US total factor productivity, private nonfarm business

Year-on-year change in the BLS total factor productivity index for private nonfarm business (MPU4910012), derived from the annual index.

Reason through this

The reading

TFP growth is inside its long-run range. A sustained break above 2% for several years is what the fast band requires, and nothing yet suggests it.

Every readingeach dot links to its record

a readingnormal rangefast range

measured

8 readings drawn from the derived metric bls_tfp_yoy; 9 observations in the evidence.

Derived (bls_tfp_yoy) from: BLS productivity and costs; total factor productivity. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Productivity and Costs (PRS85006092/93, PRS85006173), Total Factor Productivity (MPU4910012).

The numbers

as of	reading	value	record
2025-12-31	—	0.8%	measured
2024-12-31	—	1.5%	measured
2023-12-31	—	1.6%	measured
2022-12-31	—	-1.1%	measured
2021-12-31	—	3.9%	measured
2020-12-31	—	-0.5%	measured
2019-12-31	—	1.3%	measured
2018-12-31	—	0.6%	measured

Why it matters

TFP is the residual where a general-purpose-technology effect must eventually appear; it strips out capital deepening, so it is the cleanest macro test of adaptation.

What cuts against it

Annual, published with a lag, and revised; the latest year predates most enterprise deployment. TFP can be flattered by measurement of software investment.

How it is measured

series bls.mpu4910012.a
derived metric bls_tfp_yoy (formula in the semantic layer)
source BLS productivity and costs; total factor productivity · default tier 4 · Public domain (U.S. government)
proxy welfare · cadence annual · valve adoption to adaptation

Long-run private nonfarm TFP growth is about 1% a year; Acemoglu's AI estimate is at most 0.66% over a decade, invisible at annual resolution. Goldman-scale is roughly a point a year on top of trend. Normal = at most 1.2%; fast = 2% or more.

Applied to metric:bls_tfp_yoy.

Derived rows (8)

as of	value	inputs
2025-12-31	0.8%	sources1 2
2024-12-31	1.5%	sources1 2
2023-12-31	1.6%	sources1 2
2022-12-31	-1.1%	sources1 2
2021-12-31	3.9%	sources1 2
2020-12-31	-0.5%	sources1 2
2019-12-31	1.3%	sources1 2
2018-12-31	0.6%	sources1 2

Latest readings

2025-12-31 · 0.8%as of 2025-12-31(2 obs)
2024-12-31 · 1.5%as of 2024-12-31(2 obs)
2023-12-31 · 1.6%as of 2023-12-31(2 obs)
2022-12-31 · -1.1%as of 2022-12-31(2 obs)
2021-12-31 · 3.9%as of 2021-12-31(2 obs)
2020-12-31 · -0.5%as of 2020-12-31(2 obs)

Why this status, and its history

Private nonfarm business TFP index (BLS MPU4910012), year on year: 2023 +1.63%, 2024 +1.53%, 2025 +0.83%. Latest year inside the normal band (<=1.2%). Annual and lagged. Initial seed.

2026-09-10unmeasured to consistent with normalconf — → 75 · initial seed (model-drafted)
Private nonfarm business TFP index (BLS MPU4910012), year on year: 2023 +1.63%, 2024 +1.53%, 2025 +0.83%. Latest year inside the normal band (<=1.2%). Annual and lagged. Initial seed.
sources1 2

Why this confidence

Rests on 9 observations from BLS productivity and costs; total factor productivity; best evidence tier 4, grade A; current.

Confidence is independent of status: 90–95 multiple strong independent sources; 70–89 good evidence, some ambiguity; 50–69 mixed or hard to operationalise; 0–49 limited or vague evidence.

Predictions that lean on this

Happening
AI's big economic effects arrive over decades, not years. · Narayanan & Kapoor
Not happening
AI is not an ordinary technology · This site
Happening
Tyler Cowen guesses AI will raise annual economic growth by only about half a percentage point, because slow-moving sectors such as government, health and education act as bottlenecks. · Tyler Cowen
Slower than said
Robin Hanson cited his historical-trend projection, whose median put a switch to world output doubling every year or two at about 2025. · Robin Hanson
Too early to tell
Tamay Besiroglu expects explosive economic growth, above thirty percent a year, once AI can flexibly stand in for human workers. · Tamay Besiroglu

More predictions that lean on this

Too early to tell
Paul Christiano put about three chances in ten on a fast takeoff, expecting world output to finish a doubling over four years before any single-year doubling begins. · Paul Christiano
Too early to tell
Experts surveyed by Ezra Karger and colleagues expect that if AI outperforms humans on many tasks by 2030, US growth would rise to around four percent a year, against about two and a half percent in their overall forecast. · Ezra Karger and colleagues (Forecasting Research Institute)
Too early to tell
Robin Hanson's growth model implied that once machines can stand in for most human labour, world output would grow about ten times faster, doubling roughly every eighteen months. · Robin Hanson
Too early to tell
The economists' scenarios only pull apart after 2027. · Korinek et al. (The Anthropic Institute, WP 2026-02)
Too early to tell
Modest case: AI adds under half a point a year to growth by 2030. · Korinek, Jones, Sacher, Cotter and McCrory (The Anthropic Institute, WP 2026-02)
Too early to tell
Substantial case: output rises and some office jobs go by 2030. · Korinek et al. (The Anthropic Institute, WP 2026-02)
Too early to tell
William MacAskill and Fin Moorhouse think it more likely than not that, once AI matches human researchers, a hundred years of technological progress follows in under a decade. · William MacAskill and Fin Moorhouse