In my review of Norbert J. Michel’s Crushing Capitalism, which I quoted from yesterday, I didn’t have room to highlight 2 other striking parts.
First, in a section on why technological improvements in productivity have not caused net job loss, he has a discussion of ATMs. He writes:
ATMs automated some of the basic tasks that bank tellers performed and lowered the cost of running a bank branch, which allowed banks to open more branches. Thus, ATMs displaced some bank tellers and other bank employees. From 1990 to 2010, the number of ATMs installed in the United States went from 100,000 to more than 400,000, and the number of bank tellers employed rose from about 500,000 to almost 600,000.
Michel also argues, as do Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, and John Early in their excellent book, The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate, that the welfare state has sapped the incentives of many people to make more income. He writes:
An example from a Pennsylvania Department of Welfare study puts these disincentives in very stark terms: “The single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income and benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.”
