The Just Machine Took My Job: A Case for the AI Adjustment Act

Remember Donald Fagen's 1982 song IGY? It painted this gloriously optimistic picture of the future — a world of spandex jackets, solar-powered cities, and a "Just Machine to make big decisions, programmed by fellows with compassion and vision." We were supposed to be gliding into a golden age where technology solved everything and nobody had to worry too much about, you know, working.

(If you have no idea who Donald Fagen or Steely Dan is, stop what you're doing, look up IGY — or really, any Steely Dan song — on YouTube, and thank me later. You're welcome. We'll wait.)

Well, the just machine arrived. And it's amazing. It really is.

AI is helping doctors catch cancers earlier, assisting scientists in developing new drugs, making customer service faster, helping small business owners write marketing copy, and enabling developers to build things in days that used to take months. The productivity gains are real. The innovation is genuinely exciting. If you're not at least a little amazed by what's happening, you haven't been paying attention.

But here's the part Donald Fagen left out of the song: somebody must pay for the spandex jacket. And a lot of those somebodies are currently updating their resumes.

This Is Already Happening

AI isn't a future threat — it's actively restructuring jobs in accounting, legal research, customer service, data analysis, coding, and more. Goldman Sachs estimates hundreds of millions of jobs globally are exposed to AI disruption. Tens of millions of U.S. workers may need to shift to entirely new careers within this decade.

And here's the key difference between AI and trade displacement: trade moved jobs somewhere else. AI eliminates the need for the job entirely. There's no factory to bring back home, no tariff to slap on a robot.

Our unemployment system wasn't built for that.

The Gap in Our Current System

Traditional unemployment insurance is designed as a short bridge — a few weeks of benefits while you find a similar job using the same skills. For most AI-displaced workers, that model is completely broken. A mid-career paralegal, data analyst, or customer service manager doesn't just need a job board link and a pep talk. They need real retraining and real time to do it.

What an AI Adjustment Act Could Look Like

When manufacturing jobs fled overseas, Congress created the Trade Adjustment Assistance program — a federal lifeline with benefits, retraining funds, and job search support for trade-displaced workers. The idea was simple: when a massive economic force displaces workers through no fault of their own, we help them land on their feet.

This idea isn't new — and I'll be honest, I'd be surprised if it were. Smart people have been connecting these dots for a while now, and there may already be proposed legislation working its way through the system. Good. Let's add some fuel to that fire.

Think about it this way. Imagine your grandmother worked in a factory in the United States making blue jeans. That factory closed down and moved overseas. TAA and its companion program TRA allowed her to go back to school, enroll in an LPN program — Licensed Practical Nurse, typically about a year of training — and collect unemployment benefits the whole time she was doing it. Why nursing? Because it was in demand, it paid well, and — let's be honest — nobody was lining up to replace grandma with a robot taking blood pressure readings. She went from sewing seams to caring for patients, and the program made that transition financially possible. It wasn't a handout — it was a bridge to something better.

Here's the sobering part: that bridge no longer exists. The TAA program entered a phased termination in July 2022 and is no longer accepting new petitions. So not only do we lack a program for AI-displaced workers — we've actually lost the original one too. We're going backwards at exactly the wrong moment.

We need that same bridge right now, updated for AI.

Modeled on TAA and TRA, an AI Adjustment Act (AIAA) would provide certified AI-displaced workers with benefits beyond the standard state maximum while in approved retraining, real funding for skills development, a stipend so people aren't choosing between paying rent and going back to school, and wage insurance for older workers taking lower-paying transitional jobs.

Certification would work similarly to TAA — employer-reported, industry-wide, or petition-based through the Department of Labor. Defining "AI displacement" will take some work, but we've navigated TAA's definitional challenges for decades. We can figure this out too.

Who This Is Really For

The most vulnerable workers aren't fresh college grads who grew up coding on their lunch breaks. They're mid-career and senior professionals — people who are 40, 50, 60 years old — who built real expertise in fields AI is now entering fast. They did everything right. The economy just changed the rules on them.

These folks aren't asking for a handout. They're asking for a fair shot at the future that IGY promised them — minus maybe the spandex.

The Bottom Line

TAA was created because we recognized that trade's benefits are broad while its pain is concentrated on specific workers. AI is the same story, only bigger and faster. We need a program that reflects that reality.

I've spent over 30 years inside unemployment insurance systems. The next great challenge for our workforce infrastructure is AI displacement — and the TAA/TRA model gives us a proven framework to build from. If you want to learn more about how unemployment insurance really works — and how it could work better — check out my YouTube channel, Unemployment Unlocked, where I break down the system in plain language for everyday people. And if you want to go even deeper, stay tuned — the Unemployment Unlocked website is coming soon with even more resources, guides, and tools to help people navigate the system.

The just machine is here. Let's make sure the humans who built it — and the ones it's displacing — aren't left behind.

John Partlow has spent 30+ years working in unemployment insurance: 20 years inside Tennessee's state UI agency and 10+ years helping states modernize their systems. He built Unemployment Unlocked to translate that experience into plain-English guidance for claimants navigating the system. Read more about John →