Productivity is Falling

Over at Mike the Mad Biologist, Mike has this post, noting the productivity in America has been falling rapidly over the past years.

Mike speculates an unconscious but deliberate slowdown on the part of American workers, who have seen no increase in their pay since the early in 1980s, despite steady and unrelenting increasing productivity.

Maybe, eventually, finally, Mike speculates, the American worker has gotten the message that our hard work will not result in an increase to our paychecks or in job security, and (thus) we've stopped working so hard?

That's a possibility.

Another possibility is that, after so many years of working so hard (sixty hour work weeks, fifty-two weeks a year) just to stay even, just to keep these miserable jobs that let us pay the rent and feed the kids, never mind getting ahead, because we can't ever get ahead -- maybe we are just finally, finally broken? Too exhausted and sick and tired to keep the pace anymore?

I know I'm at that point.