“America has a technology strategy for AI. It has no people strategy.” - Gina Raimondo
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My guest today is former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo. Secretary Raimondo grew up in Rhode Island, where her father worked at the Bulova watch factory in Providence until it closed down, leaving him unemployed in his mid-50s. Today, she is trying to help workers avoid a similar fate as we transition to an AI economy. In June, she and former Governor of Indiana Eric Holcomb launched RAISE US, a national organization working with employers and states to prepare the American workforce move into new jobs.
I asked Secretary Raimondo how sure she is that widespread job losses are coming, whether training programs can create jobs, and what obligations big companies and frontier AI labs have to help. We talk about wage insurance, job sharing, how to prepare for an uncertain future, including the advice she gives to her own children.
Then Secretary Raimondo gave me homework and challenged me to design a tax incentive for companies to invest in people. I took her up on it - and share my proposal after the interview.
As always, let me know what you think at david@thecontextwindow.com.
Mentioned in this episode
RAISE US and the call to act
RAISE US - the nonprofit founded by Gina Raimondo and Eric Holcomb to help American workers transition to an AI economy.
“We Must Act Now: A Statement on AI’s Transformation of the Economy” (July 2026) - statement signed by Secretary Raimondo and David Deming, organized out of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.
Programs and policy
Maryland Corps and the Service Year Option - Maryland’s paid service program
Short-time compensation - explanation by the U.S. Department of Labor how eligible employers can reduce hours instead of laying workers off
Active labour market policies (OECD) - international comparison of spending on job search assistance, training, and other labor market policies
How the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines employment and unemployment - background on the distinction between unemployment, involuntary part-time work, and being outside the labor force
Research related to the discussion
Benjamin G. Hyman, Brian K. Kovak, and Adam Leive, “Wage Insurance for Displaced Workers” (NBER working paper, 2024)
Lawrence F. Katz, Jonathan Roth, Richard Hendra, and Kelsey Schaberg, “Why do Sectoral Employment Programs Work? Lessons from WorkAdvance” (Journal of Labor Economics, 2022)
Bruno Crépon, Esther Duflo, Marc Gurgand, Roland Rathelot, and Philippe Zamora, “Do Labor Market Policies have Displacement Effects? Evidence from a Clustered Randomized Experiment” (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2013)
David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson, “The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade” (Annual Review of Economics, 2016)
Hyunjin Kim and Rembrand Koning, “AI-Native Firms” (working paper, 2026)
Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen, “Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence” (Stanford Digital Economy Lab, rev. 2026)
Related to David’s proposal
Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures for Fiscal Years 2025-2029 (Joint Committee on Taxation, 2025) - shows the asymmetry in one table, equipment depreciation beypnd the standard schedule costs $296.4 billion over five years, while the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, the main federal subsidy for hiring, costs $2.5 billion.
Daron Acemoglu, Andrea Manera, and Pascual Restrepo, “Does the US Tax Code Favor Automation?” (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2020) - puts the effective marginal tax rate on labor at 25.5% against roughly 5% on equipment and software after the reforms in 2017.
Manisha Jain, Corina Mommaerts, and Jeffrey Weaver, “Hiring Subsidies for the Disadvantaged: Evidence from the Work Opportunity Tax Credit” (NBER conference paper, 2025) - the reason why a hiring credit has to be designed carefully.
Amanda Pallais, “Ineffecient Hiring in Entry-Level Labor Markets” (American Economic Review, 2014) - examines why employers may hire too few inexperienced workers.
Pierre Cahuc, Stéphane Carcillo, and Thomas Le Barbanchon, “The Effectiveness of Hiring Credits” (Review of Economic Studies, 2019) - a case where a hiring credit did work, in France during the last recession.
Saez, Emmanuel, Benjamin Schoefer, and David Seim, “Payroll Taxes, Firm Behavior, and Rent Sharing: Evidence from a Young Workers’ Tax Cut in Sweden” (American Economic Review, 2019)
Eliana Carranza, Robert Garlick, Kate Orkin, and Neil Rankin, “Job Search and Hiring with Limited Information about Workseekers’ Skills” (American Economic Review, 2022) - Carranza et al. show that shareable skill certificates increase hiring.
Martin Abel, Rulof Burger, and Patrizio Piraino, “The Value of Reference Letters: Experimental Evidence from South Africa” (American Economic Journal: Applied Economic, 2020) - Abel et al. show that reference letters increase callbacks in a resume audit experiment.
Morgan Hardy and Jamie McCasland, “Are Small Firms Labor Constrained? Experimental Evidence from Ghana” (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2023) - Hardy and McCasland show offering small firms placements of young unemployed people as apprentices increased total firm profits by 10%, suggesting that small firms are labor-constrained.
Guest bio
Gina Raimondo is CEO of RAISE US and a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She served as U.S. Commerce Secretary from 2021 to 2025, overseeing the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act and establishment of the U.S. AI Safety Institute. Before joining the Biden administration, she was Rhode Island’s first female governor and previously served as the state’s general treasurer. Earlier in her career, she co-founded the venture capital firm Point Judith Capital. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College in 1993, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, earning a DPhil in sociology, and graduated with a JD from Yale Law School.
Credits
Host: David Deming, Danoff Dean of Harvard College
Executive Producer: Denise Koller Consulting Producers: Tim Smith and Jonathan Palumbo Editor: Cabin 3 - Justin Callahan
