Productivity is the key to increasing our standard of living.
Long-term economic growth can only be achieved by accelerating the growth rate of the economy and its productive capacity. While labor productivity rose rapidly in 1998, the rate of increase in productivity over more recent periods is less than half of what is what in the 1960s and early 1970s. Since the 1990s, the trend in labor productivity growth is slightly above what it was during the mid-1970s and the 1980s. As long as productivity is increasing, wage and salary increases can be absorbed in the economy without sparking inflation.