Artificial intelligence is expected to transform the workforce, and the leaders of the two most powerful AI labs both predict some jobs won’t survive the shift. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has said AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs by 2030, while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said “whole categories of jobs might go away,” even as AI creates new opportunities as well.
Neither Amodei nor Altman seem to relish their role in displacing workers. Rather, they seem to view it as an inevitable result of the technology. With both companies poised to go public within the next year, OpenAI and Anthropic have released potential solutions for dealing with the disruption they may have created.
How Should the U.S. Government Respond to AI Job Loss?
Anthropic and OpenAI have each released policy frameworks to help the government prepare for AI-driven job loss. Both proposals call for better labor market data, incentives for companies to retrain displaced workers, a rebalanced tax policy and unemployment benefits that scale automatically with economic conditions. Both companies also support some form of public ownership in AI’s gains — an idea that has drawn support from both Senator Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump.
After all, AI has already evolved significantly since OpenAI’s fateful release of ChatGPT 2022, and its scaling laws suggest it will become exponentially more “intelligent” in the coming years. As a result, any changes that occur in the labor market may happen suddenly, before legislators can develop a solution.
“We risk ending up in a world where the economic tradeoff dial is stuck on the hypergrowth, hyper-inequality setting, and is potentially very hard to unstick from that setting,” Amodei said in a blog post accompanying Anthropic’s economic policy framework. “The key challenge in such a world won’t be incentivizing growth, but finding a way for everyone to share in the benefits.”
While some of the proposals — like creating a sovereign wealth fund that shares AI companies’ profits with American citizens — may seem radical for the United States, they have seen preliminary support across political parties and the tech world. The growing interest reflects a broader recognition that we are on the cusp of an unprecedented economic transformation that could generate enormous fortunes while also disrupting millions of jobs, potentially concentrating wealth and power to a select few. As such, this transformation may require some drastic measures.
OpenAI’s ‘Industrial Policy’ for AI
In its policy framework, titled “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age,” OpenAI took inspiration from the progressive labor policies that followed the Industrial Age of the 19th century, saying the company hoped to promote shared prosperity instead of increased concentration and stratification of wealth.
“Without thoughtful policies, AI could widen inequality by compounding advantages for those already positioned to capture the upside while communities that begin with fewer resources fall further behind, excluded from new tools, new industries, and new opportunities,” the report, published in April 2026, states. “There is also a risk that the economic gains concentrate within a small number of firms like OpenAI, even as the technology itself becomes more powerful and widely used.”
Later echoed in Anthropic’s report, OpenAI suggested governments develop better data collection efforts to measure AI’s impact on the job market. The government should also improve its unemployment benefits systems to allow payment allocations to automatically increase or decrease when labor market conditions reach specified levels.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic suggested incentives for companies to retain and retrain workers, and they both showed support for redistribution mechanisms, such as an AI sovereign wealth fund, that would give every citizen a share of the economic gains from AI. And as income tax revenue declines, both reports suggested the government make up for lost revenues by levying additional taxes on capital gains, consumption or AI use.
OpenAI proposed that individuals receive portable benefit accounts that allow them to carry their health insurance, retirement savings and other benefits as workers move across jobs, education programs, contract work and entrepreneurial ventures. The company also proposed increased training and incentives to help displaced workers transition into industries such as education, healthcare and community services, where human connection will remain essential.
In addition to publishing this framework, OpenAI announced it will establish a pilot program of fellowships and focused research grants of up to $100,000 and up to $1 million in API credits for work that builds on these policy ideas.
Anthropic’s Economic Policy Framework
Anthropic’s Economic Policy Framework, published in June 2026, predicts that AI could generate “unprecedented abundance” — but that it could also reduce demand for human work and eventually “move society toward a world in which people work far less, or in which work carries a different meaning than it does today.”
As unemployment levels rise, Anthropic suggested a tiered approach that helps workers transition to new careers, providing increasing levels of financial assistance as needed.
If unemployment reaches 5 percent, Anthropic proposes the government issue everyone with equity in AI companies, offer temporary wage insurance to workers who have to take lower-paying jobs, offer tax credits for companies that retain and retrain workers displaced by AI and provide resources for workers who need to change careers.
If unemployment reaches 10 percent, a recession-level disruption, Anthropic proposes the government expand unemployment insurance, offer targeted assistance for workers in the hardest-hit industries and provide monthly “basic needs relief” for those who exhaust unemployment benefits.
If AI causes unprecedented levels of unemployment — 15 percent or more — Anthropic said policies should focus less on supporting career transitions and more on providing a sustained source of income. This could mean expanding existing systems or developing more transformative solutions, such as universal basic income or a sovereign wealth fund that shares wealth gained from AI productivity. The government may also want to use AI-derived surpluses to further invest in education, healthcare and other “human- and community-facing work,” which would reduce labor shortages in those fields while providing paid work opportunities for those who want it.
In addition to releasing its economic policy framework, Anthropic has also committed $200 million to its Economic Futures program, which will fund research trials to shape potential policies.
AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Gains Support
The creation of an AI sovereign wealth fund — a government-owned investment account funded by AI company profits or equity — has received preliminary support from not only Anthropic and OpenAI, but also politicians ranging from Senator Bernie Sanders on the left to President Donald Trump on the right. The concept is not new. In 1976, Alaska tapped into the state’s oil revenues to create a sovereign wealth fund that supports state services and pays an annual dividend to residents.
The most vocal proponent of an AI sovereign wealth fund is Sanders, the independent from Vermont who has also called for a moratorium on data center construction. Sanders’ proposal to create a sovereign wealth fund calls for a one-time 50 percent tax on the stock of the top AI companies. In addition to giving U.S. citizens a share of the wealth created by AI, it would also create an independent commission that would, through its shareholder voting powers in each company, steer the future of the industry in a direction in the peoples’ best interest.
“The foundation of AI is based on the collective knowledge of humanity and the creative work of tens of millions of people,” Sanders said in a news release. “The American people must have the ability to slow it down and make sure that AI benefits humanity, not just the richest people on the planet.”
Sanders’ proposal has gained the attention of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who recently met with Sanders to discuss the proposal. Altman has said he also wants the public to have equity in AI companies, but he does not support the 50 percent tax threshold.
Altman has long been interested in the idea of universal basic income, which aims to offset AI job displacement by distributing regular payments to all U.S. citizens. But more recently, he told The Atlantic’s Re:think podcast that he “no longer believe[s] in universal basic income as much as [he] once did” and is more interested in giving people “collective ownership.” That could include a set allotment of computing resources — an idea he has previously referred to as “universal basic compute.” Or it could take the form of equity shares allocated to the government, which in turn distributes funds to individual citizens.
“I think just a fixed cash payment — although useful and maybe a good idea in some ways — does not get at what we’re really going to need for this next phase and the kind of collective alignment of shared upside as the balance between labor and capital shifts.”
Tying payments to the growth of AI companies would create an incentive for people to root for the technology’s success, which could potentially help win over the 55 percent of Americans who believe AI will do more harm than good and the 70 percent of Americans who oppose the construction of AI data centers in their area.
Trump, who has taken a more laissez faire approach to AI regulation thus far, has expressed interest in the idea of the government acquiring equity in AI companies and “giving back something to the public.” The Trump administration has already obtained equity shares in at least a dozen companies — many of which play a role in the AI supply chain, including Intel. Trump told the Washington Post that he plans to meet with leading AI companies to discuss the idea, which he said will “make [AI] very popular.”
AI Upskilling Is Catching On, Too
In addition to job displacement solutions, AI companies are increasingly investing in workforce training and reskilling programs meant to help workers adapt.
One of the largest efforts thus far is Raise Us, a new nonprofit group of employers, state governors and foundations that has already raised $500 million to help workers transition to an AI economy. Led by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the coalition counts OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Amazon among its backers, and is funding state pilot programs that would provide wage insurance, retrain workers and help displaced employees transition into new careers.
Companies are also launching their own workforce initiatives. OpenAI, for example, is creating a jobs platform that will connect job seekers with AI-focused roles and educational resources designed to help them build in-demand AI skills. Anthropic, meanwhile, committed $150 million to launch Claude Corps, a yearlong fellowship that will train and place 1,000 early-career professionals at nonprofits to help them adopt AI while giving participants hands-on experience with the technology.
First, We Need Better Data on AI’s Impact on Jobs
Before policymakers and businesses can implement solutions effectively, they first need a clearer picture of how AI is actually affecting jobs. Several efforts are currently underway to better measure AI’s impact on the labor market and project which areas could be hardest hit by the disruption.
For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Iceberg Index is designed to be a “digital twin” of the labor market that simulates how workers in each sector and zip code will be affected. Anthropic, meanwhile, has developed its Economic Index to track how Claude is being used across industries, but it said more comprehensive government data is needed to measure how AI systems on the whole are impacting the economy. The company suggests the government create a small, dedicated agency to track AI’s impact on the economy and flag early indicators of distress.
The government has already begun working on these efforts. As part of Trump’s AI Action plan, the Department of Labor is developing an “AI workforce hub” that aims to provide empirical evidence of AI’s impact on the labor market. A bipartisan Senate proposal, the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act, would go further, requiring government agencies, publicly traded companies and select private companies to share quarterly data about AI-related cuts at their companies. Another bill, the Workforce of the Future Act, aims to forecast labor market changes, develop policy recommendations, expand access to technology education and support workforce retraining for workers most impacted by AI.
But Deeper Questions Remain
Some groups, such as Raise Us, oppose the idea of universal basic income, as they believe work serves a deeper purpose than a paycheck. Even Dario Amodei, who recommended universal basic income or an AI sovereign wealth fund as potential solutions, acknowledged that people may lose their sense of meaning without work. Even if the government distributes payments or expands the social safety net, Anthropic’s report said society should “help people find work wherever we can” and “keep searching for ways to remain at full employment.”
“I am actually very optimistic that, even in a world with AI’s that are better than everyone at everything, humans can live lives of deep purpose and strive to build awe-inspiring and beautiful things,” Amodei wrote. “But this is something to be collectively worked out by society as a whole, not something policy can directly address. Policy can be most helpful in buying us time to do that work, by slowing down job loss and providing economically for those likely to be affected.”
Frequently Asked Questions
What do Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s workforce proposals have in common?
Both proposals call for better government data collection on AI’s labor market effects, unemployment benefit systems that can automatically scale up or down as conditions change, incentives for companies to retain and retrain displaced workers rather than cut jobs and a rebalanced tax base that relies more heavily on capital gains and other revenue sources as payroll tax income declines. Both also support some form of public ownership in AI’s economic gains.
What is a sovereign wealth fund?
A sovereign wealth fund is a government-owned investment account. In the context of artificial intelligence, it would be funded by AI company profits or equity and used to distribute a share of the industry’s economic gains to citizens. Alaska has run a comparable model since 1976, using oil revenues to pay annual dividends to state residents.
What is Congress doing to address AI job displacement?
Two bipartisan bills are currently in the Senate. The AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act would require government agencies, publicly traded companies and certain private companies to report quarterly data on AI-related job cuts. The Workforce of the Future Act aims to forecast labor market changes, develop policy recommendations, expand technology education and fund retraining for the most affected workers.
