"While tech executives wax poetic about AI ushering in four-day workweeks and liberation from labor, economics guru Robert Reich is cutting through the drivel. In an ominous new essay, the former secretary of labor warns that those shortened weeks will also come with much shorter paychecks - leaving the working class scrambling for crumbs in order to survive. The US economy is growing nicely, Reich notes, while the stock market is doing gangbusters."
"As evidence, he references the productivity-pay gap, the measure of a society's economic output compared to its wage growth. In the United States, productivity keeps going up - but the share of that productivity going to workers hasn't really budged since the 1970s. Workers, in other words, have been getting shafted by their bosses for decades, and there's no reason to think AI will change that."
Tech executives claim AI will enable four- and even three-day workweeks. Those compressed weeks will likely come with proportionally reduced pay, leaving workers with smaller paychecks. Productivity continues to rise while the share of productivity going to workers has not increased since the 1970s, producing a persistent productivity-pay gap. As AI automates tasks, many workers will face lower wages or the need to take additional jobs to maintain income. Full-time job growth is weak, gig work is rising, and low-wage workers are experiencing layoffs and wage declines. The result will be increased economic strain on the working class.
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