First look: Gene Sperling unveils Economic Dignity Lab at Georgetown
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Gene Sperling speaks in Detroit in 2024. Photo: USA Today Network
Gene Sperling — a top economic adviser to Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden — is starting an Economic Dignity Lab at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
Why it matters: Sperling, who'll be founder and executive director, tells me his lab will develop concrete, viable policy proposals that "provide an economic dignity response to AI job and economic disruption."
- Sperling sketched the undergirding principles in his critically acclaimed 2020 book, "Economic Dignity."
To kick off the Lab, Sperling is publishing a detailed argument Wednesday in the journal Democracy, "An Economic Dignity Compact for the AI Age," that's written as a sharp alternative to proposals like UBI (universal basic income) and UBC (universal basic capital).
- Sperling writes that proposals like UBI and UBC ignore the dignity of work and the connection between work and purpose, potential and social connection.
Sperling argues that simply spreading out equal, unconditional cash payments to all Americans, regardless of need, could preclude more effective policies that could help provide true economic dignity.
- "Technology does not shape our destiny," Sperling writes. "We still have the power to do that — if we keep human well-being, happiness, and dignity top of mind."
Sperling calls for a three-part economic dignity response to AI job disruption:
- A large increase in what he calls missing "double dignity jobs" — "jobs with dignified wages to help provide dignity to others," including jobs in education, mental health, rural care, and counseling for those with incarceration backgrounds, addiction or long-term unemployment.
- "Targeting Holes in Our Economic Dignity Floor: Doing targeted policies from child care, to paid leave, to a higher minimum wage and EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit], to greater protections at work, to helping more modest [and] lower income Americans have chances of wealth creation."
- An economic transition strategy, for workers dispaced by AI, that avoids the pain of the past, including devastation to factory towns.
Go deeper: Sperling's article for Democracy.
