Amid the seemingly endless predictions about AI (Artificial Intelligence), one point is essential to remember: How this plays out is not predetermined.

Policy choices determine whether Workers are helped or harmed by technological change.

Even without AI, many Workers already face harmful disruptions.

Every year, 20 million Workers are laid off in the U.S. economy - due to employer mismanagement, once-profitable products becoming less so, offshoring, automation, and other factors.

For individual Workers, losing a job for any reason and for any period of time is traumatic and damaging in large part because we lack adequate Social Insurance Programs to smooth those transitions.

As Lawmakers debate how to best regulate AI deployment in our workplaces, today’s priority should be to strengthen the safety net for Workers in any scenario - and to acknowledge how AI is already affecting Workers’ rights, protections and livelihoods.

Decades of underinvestment, coupled with attacks on Unions and other Labor supports, have left Workers without an adequate safety net.

We can improve our current systems to better provide livable benefits for Workers who lose their jobs because of large-scale economic shocks that are not their fault and outside their control.

We can also learn from other periods of workforce disruption - the COVID-19 Pandemic, trade-related shocks and the 2008 recession - about which policy choices were effective and which fell short.

When workers lose their jobs due to factors outside their control, they are considered “displaced” or “dislocated.”

If they meet certain requirements, these Workers are eligible for unemployment insurance (UI).

To strengthen outcomes for Workers, this brief will provide recommendations to: Increase UI benefit amount and duration; Expand and standardize eligibility to receive benefits; Align employer incentives with Worker access to benefits; Center Worker needs and power; and Strengthen data infrastructure to support Workers.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Story, Go To: A pro-worker AI policy playbook: Strengthening unemployment insurance and building a better safety net | Economic Policy Institute