Workers: You've Never Had It So Bad

Working men and women had not had it so bad since the middle of the 19th century. During the1860s, like the 2000s and2010s, real wages grew slowly. Thosemid-Victorian years were a lost decade forworkers, disrupted by new technology such as steam engines and the telegraph.Today's lost decades are disrupted by information technologies.

Source: The Globe and Mail, December9, 2016

According to real business cycletheory, the real wage rate depends on labourproductivity, so the 1860s and the 2000s and2010s, were periods of technological change that______.

A.

destroyed more jobs than it created

B.

increased labour productivity slowly

C.

decreased labour productivity

D.

had no effect on labour productivity