How to Make America’s Robots Great Again

“All of this robotics technology was invented in the U.S., but we basically let other companies take it from us and make it cheaper, and now we’re buying it from them,” Mr. Christensen said. “In some sense, we’re not being very good at making sure we remain competitive in areas that we’re leading.”

Diving headlong into manufacturing the robots that are replacing jobs might be a hard sell at the moment, but it might also be a longer term solution than some of the other ideas out there.

To help understand some of the dynamics at play between automation and employment, check out this paper from Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo at MIT.

Also, have some fun with this chart from the Kansas City Fed.