Michael R. Strain, Columnist

U.S. Productivity Is Soaring. Hold the Applause.

Don’t be fooled by the gaudy statistic. It just means that less-productive workers were the first to be fired.

September 9, 2020 at 10:30 AM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Even the good news is scary.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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Amid the gloom of the coronavirus recession, even the good economic news tends to be bad. Take productivity. Its growth is soaring to rates not seen in half a century. Wage growth is accelerating, too. Normally, this would be a cause for celebration.

Not now. Improving wage and productivity statistics are actually a sign of underlying economic weakness.