The economic data that drives so much political debate is becoming increasingly less reliable in the digital era. That’s because new technology makes it hard to compare the 21st-century economy to anything that came before it.
How, for example, do you compare the living standards of a middle-income American in the 1970s with a middle-income American today? The 1970s version had no cellphone, no Internet, no digital camera and was limited to watching one of three television networks. That sounds primitive by today’s standards.
Recommended Stories
Print subscriber? Click here to login/register your account
Digital subscriber? Click here to login/register your account.