Assertion Partly supported AI assessment confidence: 85% certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Vance: US labor productivity is flatlining, challenging AI job-loss fears

JD Vance · Winning the AI Race Part 2: Vice President JD Vance · Jul 23, 2025 · at 17:50

Vice President JD Vance addresses concerns about AI automation displacing workers, arguing that current economic metrics show under-indexing in physical technology.

0:00 / 0:08exact quote · 8.0s

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“If the robots were coming to take all of our jobs, you would see labor productivity skyrocketing in this country, but you actually see labor productivity flatlining.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

US labor productivity growth is flatlining rather than skyrocketing.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The claim contains a mix of accurate and inaccurate characterizations. It is true that US labor productivity growth was not 'skyrocketing' as would be expected from a massive AI-driven displacement boom; nonfarm business productivity grew at 1.6% in 2023, 2.3% in 2024, and 2.1% in 2025. However, describing this performance as 'flatlining' is inaccurate. A 2.1%–2.3% annual growth rate represents a solid rebound above the 2004–2022 baseline average of 1.5% and is nearly identical to the long-term historical average of 2.2% since 1947.

BLS annual nonfarm labor productivity growth was +1.6% in 2023, +2.3% in 2024, and +2.1% in 2025, rebounding from -1.5% in 2022.
Post-2004 baseline productivity growth averaged 1.5% annually, while the long-term historical average (1947–2026) is approximately 2.2%.
Productivity was neither skyrocketing (as seen in historical tech expansions) nor flatlining (remaining well above 0% and exceeding recent baseline growth rates).

Checked against

[1] bls.gov [2] stlouisfed.org [3] bls.gov [4] bls.gov [5] tradingeconomics.com [6] economicstrategygroup.org [7] hubbardobrieneconomics.com

US Bureau of Labor Statistics labor productivity growth annual rate 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 BLS nonfarm business labor productivity growth 2023 2024 2025

assessed as of 2026-07-30

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

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