Stagnant Wages: The Macroeconomic Paradox of Rising Service Costs

Over the last century, televisions, clothing, and computers have become exponentially cheaper to produce due to robotic automation and manufacturing efficiency. Yet, the cost of healthcare, education, and the performing arts has skyrocketed beyond all rational inflation rates. This terrifying economic divergence is known as Baumol's Cost Disease. Developed by economist William Baumol in the 1960s, the theory explains a brutal reality: certain services require the exact same amount of human labor today as they did a hundred years ago. It still takes four musicians to play a string quartet, and it still takes one nurse to care for a patient. Because service industries cannot automate to increase productivity, they must drastically raise their prices simply to compete with the rising salaries of the tech and manufacturing sectors. This book breaks down the inescapable mathematical trap crippling our most essential institutions. Prepare for the economic realities of the future. Understand why the things we need the most will continually become the things we can least afford, despite incredible global technological advancements.