A bipartisan fight for workers in the age of AI

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GINA RAIMONDO: I can tell you right now, if all we do is race forward to that AI vision and we’ve created a few trillionaires while unemployment is sky-high, that won’t last. You want to see regulation that stops AI? You want to see rioting in the streets? You want to see China absolutely take over and win this AI competition? That’s what will happen. So that’s why I think let’s get to work.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Gina Raimondo, former U.S. secretary of commerce and former governor of Rhode Island. I wanted to talk to Gina because just this morning, she’s launched a new organization called Raise Us to directly address AI-fueled job displacement. She’s built a $500 million war chest to jump-start things and pulled in bipartisan colleagues, as well as top corporate leaders. Gina’s plan isn’t etched in stone. It’s evolving, just as AI itself is. But if states and communities and all of us are going to become truly AI-ready, she argues, we’ll need collective effort and creativity to design a future that enriches us all, not just a select few. So let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

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I’m Bob Safian. I’m here with Gina Raimondo, former US secretary of commerce and former governor of Rhode Island. Thanks so much for being here.

RAIMONDO: Thank you, Bob.

Copy LinkWhy Raise Us is betting on experiments before AI disruption hits

SAFIAN: So this morning you’ve launched a new organization called Raise Us, an initiative partnering with governors, employers, and higher education to redesign how America helps workers in the age of AI. You’ve been talking for a while now about the need for a new approach. You wrote a New York Times op-ed about it. So what is it that Raise Us will actually do?

RAIMONDO: Thank you, Bob. It’s an independent, nonprofit, bipartisan, nonpolitical organization. We’re going to work with governors to see if we can change policies and experiment with new ideas around how we train employees, while also working with employers to get creative about how we can ensure an economy powered by AI is also an economy in which everyone can thrive. Our fundamental thesis is that AI is an exciting technology. We want the US to lead in the global AI competition, but I do think there’s a good chance there will be a transition. And in that transition, as jobs change, millions of Americans may have to change jobs, or their jobs may be eliminated. What we want to say now is: employers, governors, colleges, training partners, labor unions — everybody in the boat — let’s innovate so that we can manage this transition without the bottom falling out for millions of Americans.

SAFIAN: Do we know yet what AI-resilient jobs and skills are when the tech is moving so fast? Some people think we have to reframe the whole idea of work.

RAIMONDO: I don’t think we do. One thing I want to point out is that a lot of U.S. companies have excellent job-training initiatives. Maybe they sponsor credentials, or maybe they have initiatives to help small businesses get started. That isn’t what this is. This is some of America’s best companies, including tech companies, and some of America’s best governors of both parties saying, “We’re not completely sure how this is going to roll out, but we are committed to making sure that we take care of American workers and that everyone is brought along in an AI economy.” And that means innovating, changing, and iterating as we go.

SAFIAN: AI companies are raising billions, even trillions. You’ve raised around $500 million. Where’s that come from, and how much do you need?

RAIMONDO: I look at this through the lens of, as former secretary, what does America have to do to lead this global AI competition vis-a-vis China, vis-a-vis the rest of the world? And we definitely need a tech strategy. You just pointed that out. These companies are investing tons of money in chips, compute, data centers, talent, models — the whole thing. That’s our tech policy, and we need to win. We also need a people strategy that says, “Hey, I’m a call center worker. Hey, I’m a midlevel accountant, and I understand maybe an agent will do my job, but I deserve a chance to get another job. I deserve an opportunity in this country to have another chapter of work, even if AI changes my job.” That’s what Raise Us is designed to do. We’re starting with, as you said, half a billion dollars. It’s going to require much more than that, but I’m pleased with where we’re beginning.

We want to run a series of experiments and pilots and see what works. A lot of the money has come from companies. Amazon has stepped up considerably, as have Anthropic and OpenAI. These companies are really forward-leaning. Bank of America, UPS — these are companies saying, “Hey, we’re in it. We are in it to work with you to make sure there’s a place for every American worker in an AI economy.”

Copy LinkUsing private capital to the plan

SAFIAN: When you talk about experimentation and pilots, it’s a very Silicon Valley, entrepreneurial approach, not something we often associate with government. But in this environment, it feels like we can’t wait until — I mean, you mentioned our tech strategy. There’s been a lot of back-and-forth over whether we have a clear tech strategy. We can’t really wait for that to be solidified before we deal with the people side of it.

RAIMONDO: Look, I’ve been a governor. I’ve been a secretary. Government moves slowly. There’s very little incentive for an elected official to take risks. That’s why I think we need a new kind of organization like this one. And that’s also why I think we need a significant amount of philanthropy. Because if I go to a governor and say, “Let’s pilot a new form of apprenticeship. Let’s pilot a new form of tax incentives for companies so they retrain and redeploy people instead of laying people off. Let’s pilot a form of wage support so workers can take a job at a lower wage but get topped up,” a governor is going to say, “I’ll try it because it’s good for our people, but you’re going to have to provide a good deal of the risk capital, if you will, before any governor or any state legislature is going to open the public kitty and try something new.”

SAFIAN: Because ultimately the dollars are going to have to come from the government, but you’ve got to prove it first using philanthropic and, I guess, corporate money.

RAIMONDO: That’s our theory of the case. We think if we wait — certainly if we wait for the federal government to do something — gosh, we’ll be waiting a while. And even states, I think, will take too long. It’s just the way democracies work, especially today. We don’t have the highest-functioning form of democracy. Things take too long to get done. So we are saying let’s use private capital and private industry, working with governors one at a time, to innovate, then see what works, and scale what works.

I don’t have a crystal ball, Bob. I have spent most of my time the past year or more talking to the best economists in the world, and to the CEOs and tech leaders of these AI companies. You ask everybody, “How’s this going to play out?” And the honest answer is, I don’t think anyone knows. But every single time we’ve introduced a technological shock, there’s been disruption. I would like to use this moment of change to change the way we use our public money, like I said, to incentivize companies to train people so that we have a better system for training and transitioning workers who, no matter how you slice it, are going to have to transition more frequently in an AI economy.

Copy LinkPreparing for a possible labor shock

SAFIAN: You can sense that there’s a crisis coming, but you’re trying to do something before the crisis hits, even though historically it’s almost like we require a crisis before we actually get behind change that may be this dramatic.

RAIMONDO: This is true. Human nature is such that big things often don’t happen unless there’s a crisis. But to that, I’ll say two things. Certainly there’s no crisis now. The economy looks strong, and companies are still hiring. However, there’s enough collective anxiety and, as you said, historic amounts of money going into pushing this technology at a pace we’ve never seen, that even though we don’t have a crisis, everyone’s focused on it. So we have a moment to get everyone’s attention. Let’s say there is a crisis. I don’t know that there will be. Let’s say 40 million workers, or even 15 million workers, are put out of work precipitously. I’m not saying that’ll happen, but let’s say that happens in three years’ time. By that time, if we’ve done our job right, we will have proven, in states around this country run by both Democrats and Republicans, certain things that work.

And so if, at that time, the US Congress gets around to passing a big piece of legislation, I hope they look around and see what works. And, by the way, we’ll have a built-in group of supporters from all the governors and companies that have been working with us on this.

SAFIAN: There’s a question that I sometimes pose to tech CEOs: When you’re the beneficiary of a technological change and you’re making so much money off it, what kind of responsibility do you have as a business and as a business leader to take care of the community and those folks who may be left behind by some of those changes? The default is often, “Well, that’s really the government’s job. That’s not my job.” And I’m curious where you sit on that. You’ve had experience in both business and government, and you’re having these conversations too. How much responsibility do CEOs and businesses feel they have? How much should they have?

RAIMONDO: I think they do have a responsibility. I do, even if they don’t think they do. And by the way, I think that of all companies, not just tech companies. It’s not in any company’s interest to have a deep recession, social unrest, political upheaval, or regulatory backlash. If this gets too bad, the government will shut down AI, which I think is bad for America. No company does better amid social unrest and deep recession. People still buy things, last time I checked — not agents. You need money in your pocket to buy things. So I think not only do they have a responsibility, it’s actually in their interest. The challenge is that it’s often a collective action problem, and I’m trying, to a certain extent, to help companies get over that collective action problem by bringing them together. And at some point it may require, like I said, different government incentives to encourage companies to do retraining and redeploying instead of just hitting the layoffs button.

You made a comment about crisis, and I was smiling because I do believe big things pretty much only happen in times of crisis. One of my inspirations for starting Raise Us was in the 1940s, as the Second World War was winding down and the GIs were coming home to the US. The then-commerce secretary convened a group called the CED, and it was a collection of CEOs from some of America’s best companies — footnote, many of whom did not support President Roosevelt. Their mission was: How do we put plans in place to make sure that when the war ends and wartime demand goes down and all these GIs come home, we’ll have a good economy and we won’t have a recession?

And they came up with some strategies. By the way, many of those strategies wound up in the Marshall Plan. Times are different now. No one has to tell me how much more divisive our politics is today. But I still believe in bipartisanship, in the responsibility of leaders to their country, and I do believe if you get the best minds together in a room with the right intentions, we can get great things done. And I want to give it a try.

SAFIAN: Your partner at Raise Us is Eric Holcomb, the former Republican governor of Indiana. How conscious were you about needing a partner from the other side of the aisle?

RAIMONDO: Highly. Very conscious. First of all, I love Eric. I worked with him closely when we were both governors. Also, truth be told, of all the governors — including myself — we served together, his apprenticeship and community college and job-training initiatives were really the best in the country, and he had a phenomenal track record of working with business. But yes, I wanted a Republican. By the way, Speaker Ryan is an adviser to Raise Us, and we’re going to be working together with his foundation. I’m sure some CEOs of companies supporting us are themselves Republicans. I don’t know. I don’t really care. I just want to come together to solve problems for America.

SAFIAN: Gina’s allusion to a Marshall Plan for AI is intriguing. Can Republicans and Democrats, private enterprise and government, higher education and students all work together to create a new system for the AI era? And what does it mean to be AI-ready when AI itself is moving so fast? We’ll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, former US Secretary of Commerce and former Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo talked about the launch of Raise Us and the prospect of major AI job displacement. Now she talks about what it means for a state to be AI-ready, why slowing down AI development or incorporating universal basic income won’t realistically meet the moment, and what higher education needs to do to prepare students. Let’s dive back in.

Copy LinkWhat it really takes for a state to become AI ready

You talk about Raise Us partnering with AI-ready states, I saw, to sort of reorient public funding. So what does it mean for a state to be AI-ready?

RAIMONDO: We want to help states become AI-ready. What that means is having support for workers who have to be transitioned in their state. The only system this country really has for someone who loses their job is unemployment insurance. And unemployment insurance doesn’t work for most folks, white-collar workers making more than, I don’t know, $80,000 a year. It covers a tiny amount of your income. It’s very rigid. If you start a business, you get kicked off UI. If you go back to school, you get kicked off UI. That’s not going to cut it. So that is not an AI-ready state. An AI-ready state might have a UI system that allows you to start a company using AI and continue to collect unemployment insurance. And, by the way, maybe receive some help to start your company using AI. An AI-ready state is a state where, if I think I might be in a vulnerable job, I can very quickly navigate to what jobs are available and where I can get free training to go get that job.

An AI-ready state might have certain incentives for companies to provide longer severance, retraining, and redeployment, et cetera. So there are many things that need to happen to make a state AI-ready. And honestly, I don’t know of any states that are.

Copy LinkWhy slowing AI misses the bigger challenge

SAFIAN: Some folks say we just need to slow down AI to give us time to figure out job displacement. Others point to universal basic income or government ownership of AI companies. Those aren’t part of the Raise plan, though. Why not?

RAIMONDO: I think we’re probably in the second inning of this AI baseball game. And it is not clear to anyone what the third, fourth, and fifth innings are going to look like, which is why I’m less committed to a particular solution than I am to setting up a framework, system, and infrastructure to get to solutions. I am really quite opposed to universal basic income, mostly because I think that a job is so much more than a paycheck. A job is dignity, purpose, community. So I don’t want to give up yet. Slowing down AI, I don’t even know what that means, truthfully. And also, how do you do that globally? Do we need some AI regulation? Yes, especially as it relates to safety. I did this when I was secretary. These models need to be tested by the government before they’re released into the world, and all that needs to be done by the federal government.

I’m just saying government is slow. AI is changing jobs quickly. It is in the interest of every American and every American company to figure out a way to both lead in AI technology and make sure that Americans, all Americans, not just a few at the top, have an opportunity for a good job and to make a good living.

Copy LinkHow colleges and training systems need to shift

SAFIAN: How does the education system fit into this? Do schools need to teach differently in the AI era? Aren’t universities moving fast enough?

RAIMONDO: There are, I think, 4,000 colleges in America. Some of them are incredibly innovative, and many of them are not. Query whether this country needs thousands of colleges and universities — I think probably not. Every organization on the planet has to rethink its cost structure, the way it delivers its product or service, et cetera. There’s a couple of problems with education. Number one, the public funding of education is not tied to outcomes. If you get a Pell Grant or you get a GI Bill or the state supports the local community college, it’s all based on attendance. You show up for school and the school gets paid — not whether you graduate, not whether you get a job. So I do think it’s time for that model to be seriously questioned and to have it be more of an outcome-based thing. Do you get a job?

The other point is we have, for 50-plus years, driven everybody to college. There aren’t a plethora of high-quality, high-prestige other options that could lead to a decent job. Also, if you’re 45 or even older — if you’re really old like me, you’re 55 — and you need a new job, there are almost no options, really. Most people cannot afford to give up a job and go for a year without a paycheck to get retrained for a new job. Who could afford to do that? And we have so few options for earn-while-you-learn. We need change, and the system we have today was created for a different time.

SAFIAN: I talked to a CEO recently who said that either AI companies are wildly overvalued, which means we have this major financial reset coming, or AI actually will enable businesses to dramatically reduce headcount, justifying that value, which means we have this employment reset coming. And that logic points to a tough road either way.

RAIMONDO: Right. That’s a very cheery CEO. It’s probably somewhere in the middle. To me, it all comes down to timeline and the rate at which this economy can absorb a certain amount of job loss, job transition, and capital. I do think that AI productivity enhancement probably is all that it’s cracked up to be. I also think it’s going to take longer for it to be diffused in this economy and for companies to really rewire themselves than maybe some of the folks in Silicon Valley would say. But again, the way I see it is, I don’t want to live in an America where only a few people have gainful employment and everyone else stays at home and collects a check from the government. What I’m saying to the CEO, or whoever you talked to, is: Why would we let that outcome happen? We have a shortage of doctors, a shortage of nurses, a shortage of teachers, a shortage of manufacturing workers, a shortage of tradespeople, and decrepit infrastructure all over the country.

We’re the greatest country in the world. And, by the way, I can tell you right now, if all we do is race forward to that AI vision and we’ve created a few trillionaires and we have sky-high unemployment, that won’t last. You want to see regulation that stops AI? You want to see rioting in the streets? You want to see China absolutely take over and win this AI competition? That’s what will happen.

So that’s why I think, let’s get to work. Let’s get to work and figure out how to do both: lead the AI tech and lead the people strategy.

SAFIAN: Since leaving the Commerce Department, you turned down CEO opportunities. Of course, there’s been talk about a presidential run in 2028. What would have to be true for you to run versus sticking with a startup or taking a CEO job?

RAIMONDO: I’ve been super lucky. I’ve been given lots and lots of opportunities since leaving the government. This is what I’m dedicated to. As corny as it sounds, I believe in the American dream. I believe in bipartisanship, and I believe when we put our minds to something, we can do things that seem impossible until they’re done. Everyone’s like, “What’s the solution? What’s the solution?” I don’t know. Figure it out. Let’s figure it out. Commit yourself to figuring it out. So no, this is a startup. It’s risky, it’s uncertain, but I’m two feet all in. This is what I’m doing with my time.

SAFIAN: And if you have one final message for American business leaders who are listening to this show about what’s coming or how they should think, what would it be?

RAIMONDO: Believe that we can do both. Embrace AI and lead in AI and come up with a strategy that allows Americans to flourish and have good jobs. These CEOs are good people. They don’t want to lay people off, and they’re brilliant and hardworking and they have unlimited resources. Point that toward making your country stronger, better, and more competitive, because it’s the right thing to do, and it’ll be good for your business, too.

SAFIAN: Gina, thanks so much for doing this. This was great.

RAIMONDO: Thank you, Bob.

SAFIAN: It’s refreshing to hear Gina acknowledge that no one really knows what’s going to happen in the AI era, and it’s hard to make progress if we don’t admit what we don’t know. Bullish CEOs and investors might be well served by a bit of that humility. We’re so focused on not falling behind, but are we thinking clearly about where we’re going? Millions of job losses would not be pretty. At the same time, I’m also struck by Gina’s push not to wait for a crisis and to do the hard work now, as she puts it, to figure it out. The solutions may not yet be clear, but if we believe in human ingenuity and we embrace experimentation, we can help each other. Optimism, hope, and clear-eyed hard work — sign me up.

I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.