News you should know about money and things getting people to work

Here’s the between-the-lines message I have gotten from folks who have tried to raise workforce issues to House Republican leaders on jobs policy during this profound moment for the labor market:

Man, they’re willing to talk about all the happy things they think AI could do, but they’re not willing to talk about actually doing anything that matters.

Now, constituent groups tend to think things like that quite a bit in my experience, but if you wanted a proof point for that assertion, well, let me tell you about Wednesday’s House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on AI.

It’s important to note that it didn’t exactly come at the best time on this topic. Last week, Republicans released their own redo of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, America’s most consistent source of workforce funding. That bill has language about AI, but that language doesn’t do anything that WIOA doesn’t do now.

If you needed more “tell, don’t show” than that development about Republican leadership’s limitations on AI, Democrats were happy to offer you additional samples on Wednesday. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Worker Protections, noted this was the committee’s seventh AI-related hearing.

“Is this singular focus even amounting to anything?” Omar asked. “After seven AI hearings, committee Republicans have not produced a single plan or bill to protect workers from AI risks.”s

I’ll get back to the “AI risks” point in a moment, but the majority’s response was largely to try to put a happy face on AI—and without a whole lot of compelling evidence to move voters who aren’t keen on AI.

I use AI daily and don’t love outright dismissing the use of it, but it’s hard to say that voters’ dim attitudes are not for a reason. AI companies and supporters have often been its worst salespeople, politically, pitching AI both as a disaster for workers if it succeeds and a disaster for workers if it doesn’t succeed. Employers haven’t helped, either, by being very explicit that they’re firing swaths of staff because of The Robots. Investors also would like their AI bets to payoff through significant layoffs.

Dems seem to have noticed. I have watched a lot of hearings this term, and this was probably the most focused I’ve seen Democratic lawmakers on any jobs issue this term. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Tex., argued that none of Republicans’ seven hearings have been about massive AI-related job loss despite dire statements from billionaires.

“We may have this huge crisis coming, but the people in charge aren’t doing anything about it,” Casar said, noting the hundreds of millions of dollars tech interest plan on spending toward this year’s midterms. “That’s interesting.”

Casar’s blow-by-blow of job-loss predictions was immediately followed by witness questioning from House Education and Workforce Chair Tim Wahlberg. He didn’t exactly offer a cogent defense of his committee’s work.

Rather, he said that AI is “a very important subject we’re discussing” with “benefit[s] [for] the workforce as well as the employer” that he didn’t really articulate. Wahlberg appeared to catch himself later in questioning, saying he wasn’t “downplay[ing]” the job risks of AI—before complaining about blue states trying to regulate AI.

He also set up an answer from a Republican-aligned witness that, well, isn’t exactly what I would go out and sell if I was a candidate this election cycle.

“When we hear about these massive job losses, I don’t fear those,” said Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow at Advancing American Freedom, a thinktank founded by former Vice President Mike Pence. “You know, the basic definition of economics is it’s the allocation of scarce resources across unlimited wants and desires. There will be new things that will be produced.”

Constructively, that might get a lot of nods in the conference room of a D.C. conservative thinktank, but good frickin’ luck selling that to voters afraid of losing their jobs in a labor environment that doesn’t offer an easy answer for how they’re supposed to get a new one and make ends meet.¹

Greszler also said one reason for her lack of worry on massive job loss is that “humans were made to work.” After Wahlberg finished his questioning, Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., quipped about how that isn’t the case for some people.

“I wish I could believe it were true of all people but I’m not sure it’s true of all people,” said Grothman, who later said “I don’t understand how AI works” and termed as “college propaganda”² Greszler’s rosier take on the Brookings research I wrote about last week. “But if you believe it, we’re glad you hang around with that kind of person.”

Yeesh.

I suspect Democrats’ direr take on AI-related job loss will be more resonant with voters this fall, and I do think we’re heading toward a future where we get some regulation on at least the ickier uses of AI to fire people and assess whether they’re chipper enough. Good regulation means crafting rules you can actually enforce, and that’s really hard to do with tech in the workplace, speaking from experience. The ways people use technology, and the technology that actually use, is so fleeting that what you get down on paper may not be of that much for the problem by the time you actually enact it.

There is also an actual route for using AI to improve workers’ prospects, and it’s one that regulation really isn’t the right answer for. For example, AI could be good for workers by removing barriers to entry in good-paying jobs and helping workers with disabilities do jobs that they might have challenges in doing in the past. Defining clear and compelling solutions for how to do that—and the actual leadership needed to find and promote them—may be better at unlocking those uses than, say, writing a law saying you have to use tech to create more work opportunities.

If you think that any outcome involving regulation of AI is terrible, I do think Republicans are doing more harm than good to your cause. Increasingly, Republican leaders haven’t been willing to acknowledge that AI-related job loss even exists despite, you know, CEOs saying they’re firing people because of AI. It’s a problem increasingly hitting home for workers and voters, and if you’re not willing to talk about it, the more likely the conversation will happen without you.

The safe bet seems to be that House Republicans won’t be in the majority this time next year. I have no expectation that Trump II will meaningfully work with a Democratic majority on anything; however, I suspect veterans of Trump I would be shocked, but not surprised, if the post-midterm molt of the Administration turned out a little less friendly toward AI.

The President isn’t exactly a let-it-go guy at the moment, and he cares an awful lot about legacy. If tech’s political spending doesn’t pay off for Republicans, and massive AI-related job loss happens on his watch, a kneejerk response wouldn’t be out of the question—especially if AI companies continue to use their apocalyptic potential as a marketing tool. That outcome might not be ideal for a whole lot of reasons.

It’s not a great situation, and one where I certainly wouldn’t bet on holding until 2029 to come up with real solutions.