News & Updates

The Council is highlighting two related trends in the U.S. economy. For much of the modern era, rising productivity and compensation moved broadly together, helping drive higher living standards. Drawing on Bureau of Labor Statistics data since 1973, the first graphic shows the extraordinary gains in U.S. productive capacity over the past five decades alongside […]

The Clarion Call, and partner infographic, is issued by the Council on Competitiveness to identify critical global economic transformations and put forth a set of recommendations for policymakers that would strengthen the United States’ economic foundation and allow for long-term, sustained growth.

The U.S. job market is undergoing a fundamental transformation. In 1983, when the U.S. economy supported roughly 100 million jobs, most positions were accessible to workers with no education beyond high school. By 2031, as the economy grows to an estimated 171 million jobs, nearly three-quarters of all jobs will require some form of postsecondary […]

Source: Grant Witness A new analysis of National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awards and funding trends raises concerns about the future of the U.S. research enterprise. The data indicate the NSF is on pace for its lowest level of research grantmaking in more than 50 years, with both the number of awards and the total […]

During the Council's Summer 2026 Board, Executive Committee, and National Commission Meeting, Gallup Chairman and Council Executive Committee Member Jim Clifton opened the day with a challenge to the standard framing of U.S. economic health. The 4.3 percent official unemployment rate reported that morning, he argued, excludes a vast number of Americans who are, effectively, […]

Consider these two data sets side by side. The first, drawn from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data, shows China's R&D investment crossing above that of the United States as early as 2024 — several years before previous predictions, and the result of more than two decades of relentless acceleration. In 2000, China […]

As AI technology rapidly advances, the United States faces increasingly complex competitiveness challenges, as demonstrated by these graphs. The first picture is optimistic. Weekly U.S. business applications have surged to historic highs, approaching 130,000applications per week in early 2026, according to data compiled by Apollo Global Management. For context, that figure is nearly double the […]

According to Apollo Global Management* and others — like Bridgewater —hyperscalers (Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google) are poised to invest over $600 billion in capital expenditures in 2026. This level of investment is approaching 2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product —with the investment’s share of GDP more than doubling since 2023 (and growing […]

Global economic and geopolitical uncertainty is no longer episodic; it has become structural. Non-financial U.S. corporations are holding approximately $7.9 trillion in liquid assets — roughly 12 percent of their total — a level that reflects elevated interest rates and heightened risk sensitivity rather than capital scarcity.1 At the same time, traditional pathways for deploying […]

Recent data on global manufacturing output spotlights a stark reality: China now accounts for 35 percent of the world’s manufacturing, nearly three times the United States’ share. The remaining 53 percent is spread across the rest of the world. This concentration is of strategic significance. Manufacturing underpins innovation ecosystems, supply chain resilience, national security, and […]