Workers of America be afraid. Be very afraid.
The Trump administration is your worst nightmare and it’s about to get worse when AI meets cuts to unemployment insurance.
You are about to be caught in a merciless, two-sided attack on your ability to survive economically. It’s being orchestrated by the Republican regime on one side and greedy tech oligarchs on the other. Think of being caught in a lobster’s big crusher claw and you’ll get the picture.
Pincer Number One: AI Layoffs
You probably know all about the pattern of unemployment: jobs lost to AI bots that operate more cheaply than people. Companies from manufacturing to white-shoe law firms have begun replacing employees with AI at an increasing clip. If you are already working, your job will go to a data-crushing piece of technology that works faster, better, and cheaper than you do and needs no benefits.
If you are just getting out of school and looking for an entry-level job, you will find it an even harder slog. AI bots have been taking over those positions, leaving them absolutely nothing with which to pay off their college debt. Because they have never held a job, those graduates are not even eligible for unemployment payments.
The tech bros and billionaires work very hard to produce new AI systems that do ever-better jobs of taking work away from Americans. The impact on real people, not to mention the country, is simply not their concern. Pundits talk about a guaranteed national income to keep American workers afloat but who’s going to fund that? The tech oligarchs have shown less than no regard for the little people who can’t spend $25 million on a wedding. Those men want more tax breaks, not donating to a guaranteed national income.
Pincer Number Two: Unemployment Cuts
But even those who are eligible for unemployment may not get it. Republicans have begun floating the idea of cutting federal payments to the unemployment insurance programs run by the states.
According to The Wall Street Journal:
“The Trump administration is warning all 50 states that they risk losing federal funding for unemployment insurance benefits if they don’t comply with antifraud efforts.
“The administration alleges that unemployment benefits have become an easy target for fraud, especially in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic when millions of Americans relied on aid after losing their jobs.”
The federal government partners with the states to keep their unemployment insurance programs working by covering the costs of operation. Removing that federal contribution would be devastating. Individual states simply don’t have the money to replace the federal component. Without it, the states would be forced to shut down their unemployment insurance programs.
The Shabby Excuse for Cutting Unemployment
Why would the Trump administration do something so devastating? Well, they fall back on their shabby, thread-worn motto of “waste, fraud, and abuse” to cover their actions and obscure their real motives. In reality, they want to use that money to provide the U.S. military with a trillion dollars in bribe money, pay the Iranian government $300 billion dollars of our money in reparations, give even more tax cuts to the super rich, and fund the demolition and reconstruction of Washington D.C.
And there you have it. You get laid off so AI bots can do your job and you’re on your own. You had better have been socking away a lot of savings every month to tide you over what will be a brutal time in your life and that of your family.
If not, you will be living in your car—assuming you can keep up the payments—and standing in line at the food pantry. You may die of a curable condition or disease because COBRA health insurance is expensive.
Welcome to the Republican idea of affordability and abundance. It means abundance for a very few at the very top and the bottom of the barrel for everyone else.
The Impact of Cutting Unemployment
Approximately 1.8 million Americans are currently receiving unemployment benefits. Sending them below the poverty line—adding them to the ranks of the homeless scrabbling to make a living—would be bad enough. But these cuts would have a massive impact on the American economy as well. With the Trump administration destroying all the safety nets, there will be no soft landing for all these folks. Some of them will die. Many others may never recover.
Personally, this idea sends a chill down my spine. Having worked in high tech, I’m familiar with layoffs and unemployment insurance. Any time a high-tech company, regardless of size, has to cut spending, they hand out pink slips as their first line of defense. It seems that today, the bigger the company the more ruthless the cuts.
And once you leave with your box of personal belongings, you find yourself in a bleak place where no one is hiring. You send out hundreds of resumes, contact everyone you know, and network yourself into exhaustion, with no result. You couldn’t buy yourself an interview if you had the money.
Republicans and Drunken Sailors
Make no mistake: This is the Republican idea of running the country. They only care about a strong economy and reducing the national debt when they are in the minority. Then they can use it as a club against the Democrats. Once they gain power, however, they spend like drunken sailors. Actually, I doubt drunken sailors could spend this much money if they had it.
Remember, the first Trump administration already created 1/3 of the national debt.
You can fund a lot of unemployment insurance operations and even payments with that kind of money. And it doesn’t include the $1 trillion he wants to use to bribe the U.S. military to be his personal army or the $300 billion he’s promising Iran as reparations for the war he started and lost.
So if you are still working and have a job that can be eliminated or taken over by AI, it’s time to be afraid. You many not have voted for this but it’s coming your way.
