A Modest Proposal for Solving the Older Worker Productivity Problem.

Overview

Following the satirist Jonathan Swift (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm), I outline a "modest proposal" for managing the older worker productivity problem. Although meta-analyses by psychologists have consistently shown little or no relationship between age and worker productivity, older workers are clearly less productive from an economic perspective, given their average higher salary and, in the United States, their higher health care premiums. Building on Swift's satire, I propose that to satisfy profit-hungry capitalist firms, older worker contracts should include an automatic salary deflator past age 50. This would improve older worker productivity from an economic perspective by reducing the denominator in their productivity index (output/input costs) and add to the stock of the common good.