US total factor productivity, private nonfarm business

consistent with normal75/95lagging

1What this measures

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

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.

Proxy types: welfare
Unit: share
Cadence: annual
Valve: adoption to adaptation

2How we track this

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)

Normal band: ≤ 1.2%
Fast band: ≥ 2.0%
Falsifying: —

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.

3Tracker interpretation

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.

4Evidence

Latest point

0.8%as of 2025-12-31(2 obs)

Value the bands apply to

0.8%as of 2025-12-31(2 obs)

9 observations. Hollow points are disputed (see counterevidence). Every point links to its observation.

Derived rows (8)

as of	value	inputs
2025-12-31	0.8%	obs:f7a348d1 obs:fe4fd5aa
2024-12-31	1.5%	obs:d5aa7c0a obs:f7a348d1
2023-12-31	1.6%	obs:3cb18cc9 obs:d5aa7c0a
2022-12-31	-1.1%	obs:3af5026f obs:3cb18cc9
2021-12-31	3.9%	obs:1da76ecd obs:3af5026f
2020-12-31	-0.5%	obs:1da76ecd obs:898e507e
2019-12-31	1.3%	obs:898e507e obs:c2f165e3
2018-12-31	0.6%	obs:5a08cfd3 obs:c2f165e3

5Status and reasoning

consistent with normalsince 2026-09-10 · claude-initial-seed

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.

6Timeline notes

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)

7Counterevidence

What cuts against this reading

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

8Update history

2026-09-10unmeasured to consistent with normalconf — → 75 · claude-initial-seed
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.
obs:f7a348d1 obs:fe4fd5aa

9Confidence

75 / 95 — good evidence, some ambiguity

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

10Related

US labour productivity, year on year consistent with normal
Bottlenecks #37, #74 (Narayanan & Kapoor's list)
Crosswalk: Adaptation ⇄ Labour & consumers (same valve)