A pro-worker AI policy playbook: Strengthening unemployment insurance and building a better safety net
The Economic Policy Institute has released a policy playbook focused on how unemployment insurance and broader worker safety net programs should be updated to account for disruption caused by AI-driven changes in the labor market.
Why this matters: AI is already displacing work, and the safety net built to catch people when that happens is decades old and full of gaps. Unemployment insurance in the US leaves out a lot of workers, pays too little, and runs out too fast. If the policy response to AI job loss is the same patchy system that failed people during COVID, millions of workers will fall through. What EPI is proposing is not about slowing AI down. It is about making sure the people who absorb the cost of it are not left on their own.
Who should care: AI governance · Lawyers · Administrators · General readers · Policy
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