What a Crock – Aging and Productivity

The idea that aging has no effect on productivity is just preposterous. The fact is that the only reason that productivity has seen such a sharp increase over the past decade is that less people are actually producing. We all know why – technology and machines have taken over many of the paying jobs that were once available.

 

So, this horsecrap that the Social Security Administration I straying to peddle is simply ridiculous.

They state: The U.S. may have little reason to worry that an aging population will make its economy more unproductive.

Research funded by the Social Security Administration and published this month by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found over the past 25 years that age has been no threat to productivity.

Indeed, improved education among those over 60 and delays in retirement among the better-schooled have tended to boost the earnings of older workers relative to younger ones, said Gary Burtless. He is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a group that analyzes national public policy in Washington.

For example, on one measure of individual worker productivity — hourly wages — male employees aged between 60 and 74 earned an average 22 percent more in 2011 than workers between 25 and 59.

The expectation that older workers reduce productivity may be fueled by the perception the aged are less healthy, educated and up to date in their knowledge than the young, said Burtless, a former economist at the U.S. Department of Labor