US Service Economy

The cluster discusses the US economy's dominance by services (70-80% of GDP), including finance, real estate, and information services, versus manufacturing, debating its productivity, value, and sustainability compared to production-based economies.

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1,689
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#5771
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
3
2008
14
2009
18
2010
46
2011
54
2012
37
2013
57
2014
60
2015
62
2016
104
2017
82
2018
84
2019
141
2020
150
2021
145
2022
137
2023
156
2024
120
2025
208
2026
11

Keywords

IT US EconomicAccounts DVD trade.gov ocwage.pdf CD bc.ca PR bcstats.gov economy gdp services service economies economic manufacturing value real estate billion

Sample Comments

ehmish Sep 20, 2019 View on HN

This seems like it's a natural result of the US economy being concentrated in the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, i.e just shuffling money around rather than production.

scotty79 Jun 13, 2021 View on HN

Didn't US economy mostly switch to services?

stingraycharles Jul 26, 2017 View on HN

Isn't this essentially the defintion of a service economy ?

ddod Jan 29, 2016 View on HN

No, most of the US economy is service and office based. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ocwage.pdf (see chart 3)

Barrin92 Mar 5, 2025 View on HN

>there is more to an economy than manufacturing.Not really. Most developed economies are basically 70% Baumol's cost disease[1]. The 20% of the American GDP that goes to healthcare, half of the military budget that goes into salaries, public services, the police isn't billed on productivity. Those are non-tradeable services whose compensation inflates with growth in the productivity gaining sectors of the economy.That's why you can go not to a wealthy Tier 1 city in China

nly Mar 13, 2022 View on HN

Services are 77% of US GDP, and you cannot "hoard" services.

chrisco255 Oct 2, 2019 View on HN

On point 1) you're incorrect. Services make up nearly 80% of the U.S. economy. Our economic growth in recent decades has not been due to an increase of stuff.https://2016.trade.gov/publications/ita-newsletter/1010/serv...I work for a multi-billion dollar company and we just sell ones and zeroes.

arethuza Mar 29, 2013 View on HN

FYI The United States economy is 79.6% services:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States

hpvic03 Feb 28, 2010 View on HN

Why is a service economy "icky"?

queuebert Jun 15, 2022 View on HN

Is this because of the transition to a service economy?