2. Equipping people to navigate AI-driven transitions

The evidence on retraining and job placement is mixed, and it may not generalize to AI-induced economic disruption and rapid structural transformation. Evaluations of innovative skill retraining, job placement, licensing reform, and sectoral transition packages, including newer AI-enabled matching, credentialing, and learning models, and the bundling of income support with intensive reemployment services, retraining, and relocation assistance. Field experiments on the early-career and professional pipeline, e. g. , what apprenticeship, mentorship, or rotational models can build expertise if junior tasks are absorbed by AI.

Evaluations of curriculum and educational delivery models in K-12 and higher education that aim to prepare students for a transformed labor market, including longitudinal pilots that link educational interventions to later labor market outcomes. Tests of ambitious mobility instruments, for example paid leave tied to retraining programs and portable benefits that follow workers across employers. There’s existing evidence on many such efforts, including some especially effective sectoral training programs. We want to find out whether promising programs could scale quickly across a broader population. For example, a large-scale “fire drill” where selected programs are scaled up rapidly for job seekers in a given state could provide evidence on how well these programs work in the face of major disruption.