Job seekers attend the Mega JobNewsUSA South Florida Job Fair held in the Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, April 30. gettyimagesbank-TNS

There is a palpable fear among American workers that AI is coming for their jobs. The answer to that fear, as I’ve argued, is to make job loss less scary by building a new unemployment program. An overhaul is long overdue, and it would help not only a vulnerable labor market but also workers whose fears are realized.

But would it be enough?

AI job loss is not happening in a bubble. It’s taking place in an economy thick with structural issues and marked by inequality. AI is poised to destroy good jobs, aka high-paying with benefits, which in the U.S. economy are too rare a quantity. All of which is to say: The fear of AI can be mitigated if we stop leaving the bottom of the labor market behind.

Not all jobs are created equally. The obvious difference between good and bad jobs is pay. On average, the top 10 percent of workers earn about $250,000 a year, and the bottom 90% of workers earn about $45,000. That spread is increasing. Today it’s almost 6-to-1; before 1980, it........

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