{"id":113461,"date":"2026-07-21T15:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/113461\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T15:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:13:13","slug":"op-ed-new-york-city-is-facing-an-ai-tidal-wave-it-is-dangerously-underprepared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/113461\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-Ed | New York City is facing an AI tidal wave. It is dangerously underprepared."},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\u201cThere is no city in America more exposed to both the promise and peril of artificial intelligence than New York City.\u201d That\u2019s what Comptroller Mark Levine said when his office released a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0on AI\u2019s potential disruption to the city\u2019s economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The Comptroller is right. But New York is about to feel the peril much more than the promise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The hard truth is that the city has no real plan for AI-induced unemployment, particularly among lower-income New Yorkers. In the country\u2019s largest labor market \u2013 one grappling with Gilded Age-level inequality \u2013 nearly every sector will see AI job loss. Yet, policymakers haven\u2019t seriously prepared workers whose livelihoods may change or disappear altogether for the jobs that will be created by AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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When workers lose income, the damage does not stop at the office door. It hits apartments, restaurants, small businesses, subway fares, tax revenue, and the neighborhoods that make New York work.<\/p>\n

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A $2 trillion economy \u2013 a global hub of culture, tourism, and industry \u2013 could get hammered by an AI tidal wave that we all saw coming. Unless policymakers act.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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New York City needs a comprehensive AI resiliency plan built around three priorities: modernizing education, expanding fast and affordable workforce training, and creating policies that keep up with a fast-changing labor market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Younger New Yorkers are already feeling the pain of shrinking opportunities. Entry-level jobs in the city\u00a0dropped 37%<\/a>\u00a0between 2022 and 2024. Meanwhile, universities are at risk of falling alarmingly out of step with the job market: For the first time on record, college graduates in New York City are more unemployed than their peers without degrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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We need to reboot higher education for the AI economy. SUNY, CUNY, and private universities in New York City can lead the way with short-form certificates, AI tools in classrooms, and contemporary curricula that prepare students for in-demand roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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We also need more agile workforce training. Governor Kathy Hochul recently expanded AI education to the state\u2019s 100,000 employees. Considering the sheer scale of anticipated disruption, that\u2019s like using a toothbrush to clean your house: better than nothing, but not nearly enough to get the job done. City leaders need to act immediately, providing programs that adapt quickly to the realities of New York\u2019s labor market and equip people with the skills and tools they\u2019ll need to get \u2013 and stay \u2013 employed in the age of AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Better training must also be accessible. In a city as unaffordable and unequal as New York \u2013 home to more billionaires than anywhere in the world, while a\u00a0quarter<\/a>\u00a0of its residents live below the poverty line \u2013 investing in the necessary preparation to survive the shift to the AI economy can be prohibitively expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s bad news when you think about which New Yorkers are most vulnerable. College graduates aren\u2019t just losing out on opportunities, they\u2019re also saddled with enormous amounts of debt. And according to a\u00a0McKinsey report<\/a>\u00a0of the New York region, lower wage workers are 4.2 times more likely to be displaced by AI than high-wage ones in the years to come. With free and flexible workforce programs, people won\u2019t go bankrupt training for the jobs of today and tomorrow.<\/p>\n

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It wouldn\u2019t take much convincing: Americans are already asking for this. According to a Merit America and HarrisX\u00a0survey<\/a>, 76% of lower-wage workers believe that training would make them more confident and better prepared in an AI-driven world. There\u2019s no reason a trailblazing city like New York can\u2019t set the example.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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But training and education won\u2019t be enough. The city has to AI-proof its economy with the right policy design, one that puts New Yorkers at the center.<\/p>\n

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We believe Universal Disruption Income \u2013 UDI, not UBI \u2013 should be part of it. This first-of-its-kind subsidy would directly support workers who lose their jobs to AI, keeping them whole while they retrain and look for new opportunities. Beyond the Comptroller\u2019s proposal for a rainy day fund for the budget, UDI can help keep New York\u2019s economy afloat by going straight into the hands of the people who need it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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At the same time, we need businesses to keep and create good jobs. That means expanding workforce training grants and employment credits that make it easier for companies to hire and retain people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Leaders like State Senator Michelle Hinchey are on the right track; her\u00a0proposed AI Labor Information Act<\/a>\u00a0would require New York businesses to report on how many workers they\u2019re replacing with AI. That\u2019s the kind of information city leaders can use to develop the right incentives.<\/p>\n

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However they do it, the point is to keep New York\u2019s human talent and ingenuity thriving in one of the most iconic cities in the world.<\/p>\n

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This is a wake-up call. The AI tidal wave is coming. A real citywide plan can get working New Yorkers to higher ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Connor\u00a0Diemand-Yauman and Rebecca Taber Staehelin are the Co-founders and Co-CEOs of Merit America, a national nonprofit building a mainstream path to the middle class for Americans stuck in low-wage work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere is no city in America more exposed to both the promise and peril of artificial intelligence than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,3423,7265,1651],"class_list":["post-113461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-new-york","tag-op-ed","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}