ABSTRACT
Worker fear of automation, and its potential for displacing workers, is not new. The Luddites in 19th-century Britain during the Industrial Revolution are the best known, but not the only, historical example of workers expressing such fears about machines taking all of their jobs. The rising earnings premia associated with college degrees, caused by SBTC and other forces, will encourage more Americans to invest in higher education, thereby increasing the supply of college-educated labor, while the supply of high school graduates declines. SBTC has been a form of technical change which has already created incentives for workers to invest in skills that complement the new technologies, rather than remaining substitutes for them. Regarding workforce policy, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was reauthorized in 2014; large additional changes in the federal law, or its implementation at the state and local levels, will not take place in the foreseeable future.
