Andy McAfee, MIT
Andy McAfee, MIT
Has Technology Been Bad For the Average Worker?
Has Technology Been Bad For the Average Worker?
25 Oct 20123:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Open to public
Location:
Cotting Conference Room
Organizer:
The Digital Era has clearly benefited companies by enabling higher productivity and benefited consumers by increasing choice and surplus. Its effects on workers, however, are less clear. The labor market has become more polarized in recent years, median wealth and income have stagnated (or worse), and unemployment and underemployment are perhaps the most vexing aspects of the current recovery. What role, if any, do digital technologies play in these phenomena? This presentation will take up this question, bringing together recent economic and technological developments to advance a hypothesis: that as technology races ahead, it is leaving many workers behind, and that this trend is likely to accelerate in the future.