Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has emerged as a leading political voice warning about the potential displacement of white-collar workers by artificial intelligence, joining a chorus that includes lawmakers from both parties and AI industry executives themselves.

DeSantis expressed concern in August that 'some of these white-collar jobs … could end up being obsolete' due to advancements in AI. In September, he said the H-1B visa program was 'especially galling' at a time when AI 'is forecast to reduce a significant number of white-collar jobs.' In November, he worried about predictions that AI is 'going to really undercut a lot of jobs — a lot of white-collar jobs.'

What the Left Is Saying

Progressive leaders including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have also sounded the alarm on AI-driven job displacement. Sanders released a report finding that AI and automation could eliminate roughly 100 million blue- and white-collar jobs over the next decade.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who represents a district centered in Silicon Valley, has proposed a federal jobs guarantee for young Americans and those seeking entry-level jobs. At a joint town hall on AI policy with Sanders at Stanford, Khanna said it is critical for leaders to 'unite the anxiety of blue-collar workers and white-collar workers' rather than pit them against each other.

Former Rep. Brad Carson, D-Okla., now a leader of super PAC Public First Action, said he fears most political leaders will already be too late by the time they turn attention to white-collar worker displacement. 'The difference this time is speed and breadth,' Carson said. 'White-collar displacement could move much faster and apply much more broadly than deindustrialization did, and these workers vote, donate and live in swing districts.'

Progressive House candidate Saikat Chakrabarti, running in California's 11th District, said AI industry workers he has spoken with believe the government may need to take equity stakes in these companies to address potential displacement.

What the Right Is Saying

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has positioned himself as an outlier in the Senate Republican caucus on economic policy related to AI. He recently said the country is 'looking at a massive collapse of the middle class' and 'simply cannot allow that to happen.'

During a trip to Vanderbilt University, Hawley said college seniors approached him expressing difficulty finding entry-level jobs, with employers saying AI was making such positions unnecessary. 'When you look at the unemployment rate for recent college graduates, it is really startlingly high,' he said.

Hawley introduced legislation with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in November to track the number of jobs lost to AI as a first step. He said politicians must learn from the breakdown of American manufacturing jobs decades ago: 'the importance of good-paying work cannot ever be lost or taken for granted.'

Nathan Brand, a Republican strategist, said fears over AI-fueled job losses are misguided. He argued an increased demand for infrastructure and energy driven by the industry will trigger blue-collar job growth that in turn boosts white-collar jobs. 'Politically, it's going to ultimately fall back into these camps of innovation versus no innovation,' Brand said. 'Traditionally, conservatives have been on the side of innovation.'

Trump and officials in his administration have sought to tamp down panic around AI. In an interview with NBC News, Trump pushed back on concerns that AI would kill jobs: 'They said the internet was gonna do — everything was gonna do — robots are gonna kill jobs. Everything's gonna kill jobs. And you end up, if you're smart, doing great.'

What the Numbers Show

A new NBC News poll found that 57% of voters think the risks of AI outweigh the benefits, with similar shares of white- and blue-collar workers expressing this sentiment. The survey found 74% of white-collar workers have used AI within the last two months, compared to 50% of blue-collar workers.

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic which built Claude, has predicted AI could increase unemployment by 10% to 20% within the next five years, while eliminating half of all entry-level white-collar jobs. In November, a record 25% of unemployed workers had four-year college degrees.

A Stanford research team found workers between ages 22 and 25 in industries with the most exposure to generative AI experienced a 16% relative decline in employment since late 2022. The U.S. shed 92,000 jobs in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, marking the fifth time in nine months the job market has shrunk.

In terms of party identification, white-collar workers lean Democratic by 8 percentage points in the latest NBC News poll while blue-collar workers tilt Republican by 9 points. An Economist/YouGov poll found 63% of U.S. adults believe AI advances will lead to an overall decrease in jobs, roughly twice the percentage who told an NPR/Kaiser/Harvard Technology survey in 1999 they believed the internet would reduce jobs.

The Bottom Line

The political landscape around AI and employment is still taking shape, with no clear partisan divides yet on AI-related issues. While some tech executives like Musk have made dire predictions, others compare AI's potential impact to past advancements like the internet that ultimately created new industries.

Former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who served as the Biden administration's point person on AI, said the transition will be 'brutal' and that policymakers need to incentivize companies against mass layoffs while providing transition funding. 'What is fascinating to me,' she said, 'is how many policymakers of both parties and AI executives just kind of throw up their hands.'

With white-collar workers concentrated in metropolitan areas and politically powerful suburban districts, the political pressure around AI displacement is expected to build quickly. As New York state Assembly member Alex Bores, a congressional candidate, put it: 'I don't know that, historically, when you have large sudden unemployment, specifically among young people, especially among men, that that leads to a more inclusive, progressive, fact-based politics. That often leads to a very reactionary politics.'