California Just Became The First State To Have A Plan For AI Job Losses
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed what is believed to be the first executive order in the United States specifically designed to prepare workers and small businesses for the economic disruption that artificial intelligence is expected to bring to the workforce, directing state agencies, economists, labor experts, universities, and industry leaders to begin developing new policies and tracking systems before the disruption arrives rather than after. The order does not wait for job losses to happen before responding: it instructs the state to identify early warning signs of workforce disruption, gather detailed data on hiring and payroll trends, and begin exploring a wide range of protective policies including severance standards, employment insurance for displaced workers, expanded workforce training programs, and worker ownership models. California is home to 33 of the top 50 private AI companies in the world, a fact the governor cited as both a source of responsibility and a reason why the state is uniquely positioned to model what thoughtful preparation for AI-driven change can look like. Newsom said California has never sat back and watched as the future happened to it, and does not plan to start now.
The executive order also directs the state to explore concepts including universal basic capital, where workers share more directly in the wealth generated by AI-driven productivity growth, and to pay particular attention to the disproportionate impact AI displacement is expected to have on women and workers in historically underserved communities. Jennifer Siebel Newsom noted that women face outsized risks from AI-driven displacement and widening inequality, and emphasized that expanding pathways into the jobs of the future must be part of any real response. The order does not mandate specific benefits or programs yet but sets the stage for policy development, with the expectation that concrete recommendations will follow. Labor advocates and tech workers' organizations praised the move as a meaningful first step, while some economists noted that California's willingness to name the problem and begin planning for it openly sets it apart from every other state government that has so far treated the question of AI job losses primarily as someone else's problem to solve.
