The United States has been racing toward an artificial intelligence-driven future without a clear plan to prevent what some experts warn could be devastating job losses on a massive scale.
While critics paint alarming pictures of widespread unemployment, supporters of AI argue the technology will generate enough new wealth that job losses shouldn’t be a major concern. Now, a new bipartisan nonprofit is stepping in with a different approach — trying to make sure the economic benefits of AI don’t come at the expense of American workers.
The organization, called RAISE US, is launching with more than $500 million and plans to invest in new forms of education and job training. Rather than working primarily through the federal government, the group is focusing its efforts on partnerships with individual states and major employers.
The nonprofit was co-founded by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, and former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican. Their goal is to create pilot programs and incentives that help workers transition to new careers as automation powered by artificial intelligence becomes more widespread across the economy.
“We’re talking about a certain level of unemployment that could destabilize our country and our democracy,” Raimondo said. “If you want to lead the world in AI, you have to take action to make sure our democracy doesn’t crumble.”
RAISE US is initially working with officials in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland and Utah, along with some of the country’s largest corporations and charitable organizations. The group plans to develop policies that forge stronger connections between schools and employers, with the aim of replacing layoffs with pathways to new, better-paying jobs. The organization is also looking at potential changes to corporate taxes and other financial incentives designed to keep people employed.
“Good things tend to happen when you convert have-nots into haves,” Holcomb said.
Several major companies have signed on as anchor partners with RAISE US, including Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, the OpenAI Foundation and Bank of America. Additional employers participating in the effort include UPS, General Motors, Eli Lilly, Mastercard, chipmaker AMD, Cisco and IBM.
Raimondo, who previously served as the Democratic governor of Rhode Island before playing a key role in shaping AI policy as commerce secretary during the Biden administration, will serve as the nonprofit’s CEO.
The organization’s advisory board includes former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, billionaire investment manager Stephen Schwarzman, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and economists David Autor, Erik Brynjolfsson and Raj Chetty.
The stakes are significant. An April analysis by the Boston Consulting Group estimated that roughly half of all U.S. jobs will be reshaped by AI within the next few years, with as many as 25 million positions potentially eliminated over the next five years. A separate estimate released by Goldman Sachs in March suggested that a quarter of all U.S. work hours could eventually be handled by AI.
The reach of AI extends well beyond chatbots and image generators. The technology could fill highways with driverless trucks, operate factories run by robots, and take over roles currently held by office workers, lawyers and doctors.
President Donald Trump has shown little concern about AI’s potential impact on employment. When asked Tuesday, before visiting a Mack Trucks factory in Pennsylvania, whether AI could cost truckers their jobs, Trump told a reporter, “Right now, they’re not.”
The president has been counting on the construction of AI data centers and power plants to drive job creation and economic growth. While AI-related investments have provided some economic boost, federal labor statistics show that manufacturing has shed 68,000 jobs and the trucking sector has cut 28,300 positions since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
“We have, right now, so many jobs that are going to be available and the biggest problem we have is getting the people,” Trump said. “So we’re really doing spectacular.”
Experts in artificial intelligence have raised concerns about the gap between the rapid changes AI is bringing and a social safety net — built around unemployment insurance and four-year college degrees — that may not be equipped to handle disruption at this speed and scale.
“AI is now disrupting multiple sectors simultaneously, faster than any institution can respond,” said Vivienne Ming, a neuroscientist and author of the book “Robot-Proof: When Machines Have all the Answers, Build Better People.”
Ming said she agrees with economists who argue that AI-generated wealth could create enough new demand for workers to offset job losses. However, she stressed that succeeding in an AI-driven economy requires more than learning a trade — it demands curiosity and the ability to think flexibly.
“Neither our education system nor our labor policies are building the foundational human capital that AI-era work actually requires,” she said.
Raimondo said RAISE US intends to use states as testing grounds for ideas that Congress might eventually adopt as national policy, potentially leading to significant changes in both the tax code and the education system.
“I don’t have a lot of hope for bold action by Congress in the next few years on this issue, and I don’t think we can wait a few years,” she said. “I also think there are many examples in history that when the federal government does take action, they will look around at what has been working in states. I feel pretty confident that they will look at the work that we’ve done.”
