Labor

Millions of working Americans struggle to read at a functional level—and artificial intelligence may be helping hide it. Low literacy is quietly becoming a major economic drag, even as AI tools allow workers to complete tasks they may not fully understand.

The AI bubble debate has lurched through at least three frenzied phases in the span of three years:

State and federal policymakers are eager to understand how automation and artificial intelligence will affect the US labor market in the years to come. But predictions are tricky, and especially so when they rely on speculation about the pace of technological adoption, the price of technology acquisition, and the vagaries of the international economy. Happily, leaders can benefit from some insights closer to the ground level.

This Policy Bulletin evaluates claims that Chattanooga’s EPB municipal broadband network generated large employment gains in Hamilton County (TN). First, this Bulletin shows that the source paper invoked to justify the employment narrative explicitly finds no statistically significant employment effects in urban counties; Hamilton County is an urban county. Second, using modern causal inference methods, this Bulletin directly evaluates labor-market outcomes in Hamilton County. Across employment and unemployment outcomes, no economically or statistically significant effects are found.

On May 15, 2026, Pope Leo XIV issued an encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas (or The Grandeur of Humanity), which could be regarded as the most comprehensive statement yet from the Catholic Church—an institution with approximately 1.4 billion members worldwide—on the governance of artificial intelligence.

To the apparent surprise of Eric Schmidt and AI's other evangelists, the next generation of white-collar workers isn't warmly receptive to the message that AI will replace all white-collar jobs and destroy their prospective livelihoods in the next few years, give or take. Who'd have thought?

 Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) issued an executive order (EXECUTIVE ORDER N-6-26) directing California to prepare workers, small businesses, and communities for the economic disruption that artificial intelligence will bring to the workforce. The order mobilizes state agencies, labor experts, economists, universities, and industry leaders to develop new policies, gather data, and identify early warning signs of workforce disruption—while ensuring workers share in the gains created by AI-driven productivity.

For years, the conversation around broadband has focused on access—getting high-speed internet into the places that have gone without it for far too long. That work is finally happening at scale. Through the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, states like Arkansas are making a once-in-a-generation investment to close the digital divide. In Arkansas alone, more than $1 billion in funding will bring high-speed internet access to more than 79,000 homes and businesses, impacting nearly 200,000 Arkansans. That is a major step forward.

Six facts. No hyperbole. All in the past 60 days.

IT budgets are getting blown out as some companies increasingly spend more on AI than on employees' salaries. "For my team, the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees," said Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning at Nvidia.