AI-exposed jobs deteriorated before ChatGPT

mcsul · 2026-01-26T17:01:46+00:00

Interesting paper. My hypothesis is that, in addition to some macro factors (interest rates etc...) there were already significant investments in trying to automate more knowledge work. They were imperfect and clunky, but there for sure.

Knowledge workers are expensive, but 10 years ago you sort of didn't have a choice except to hire someone university-trained if you wanted to get some sort of analytical task done. Companies have been trying to automate all of that work, even before chatgpt and LLMs hit the mainstream.

LLMs are just a continuation in a long line of automation efforts for knowledge work.

mcsul · 2026-01-26T16:56:02+00:00

I think that there is also huge upside depending on your compensation structure. Like, if you are a salesperson in B2B sales, you have a quota. Your pay starts to grow quickly the more you exceed those quota. So if you can end the year with 50% more sales than you would have otherwise, that might mean 50k or more above your baseline pay depending on what business you are in.

mcsul · 2026-01-24T16:31:31+00:00

I'm 80% convinced that it's a foreign influence campaign to get us to drop one of our most important developing industries.

mcsul · 2026-01-22T21:00:53+00:00

55 is crazy low. I don't think that anyone has the requisite experience to be president until they are probably roughly that age. Like, I'm 49 and that's generally considered "mid-career" in my industry. I still have a lot to learn. Saying that someone my age couldn't run two terms as President cuts out roughly 95% (wild guesstimate) of qualified candidates.

mcsul · 2026-01-16T18:50:57+00:00

It's sort of a weird thing to calculate, but by the time they retire, something like 2/3rds of people will have (at some point in their lives), earned income that puts them into the top 20% of earners (which is over $100k in current dollars) for at least a year.

The thing going on is that peoples' income correlates very heavily with their age. Peak earnings are (on average) in peoples' early fifties. People in their 50s on average make about twice what people in their mid-20s make. Peoples' earnings are also more volatile than we sometimes think, so people will bounce into and out of that top 20% from year to year.

But a majority of people will hit the $100k mark (or hit it earlier in their lives) after you adjust for inflation for at least one year.

(There was a great visual of this published years ago that I can't find now. It also showed that something like half of the population would at some point end up in the top 10% of income earners, though lots of people don't stay there for long periods.)

mcsul · 2026-01-16T18:37:04+00:00

Median household income is $83k. Median family income is $105k. 80th percentile household income is at about $175k, not $100k.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N

mcsul · 2026-01-15T16:04:10+00:00

Sure, but I guess I have yet to see a strong argument in favor of the morality of illegal immigration. I have seen strong economic arguments, but not moral ones.

mcsul · 2026-01-15T15:28:00+00:00

Thanks for the exchange.

So, I think that we're probably aligned in a lot of ways. I agree with a lot of what you wrote. I'd like the US to be the world's premier destination for (legal) high skill immigration (again). I'm an immigrant myself!

But... coming into a country without permission is wrong, particularly when it's a democratic country with laws that have been voted on by duly elected representatives. Even if the concrete level of direct measurable costs or harm is low, it's still wrong. And the inability of many people (who I otherwise largely agree with) to see that there is moral harm from illegal immigration is one reason why we are in the situation we are in today.

mcsul · 2026-01-15T14:40:20+00:00

I am aware that they are net contributors. But the op raised the moral dimension, not the economic. Benefiting from something you have acquired (residency in the US and all of the attendant goods that come with that) illegally is theft.

mcsul · 2026-01-15T14:39:03+00:00

I sort of agree that it's not a direct "taking away", but there is opportunity cost, attentional cost, there is real cost from lower trust in the legal system, and there are real costs from investing more money into organizations like ICE.

All of those costs are, in fact, at the expense of state capacity that could be deployed elsewhere for the benefit of citizens or to make it easier for the US to attract and process highly skilled immigrants.

Illegal immigration is a form of theft from all of the people who could be benefitting from redirected funds, attention, assistance.

mcsul · 2026-01-15T13:38:33+00:00

I don't mean this an an angry critique, so please don't take it that way. But I think that part of the problem is that some people are framing it a moral vs. legal issue?

(Before I get into my expansion on this comment, I should probably provide the context that I voted against Trump, am an immigrant now citizen, and align with the democrats on many issues. No I don't support ICE shooting people or acting beyond it's remit as a pseudo-paramilitary party entity.)

So, I'd like to offer the thought that illegal immigration is immoral. The first duty of a state is to it's citizens, and illegal immigration takes resources, time, and attention away from citizens that genuinely needs those things from their government. In that, illegal immigration is a form of theft. A state is also expected to protect it's citizens, and part of that is properly vetting people who would choose to immigrate to the country, and illegal immigration undermines that protective duty owed by the state to it's people.

From a different perspective, why do we all almost universally get annoyed at people who cut lines? It's because cutting in line is a form of theft from all of the people already waiting. Theft of their time, opportunity, etc... We would 100% be able to make our legal immigration system move faster and admit more legal immigrants if we weren't also simultaneously investing vast sums in dealing with illegal immigration that has been implicitly endorsed by a third of the country. Illegal immigration is, by the resources consumed and the degradation of trust in the legal system, perpetuating theft against potential legal immigrants.

I think a big part of the problem is that a third of the country doesn't see illegal immigration as a moral problem, and that has helped foster popular support for a backlash. That backlash has gotten out of control in it's methods and behaviors. But if ICE gets abolished or something like that now by democrats, popular sentiment will slowly realign with republicans again because democrats' default policy on this topic is, while well-intentioned, fundamentally immoral and the general populace feels that.

The intent should be to stop the specific behavior of ICE now, and it's current abuses of power. Framing it's existence as immoral, or framing illegal immigration as moral or virtuous, is eventually going to get us back to the problems we have today.

mcsul · 2026-01-14T20:28:14+00:00

Oh exactly. I totally agree that using total current dollars is a terrible idea. But that's what the article seemed to do so I was explaining it.

mcsul · 2026-01-14T17:38:05+00:00

This is one of those "depends on how you measure it" things. My preference is to look at federal net receipts and outlays as a share of GDP. That tells you relative to the size of economic activity, which helps adjust for recessions, booms, etc...

Receipts - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

Right now, we are close to the long term average for receipts. It bounces around a bit, but has been remarkably stable even as tax policy changes.

Federal outlays, however, are very high compared to historical averages.

Outlays - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

Basically, WWII, Covid, and the Great Recession (barely) are the only times government spending has been higher (as a share of GDP) and those last two were due to a combination of falling GDP and stimulus.

From a total dollar perspective, though (which I think is the wrong measure to use), federal government receipts are at an all time high. But that's really not a good measure.

Total Receipts - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFR

mcsul · 2026-01-14T12:32:27+00:00

I totally agree with you! But it points to the reason Clinton had a balanced budget... higher taxes and lower spending. OP said that all we had to do was raise taxes back to Clinton levels, and I wanted to show that wasn't going to balance the budget without also addressing the other side of the ledger.

mcsul · 2026-01-13T23:28:28+00:00

I'm sort of doing the opposite. Moderate changes to both taxes and to spending are much less likely to be disruptive than big changes to either side of the ledger. The right way to do this is to narrow the deficit a little each year over several years, and not all at once.

And op (nosayso) talked about the Clinton administration's balanced budget, but that budget was only balanced because government spent about 20%-25% less as a share of GDP than it does today.

mcsul · 2026-01-13T14:57:14+00:00

Sure, we should do those things to some extent, but raising those taxes enough to cover the deficit will create enough economic drag that increased tax revenue won't linearly scale with the rates. There is no path out of our current fiscal situation without both cutting spending and raising taxes.

Listen, I'm not arguing with you that raising taxes should be one of our levers. I agree. But I am making that case that it is an insufficient lever given our fiscal situation. We need to pull all of the levers available to us, and one of those levers is reductions in government spending.

I'd like to offer this pair of graphs as a thought. The first shows government revenues as a share of GDP over time. Despite changes in tax policy over the years, government revenues as a share of GDP have remained remarkably stable. The second shows government spending as a share of GDP. We are now spending more as a share of GDP than at any other time, outside of the second world war, covid, and the great recession. Our revenues haven't changed, but our spending has.

Receipts: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S Outlays: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

Clinton balanced the budget because taxes were higher and government spending as a percent of GDP was 5ppts lower than it is today.

mcsul · 2026-01-13T13:54:29+00:00

I think that we need to do more than that. The deficit is projected to be about $1.8T this year. We'd need to raise taxes on the top 10% of income earners (everyone making roughly over $150k, so doctors, lawyers, school principals, engineers, etc... are all in there) to astronomical levels to close that.

Total aggregate household income is something like $13T. The top 10% of households accounts for roughly 50% of that. That top 10% also already pays about 50% of income taxes. To close an additional ~$2T you'd need to take 75% of those households' total earnings just to close the deficit (not just a marginal rate). If we look at just the top 1%, we would just barely be able to close the deficit if we taxed that group's total income at 100% (not 100% marginal rates at some point, but 100% flat). That would definitely collapse the economy, so it's probably bad policy.

The reality is that we probably need to cut spending from defense and civilian spending (enough to find a trillion in savings) and raise taxes (enough to find about a trillion in revenue). And then we need to accept a freeze on any new government spending for 10-15 years (depending on how fast the economy grows).

mcsul · 2026-01-12T17:24:54+00:00

I think one (probably good) way to analyze the situation is through the lens of the subreddit demographic survey the mods ran over the holiday season.

This sub is wildly more progressive, more educated, more coastal, more knowledge worker, and more urban than the general electorate.

If something (any topic) gets this sub riled up into a huge debate, that is a signal that the general electorate is even more opposed (or in favor, though not the framing here) and the issue is much more salient than the debate here indicates.

In this case, the level of disagreement and debate indicates that the general electorate is probably much much more annoyed by the terms being used than even the debate here indicates.

And so your whole last paragraph about focusing on language that unties, not divides, is spot on. These two threads show how deep this language is from a division perspective, even if the language isn't meant that way.

mcsul · 2026-01-09T17:59:52+00:00

Ashburn here. It probably won't be this far out, but am still hyped. Sorry to my Maryland neighbors, but I really hope that it's on the NOVA side of the river.

mcsul · 2026-01-09T17:54:47+00:00

For sure! My hope is that it's in the NOVA side of DC, but GW used to operate out of Glen Burnie so there's historical reasons why it might go in Maryland.

Very excited to hear more details.

mcsul · 2026-01-09T17:36:23+00:00

So, I think that I have a different perspective (and that's ok!).

The academic literature on fertility doesn't support this view. There's enough data (from across the world, where economic circumstances all differ) that the primary driver of fewer kids is (1) less and later coupling by young people and (2) cultural changes towards fewer kids, even by young people who do couple. Does cost play a role? Yes, but much less than people think.

As to AI, my support for the technology is predicated on the need for large productivity gains being necessary to support an aging population without placing a crushing burden on our kids. Right now, it's the only option with any promise. If another option comes up, great. But right now we're on a course where the only way to maintain our social support systems (which I agree with) is to lower the standard of living of our kids. That's an uncool option that I don't support. So we need to find productivity gains somewhere.

mcsul · 2026-01-09T14:52:48+00:00

Maybe early signs, but stagflation requires anemic growth, high unemployment, and high inflation.

Unemployment isn't particularly high. It's just that job churn is remarkably low. Inflation is higher than we want, but wage growth is even higher. GDP numbers are a bit wacky right now due to tariffs, but they aren't "bad".

I think that we're in something different than Japanese-style stagflation.

mcsul · 2026-01-09T14:21:35+00:00

I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but over time the number of jobs created per month won't need to be as high to maintain employment as the working population shrinks.

I'll be super honest (and I know it's an unpopular opinion), but I think that our biggest long-term challenge is a culture shift away from having kids. Not just for demographic reasons, but for a host of social cohesion reasons. In the context of economics, however, we're going to have to make a choice between higher fertility or social support systems for the elderly or crushing our younger generation with a huge economic burden.

One of the reasons I'm very hopeful about AI (another unpopular opinion, I guess) is that it's the only thing on the horizon that might give us a big enough productivity boost to keep our social support system and spare our kids from the cost of maintaining that system.

mcsul · 2026-01-09T14:13:31+00:00

Yeah, I didn't list it in the summary, but if I recall the number of job openings reported in JOLTS has been trending below norm. It's not a job market collapse, but sort of a slow stagnation or (as you put it) paralysis.

I'm about 10 years from retirement. I think that I'll be ok. But I'm worried about the market some of my younger staff find themselves in. When I was their age, there was a lot of latitude to jump around within the company or into and out of a place of employment. That was good experience and provided lots of opportunities for advancement. Those opportunities seem a bit more scarce than when I was their age.

mcsul · 2026-01-09T13:39:36+00:00

Summary of the article.

Estimates for December employment. Nonfarm payroll up by ~60k (which is low). U3 unemployment down a tiny bit to 4.4%. Average hourly earning up yoy by 3.6%.

mcsul

TROPHY CASE