When Workers Lose to AI
Key takeaways
- JACOB LEIBENLUFT is a Visiting Fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.
- Early last summer, buried deep in an obscure budget document, the Trump administration effectively pronounced dead the primary government program for workers who lose their jobs because of trade.
- But the TAA’s history is worth a closer look as the United States confronts another potential upheaval in the economy—the prospect of workers up and down the income ladder displaced by artificial intelligence.
JACOB LEIBENLUFT is a Visiting Fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. He previously served in senior roles at the White House and Treasury Department in the Obama and Biden administrations.
How the U.S. Government Can Soften the Blow of Automation
Early last summer, buried deep in an obscure budget document, the Trump administration effectively pronounced dead the primary government program for workers who lose their jobs because of trade. The U.S. government had created Trade Adjustment Assistance, as the program is known, in 1962 under the Kennedy administration. Over six decades, it provided Americans in industries negatively affected by imports with cash assistance, job training, and other services. But President Donald Trump had long made clear that his only remedy for workers threatened by trade was new tariffs. By the time of its demise, the TAA program had few enthusiastic champions on either the left or the right.