ Cooperative is helping to end exploitative conditions.

Blog Posts Job Quality Fellows Profile Series Longform

Creating Employee-Owned Businesses That Provide Good Jobs and Succeed

Through employee ownership, The Industrial Commons is building a new Southern working class that erases the inequities of generational poverty.

Blog Posts Job Quality Fellows Profile Series Longform

Strengthening the Hidden Resilience Workforce

We see the effects of climate change, but we rarely see the people who help to rebuild — and they often lack safe conditions, decent pay, or benefits.

Blog Posts Job Quality Fellows Profile Series Longform

Advancing a Pro-Worker, Pro-Climate Agenda in Texas

The Texas Climate Jobs Project advances a pro-worker, pro-climate agenda — helping to solve the climate crisis while creating millions of good jobs.

Blog Posts Job Quality Fellows Profile Series Longform

Organizing and Coalition Building for Structural Change

LAANE, led by Job Quality Fellow Roxana Tynan, is fighting to build an economy rooted in good jobs, thriving communities, and a healthy environment.

Blog Posts Job Quality Fellows Profile Series Longform

Organizing Unemployed and Underemployed Workers

UWU, led by Job Quality Fellow Neidi Dominguez, engages unemployed/underemployed workers, a population that has not been mobilized at scale since the 1930s.

Blog Posts Longform

How Local Journalism Can Bring Communities Together

MIT Center for Constructive Communication Director Deb Roy explains how the caricatures Republicans and Democrats paint of each other diverge from reality, and the ways local newsrooms can leverage their “trust capital” and emerging technology to promote listening and understanding amid disagreement.