Job guarantees move from AI warnings to US policy proposals

Why guarantee a job?

The case is broader than a paycheck. Supporters argue that work can provide social connection, dignity, experience and professional networks, while giving people a way to contribute to urgent needs such as infrastructure, climate adaptation and care for children and older adults.

The idea also has a long policy history. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes a right to work and protection against unemployment. During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration employed millions of Americans on public projects. France, India and Argentina have since tried their own versions of job guarantees.

Recent polling cited in the Russian article suggests job guarantees attract more support than universal basic income, including among Americans surveyed by Democratic political strategist David Shor. The distinction matters: a job guarantee offers income through employment, not as an unconditional payment. Supporters say that difference also preserves the social and practical benefits of work.

What the costs leave out

At a June US Senate hearing on affordability, Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana called a job guarantee a multi-trillion-dollar program and therefore impossible. When Century Foundation president Julie Margetta Morgan said she supported a federal guarantee, Kennedy asked whether she believed in the Easter Bunny.

Economists studying job guarantees count costs differently. Max Kasy, an Oxford University economics professor who studied a recent Austrian experiment, says wages are a cost, but the program can also reduce spending on unemployment benefits and perhaps disability or early-retirement benefits. Employed participants pay taxes and social insurance contributions, and may do socially useful work.

The Austrian participants also gained social and psychological benefits. Bard College economics professor Pavlina Tcherneva argues that better well-being is difficult to price, but matters; she also points to potential health costs associated with prolonged, unstable unemployment. Her conclusion is that a job guarantee could be an investment, not just a transfer.

Two US approaches

In September, Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts reintroduced a resolution for a federal job guarantee. First proposed in 2021, it would have federal funding and local administration, with participants earning at least $25 an hour and regular adjustments for the cost of living.

Proposed work includes:

A separate proposal would tax AI companies to fund a federal guarantee. Its Democratic House sponsors are Greg Casar of Texas, Valerie Foushee of North Carolina and Sara Jacobs of California. For large AI companies, the tax would be based on whichever is greater: the value of their tokens, or revenue from AI products. The rate would rise if unemployment increased.

Casar said in a written statement that AI executives openly predict millions of job losses while the government is doing nothing to protect workers and jobs. That proposal links funding to the very industry whose effects it is meant to address—but the account offers no details on how the tax would be calculated in practice.

Cleveland tests a different model

In Cleveland, Ohio, the nonprofit Universal Basic Employment is launching a pilot with five van drivers at a transportation company. Rather than create public jobs, it will supplement wages at existing private-sector jobs. Founder and CEO Devin Cotten says the goal is to help workers and employers.

The program aims to bring wages up to what UBE calls an autonomous wage: an income level above which a person is no longer eligible for most social-support benefits. In Cleveland, that threshold is slightly above $27 an hour. The pilot’s annual budget is nearly half a million dollars, with UBE and employers sharing the wage top-ups. The drivers currently earn about $15 an hour.

Cotten says the program is not intended to replace other support, such as housing vouchers. Higher wages could also help workers build credit, potentially qualify for mortgages and spend more in local economies. He argues that valuing work across party lines could make this model politically viable.

I think the Cleveland pilot is the most revealing proposal here because it tests a narrower claim than a national guarantee: whether topping up wages at existing jobs can improve workers’ financial footing without displacing other support. The announcement leaves open how the model would perform beyond five drivers, and whether employers would keep participating as the subsidy changes. For now, the central tension is between treating work as a public good and making private-sector jobs pay enough to stand on their own.