Estimated 47% of jobs available today could be automated by 2030

Like many Americans, I grew up in a working class family and was raised on the value of hard work. I was taught that working hard was the key to climbing the economic ladder and achieving prosperity. No matter where we start in life — we were expected to work hard above all else, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and through our hard work and enterprise — build a better life.

For all Americans, our job is a large part of “who we are” — it’s our main source of income and our means for how we live. It’s how we introduce ourselves to strangers. It’s how we measure our success. It’s how we describe our legacies when we retire. It drives where we live, where we shop, what we buy. Our job is a key component of our identities. We work hard to carve out a life of our own making and our job is such an important aspect of what that life becomes.

During and after the Great Recession, many in our nation felt the pain of not having a job and the frustration of working extremely hard, but finding themselves unemployed and looking for any work — no matter what it paid. We know what a high unemployment America looks like and the devastating effects of large numbers of Americans not working has on our communities and nation. Our economy has started to heal and grow, but looming in the distance is the prospect of losing almost half of all jobs to automation and artificial intelligence by 2030.

According to an assessment by Carl Frey and Michael Osbourne (referenced in the “Artificial Intelligence, Automation and The Economy” report published by the Executive Office of the President in December 2016) — they estimate that 47% of jobs in the U.S. are at risk to be replaced by automation and artificial intelligence technologies by 2030. They also estimate that 83% of the jobs that make less than $20 per hour and 44% of American workers with less than a high school degree hold jobs with highly-automatable tasks and at the highest risk to lose their jobs to automation.

We can’t blindly head down this path allowing our leaders to maintain the status quo and not begin preparing for this new future. Automation and artificial intelligence is already here, so we can’t just sit back and let hard working Americans become obsolete. I don’t believe that we should try to stop or slow these advancements, but instead push our leaders to work towards developing a government agenda that supports, rewards and encourages our businesses and entrepreneurs to develop new jobs and new opportunities for all Americans — while equipping our workforce with the right skills, so they’re more competitive, marketable and can adapt to the changing economic landscape.

We need to invest in America and hard working families — and not just for the short-term. Americans need access to quality and affordable education throughout our lifetimes, so we’re all employable in high paying jobs — not just for part of our lives, but until we decide to retire. We have to innovate our educational system for a rapidly changing world and one that is going to require all Americans to have a greater skill set and abilities, and continue to learn at a pace that has never before been seen in our history.

We must provide quality and public supported pre-Kindergarten education to all Americans, so that our young children learn the necessary building blocks for successful learning sooner. We have to re-think how we educate our children as they grow, so we’re allowing our top students to advance even higher and those struggling are able to get the help they need. Our young adults can no longer leave college with life altering debt and then be expected to learn new skills before they’re able to pay off their initial education. We can’t expect older working Americans to have to fund a high-priced education to get a new good-paying job when their current one is being outsourced to a robot.

We live in a connected world, so delivering broadband internet service to all areas — rural and urban — should be a high priority to allow everyone the ability to participate in our new economy. In the information age, anyone can provide value from anywhere, so we need our government encouraging innovative work arrangements that allow businesses to tap into underutilized workers across our nation.

We need to encourage and incentivize businesses to innovate, develop new industries and create new good-paying jobs. Americans with innovative ideas and not the capital to bring them to fruition — should have access to low-interest loans to start and grow their businesses. It is paramount that our government is focused on providing leadership and support around job creation, because the impacts of automation will require tackling both worker supply and demand challenges.

Finally, automation and artificial intelligence are not all bad. For example, it will mean more Americans will not need to risk their lives and health to make a living. Still, I have to believe that for many Americans — especially those who make their living in industries ripe to be disrupted by automation — they are not very excited for this change. It’s hard for anyone to root on change that may result in them losing their job — especially when it’s hard to find a new job that pays similar wages. I can understand this. This reality makes it even more important that we get to work and figure out how to help hard working Americans start to transition into careers with greater potential and opportunity in the future.

Providing good-paying jobs is the key to a strong and healthy middle class. The type of jobs we will do will change, but we need to ensure that hard working families continue to have opportunity. It’s this prospect of an uncertain future for our children and grandchildren that fuels my passion to work hard bringing change, building prosperity for all and renewing America’s promise. We need leadership to act now and help grow our economy, increase wages and set a path for all Americans to achieve prosperity. Automation and artificial intelligence is a reality, but our reality should be leaders who take strong action to support and help the American people adjust and change to this new paradigm.

Follow me on Twitter: @Charlie_Breit
Like me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/votecharliebreit/
Sign up for My Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/cJkM3T