The test any real plan has to pass
Mass automation is not a normal downturn, and a plan built for a normal downturn will fail it. Any plan worth the name:
pays out at the scale of the disruption – not a retraining stipend for a labor market that no longer needs the labor;
is funded by the companies and windfalls that profit from automation;
switches on automatically as jobs disappear, instead of waiting for Congress to pass a rescue package after the damage is done;
and still holds individual employers accountable to their own workers.
One plan that passes it
Establish a levy on frontier AI companies and the largest automation windfalls, scaled so the biggest players pay the most. This is not a tax on using AI and not a fine for automating: it is a claim on the windfall when automation pays off at scale, so the levy only bites when the companies are winning.
Place the proceeds in a permanent American wealth fund – with every citizen holding a share, governed independently, and off-limits to political raids. The fund pays every American a dividend, on the model Alaska has run on its oil wealth since 1982. Washington has already embraced the idea in principle: a 2025 executive order directing the creation of a U.S. sovereign wealth fund.
Beyond the dividend, the fund shores up Social Security and Medicare and finances an income floor and health coverage for displaced workers that switch on if jobs disappear at scale. The levy and the benefits step up automatically when employment, wages, or workers' share of national income cross set thresholds.
And companies that automate away jobs still owe their workers advance notice, severance, and transition support – enforceable in court, not promised in press releases.
The challenge
This is one plan that passes the test – not the only one possible. Economists, unions, and both parties are invited to bring a stronger one; the Windfall Policy Atlas catalogs dozens of building blocks. What fails the test: treating mass automation like an ordinary recession, or having no plan at all.
