Claim: Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation…

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Claim and evidence

Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearingsarticulates ↓Automation lowers the labour share, wages or employment

Buckingham, “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings” (1955-10-14) articulates M06a. Speaker: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., associate professor, Georgia Institute of Technology (economist). Buckingham classifies eight direct effects of automation, starting with abolished production jobs and fewer new jobs that need higher skills. Citing a Chicago dissertation by David G. Osborn (12 automation cases, average 63.4 per cent reduction in employee requirements) and industry figures, Buckingham argues that displacement takes the form of reduced hiring and 'hidden unemployment of downgrading'.

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1955-10-14 · event
Role: Earliest located
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Tier: Tier 1. Prepared statement by an economist ("as an economist", associate professor at Georgia Tech, shown in the text); a substantive argued statement. Tier 1 by maintainer decision of 2026-10-12 (economist testimony).
Conditions: (M06a-01) These are listed as direct effects. He goes on to argue that long-run mass unemployment is not to be feared (p. 35). (M06a-02) He says there have been no mass layoffs because automation has been slow enough for normal turnover to disguise displacement.

Scope and limits(First passage) Concerns employment in the directly affected production processes, not the economy-wide total. Checked against the raw djvu text (.html) only. (Second passage) The figures he cites are from secondary sources and have not been checked here. Checked against the raw djvu text (.html) only.

The evidence 02

primary sourceSupports the claim

Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings

U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization. (1955). Automation and technological change: Hearings … 84th Congress, 1st session, October 14–28, 1955. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 29–37 · 1955-10-14

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Source excerpt

“1. Many direct production jobs are abolished. 2. A smaller number of newer jobs requiring different, and mostly higher, skills are created.”

Location in source printed p. 33 (prepared statement, 'Direct effects of automation', items 1-2 of 8)

Machine-checked · 2026-10-14

Source details and check notes

Authors: Walter S. Buckingham Jr.
Version: Internet Archive OCR text (djvu.txt) of a scanned copy, retrieved 2026-10-09 from https://ia803102.us.archive.org/32/items/congress-automation-and-technological-change/congress-automation-and-technological-changedjvu.txt; OCR errors possible; quotes checked only against clean stretches. Current copy; no earlier capture compared. SHA-256 3962809fbb923be62bf986addb0014ee147934a8767475c1f7cfe051959bff90.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-09
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings”, U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization. (1955). Automation and technological change: Hearings … 84th Congress, 1st session, October 14–28, 1955. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 29–37, 1955-10-14.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage M06a-01 (research/economics-mainstream). The quotation (22 words) matched the retrieved current copy (SHA-256 3962809fbb923be62bf986addb0014ee147934a8767475c1f7cfe051959bff90) in the pack's verification. Re-checked at admission on 2026-10-14 against a copy retrieved that day.

primary sourceSupports the claim

Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt · shown only with its context

“The worker displaced is not fired. He is the one who is not hired.”

Read it with this context. Without context the subject (automation) is missing. The preceding sentence says there have been no mass layoffs, because normal turnover disguises the displacement. Data cited on the same page: average 63.4% reduction in employee requirements in 12 cases (Osborn dissertation).

Why: Fresh-context audit (A1) judged that the quotation misleads when shown alone.

Location in source printed p. 34 (prepared statement, 'Impact of automation on the economic system')

Machine-checked · 2026-10-14

Source details and check notes

Authors: Walter S. Buckingham Jr.
Version: Internet Archive OCR text (djvu.txt) of a scanned copy, retrieved 2026-10-09 from https://ia803102.us.archive.org/32/items/congress-automation-and-technological-change/congress-automation-and-technological-changedjvu.txt; OCR errors possible; quotes checked only against clean stretches. Current copy; no earlier capture compared. SHA-256 3962809fbb923be62bf986addb0014ee147934a8767475c1f7cfe051959bff90.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-09
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Walter S. Buckingham Jr., “Statement (testifying as an economist), in Automation and Technological Change: Hearings”, U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization. (1955). Automation and technological change: Hearings … 84th Congress, 1st session, October 14–28, 1955. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 29–37, 1955-10-14.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage M06a-02 (research/economics-mainstream). The quotation (14 words) matched the retrieved current copy (SHA-256 3962809fbb923be62bf986addb0014ee147934a8767475c1f7cfe051959bff90) in the pack's verification. Re-checked at admission on 2026-10-14 against a copy retrieved that day.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor. An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.

Date. Hearing day of the statement, as printed; the volume was printed by the GPO in 1955. Checked in a current copy; an archive capture was not available, so earlier bytes are not authenticated.

Record ID ec-m06a-buckingham-1955-automation-hearings-statement-a

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