AI-Driven Infrastructure Boom Should Be Met With Jobs Training, Not Universal Basic Income
Source: "Don't pay Americans to sit out the AI revolution. Put them to work instead | Fox News." August 12, 2026. www.foxnews.com
The Gist
The author, a former Secretary of Labor, argues that instead of giving people free government checks because AI might take their jobs, we should train them for the booming construction and skilled trades jobs being created by AI infrastructure projects like data centers and power plants. She believes real work with real wages preserves human dignity, while UBI is a form of giving up on workers.
Conclusion
The United States should respond to AI-driven economic disruption by investing in job training and infrastructure employment (apprenticeships, permitting reform, skilled trades) rather than adopting Universal Basic Income.
Premises
- The AI boom is generating massive infrastructure projects (data centers, power plants, supply chains) comparable in scale to the interstate highway system.
- These projects are creating large numbers of well-paying union jobs (electricians, pipefitters, ironworkers) that pay six-figure wages without requiring a college degree or student debt.
- A single large data center facility can employ 1,500 skilled tradespeople at peak construction.
- Work provides dignity and purpose beyond a paycheck, allowing people to feel they contributed to building something.
- Universal Basic Income represents surrender and an insult to workers' dignity, treating them as having no productive role rather than empowering them to participate in the new economy.
- Expanding apprenticeships and cutting permitting red tape would allow real demand and skill to drive wages, which is preferable to government checks.
- A California basic income experiment failed to provide 'financial independence,' suggesting UBI is ineffective policy.
Assumptions
- There will be sufficient AI-infrastructure jobs to absorb workers displaced by automation across all sectors, not just construction and skilled trades.
- Job training and apprenticeship programs can be scaled quickly enough to match the pace of AI-driven displacement.
- The dignity derived from work cannot be replicated or found in other pursuits if paired with basic income (e.g., volunteering, caregiving, entrepreneurship).
- UBI and job creation/training are mutually exclusive policy choices rather than complementary ones.
- The current infrastructure boom will be sustained long enough to serve as a durable solution rather than a temporary construction phase.
- Displaced workers in industries unrelated to AI infrastructure (e.g., retail, transportation, customer service) will be able to transition into trades work.
- One failed state-level UBI pilot is representative of UBI's potential effectiveness at national scale with different design parameters.