Protecting Workers from AI Displacement

The Crisis Unfolding Before Us

Artificial intelligence is transforming our economy at an unprecedented pace, and millions of American workers stand at risk of being left behind. Goldman Sachs and McKinsey project that approximately 12 million jobs—roughly 7% of the American workforce—could be fully replaced by AI within the next decade.¹ Research by economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo demonstrates that between 50% and 70% of changes in the U.S. wage structure over the last four decades stem from relative wage declines of worker groups specialized in routine tasks in industries experiencing rapid automation.²

The nature of this technological disruption differs fundamentally from previous waves of automation that primarily affected manufacturing workers. AI will predominantly disrupt knowledge work and professional services. Call center representatives face replacement by conversational AI systems. Clerical staff confront automated document processing. Software developers watch as AI generates code with increasing sophistication—Microsoft and Google already generate nearly 25% of their code using AI agents.¹ Consultants and financial analysts see their analytical tasks automated by machine learning algorithms. The geographic impact will prove particularly severe in urban tech hubs like Boston, where these professional occupations concentrate.¹

Early warning signs of this transformation already flash red across economic indicators. Recent Federal Reserve analysis documents a troubling correlation: occupations that embraced generative AI most intensively have shown the largest unemployment gains.³ This relationship suggests AI adoption directly displaces workers rather than merely augmenting their capabilities. Research shows that automation doesn’t just boost productivity—it eliminates jobs. When companies replace workers with machines, productivity may increase, but workers lose wages and employment. MIT economists found that industrial robots reduced both jobs and pay in the industries and cities where they were deployed.⁴

The Inadequacy of Past Policy Responses

We cannot rely on outdated policy responses that failed workers during previous economic disruptions. Trade Adjustment Assistance, the federal program designed to help workers displaced by foreign competition, helped fewer than 75,000 workers annually even as millions lost manufacturing jobs.¹ Those workers who did receive TAA assistance earned 20% below their previous wages after completing retraining programs.¹ The program’s failures illuminate why merely expanding existing safety net programs cannot address AI displacement’s scale and speed.

Some policy analysts propose simply requiring more advance notice before mass layoffs by expanding the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.⁵ While modernizing WARN Act requirements might provide workers additional time to prepare for unemployment, such reforms do not address the fundamental economic transformation AI creates. Requiring 60 or 90 days notice before a layoff does nothing to ensure workers can find comparable employment in an economy where AI has automated their skills.

Congressional Action: What Has Been Proposed

Congress has begun grappling with these challenges, though legislative action remains nascent. The Workforce of the Future Act of 2024, introduced by Senators Butler and Hirono as S.5031, represents one of the most comprehensive federal responses.⁶ This bill authorizes the Secretary of Education to increase access to emerging technology education and upskill workers, with specific provisions to mitigate earnings or income losses to demographic groups most vulnerable to career displacement due to artificial intelligence.⁶ The legislation establishes an AI Workforce Research Hub within the Department of Labor to evaluate AI’s impact on the labor market and develop proactive solutions for job displacement.⁷

Representative Bonnie Bonamici and Representative Chris Deluzio introduced the No Robot Bosses Act in March 2024, which would protect the humanity and rights of workers during hiring, disciplinary, or firing processes.⁸ This legislation responds to the rising threat of misuse and abuse of AI technologies in employment decisions, establishing guardrails against algorithmic discrimination and automated management systems that reduce workers to data points.

The Jobs of the Future Act of 2023 directs the Department of Labor and the National Science Foundation to submit a comprehensive report to Congress on AI’s workforce impact, including recommendations to minimize job displacement and identify workforce training needs.⁷ While a study represents only a first step, systematic analysis must precede effective policy intervention.

Universal Basic Income: Security in an Automated Economy

We need a robust Universal Basic Income program to ensure every American enjoys economic security regardless of employment status. Representative Rashida Tlaib introduced the BOOST Act (Building Our Opportunities to Survive and Thrive Act) in November 2025 as part of her Economic Dignity for All Agenda.⁹ This legislation would provide $250 per month to all adults aged 19-67, creating a permanent universal basic income for working-age Americans.⁹ Unlike means-tested programs that phase out benefits, the BOOST Act ensures every working-age adult receives this foundation of economic security.¹⁰ The program would be funded through a 2.5% tax on adjusted gross income above $30,000 for single filers and $60,000 for joint filers, with these thresholds adjusted annually for inflation.¹⁰ Analysis by the People’s Policy Project projects that Tlaib’s complete Economic Dignity for All Agenda—which includes the BOOST Act alongside enhanced child tax credits and senior benefits—would reduce total U.S. poverty by 42% and child poverty by 67%.⁹

The BOOST Act addresses precisely the economic insecurity that AI displacement threatens to accelerate. As automation eliminates jobs across knowledge work sectors, a guaranteed monthly income provides crucial stability enabling workers to retrain, pursue education, care for family members, or seek quality employment rather than accepting whatever precarious work remains available. Representative Tlaib notes that this “regular cash assistance would make a tremendous difference to families teetering on the edge of poverty or struggling to pay their bills”—a description that will apply to millions more workers as AI transforms labor markets.⁹

Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman has also repeatedly introduced the Guaranteed Income Pilot Program Act, most recently in 2025, which would establish a 3-year nationwide pilot program distributing monthly cash payments to participants.¹¹ The pilot would provide payments in amounts equal to fair market rent for a 2-bedroom home in participants’ zip codes, with payments arriving on or near the 15th day of each month.¹¹ This legislation directs the Department of Health and Human Services to implement the program and evaluate its impacts on financial stability, health outcomes, and employment patterns.¹¹ While pilot programs prove valuable for gathering evidence, the BOOST Act provides the permanent, universal solution that AI displacement requires.

Evidence from existing pilot programs demonstrates UBI’s effectiveness. Research on the largest guaranteed income experiments found that recipients used funds to pay back bills, ensure food security for their families, and experienced significantly less material hardship.¹² Employment impacts proved modest—people did not quit working en masse as critics feared, but instead took more flexible jobs enabling better caregiving or invested time in choosing better employment opportunities.¹² After 1 year of receiving $500 monthly payments, Minneapolis residents showed measurably improved financial stability, food security, and psychological wellness, with no negative labor supply effects.¹³

A UBI recognizes a fundamental moral truth: AI training relies on humanity’s collective intellectual output, drawing on centuries of human knowledge, creativity, and labor embedded in training data.¹ Workers deserve to share in the economic gains resulting from automation rather than shoulder displacement losses alone. When AI systems profit from human knowledge while rendering human workers obsolete, basic fairness demands redistribution of those gains.

Corporate Taxation to Fund Social Investment

Rather than forcing individual workers to absorb the costs of technological displacement, we must tax corporate AI beneficiaries to fund socially valuable work unlikely to face automation soon. This revenue should support education, childcare, elder care, mental health counseling, and community-building initiatives—precisely the human-centered work that AI cannot replicate and that our society desperately needs.¹

Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a robot tax, drawing on ideas initially suggested by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.¹⁴ While defining what constitutes a “robot” or AI system for tax purposes presents technical challenges, the basic principle remains sound.¹⁴ When firms replace human workers with automated systems, they should pay taxes supporting those displaced workers and funding the social infrastructure our communities need.

South Korea provides an international model worth examining. That nation has implemented reduced tax deductions for automation investments that replace workers, redirecting the resulting revenue toward caregiving expansion.¹ This approach simultaneously disincentivizes displacement while funding human services that create quality employment resistant to automation.

Worker Empowerment Through Collective Bargaining

The 2023 Writers Guild strike demonstrated conclusively that workers can successfully negotiate AI protocols when they possess collective power.¹ Writers secured contractual protections ensuring AI cannot replace them, that AI-generated material does not qualify as “source material” affecting their credits or residuals, and that studios must disclose when AI-generated material is provided to writers.¹ Yet only 6% of private-sector workers currently belong to unions, and AI-exposed sectors show disproportionately low unionization rates.¹

Without unions, workers face automation alone and powerless. Companies choose when and how to deploy AI, and individual workers have no say in whether their job gets automated away.⁴ Collective bargaining gives workers a seat at the table when these decisions get made.

German works councils provide a model worth importing. German law mandates worker consultation before major technological changes affecting employment.¹ American firms should face similar requirements to consult with workers or their representatives before implementing AI systems that will alter job responsibilities or eliminate positions. Such consultation requirements would not ban automation but would ensure worker voices shape how automation proceeds and that affected employees receive advance notice enabling preparation.

We must strengthen labor protections and remove barriers to union organizing. The PRO Act, which passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but stalled in the Senate, would ban right-to-work laws, protect workers from employer retaliation during organizing drives, and impose meaningful penalties on employers who violate labor law.¹⁵ Passing such legislation becomes increasingly urgent as AI threatens to concentrate economic power further in corporate hands while weakening worker bargaining position.

Our Path Forward

AI does not have to mean economic devastation for millions of workers. With bold policy interventions combining Universal Basic Income, targeted corporate taxes on automation, and worker empowerment through collective bargaining, we can ensure that technological progress benefits everyone rather than just tech executives and shareholders. We must pass the Guaranteed Income Pilot Program Act to test UBI at scale. We must implement automation taxes redirecting corporate AI profits toward social investment and worker support. We must strengthen collective bargaining rights enabling workers to negotiate the terms of technological change rather than suffering its consequences passively.

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