Will US nonfarm business labor productivity growth, measured year-over-year, be at or above 2.5% in any quarter reported by BLS between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?

Measured productivity stays below the bar

Productivity gains from AI agents accumulate as capital or corporate profits rather than circulating as consumer spending, so strong nominal GDP and productivity figures that mask deteriorating real economic activity for workers and households. A new general-purpose technology (AI) being adopted and priced into markets and public imagination, so measured aggregate productivity growth does not accelerate until years after the technology's initial hype, as happened with the internet in the 1990s. It would show first if nonfarm business productivity growth stays below 2% year-over-year in every quarter of the window.

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