Jared Bernstein

Here's a curse word that economists use all the time.

Transition.

There'll be a transition.

Mr. President, there'll be a transitionary period, but we'll be fine.

So when you hear an economist blasé talk about transition, run for the hills.

So what we need here in my—so here's the policy that I'm trying to get people interested in.

It may sound a little radical, but I don't think it is.

A jobs guarantee.

A federal jobs guarantee.

If you are displaced from your job because of AI, there's actually a lot of stuff that needs to get done in this country, and AI can't do a lot of it.

There's building infrastructure.

There's human care.

There's helping in the healthcare sector.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done.

Many of these sectors are underfunded, in part because so much is going into AI and data centers.

We need to have a job guarantee program wherein if you're displaced to AI, we can quickly get you back up and running with remunerative, dignity-inducing employment.

So it's easier said than done, but we've had programs like that in the past.

We've just never really implemented them.

Exactly.

That was the New Deal.