Chart of the Week: Productivity and Police Action

Actually, here are two useful charts. With the first quarter’s economic growth being revised upward from the previous 0.5 percent annual rate to 0.8 percent annual rate, the Obama era continues its record as the weakest economic expansion in history. One reason is shown in this chart from the Financial Times, showing U.S. productivity growth turning negative in the first quarter:

Prod Growth copy

You can see that productivity growth has been slow for the last five years. At this rate, the median income household can look forward to a meager rise in real wages around the year 2040 or so. James Pethokoukis has further thoughts here.

Meanwhile, Bill Galston and Elizabeth McElvein of the Brookings Institution put out a short paper a while ago with some facts and figures about the criminal justice reform debate, and this chart jumps out:

Police Shootings copy

Galston and McElvein comment:

Although police killed a disproportionate number of minority individuals relative to the racial composition of the U.S. population, the best available data are too limited to substantiate claims of racial bias.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses