A new nonprofit called Raise Us—backed by hundreds of millions including major Amazon support—says employers and states need to retool how workers transition in an AI-driven economy. The effort comes as debate intensifies over whether job losses are truly caus
The question arrives with the check.
On Thursday. Eric Holcomb. a former Republican governor of Indiana. and Gina Raimondo. a former Democratic governor of Rhode Island and the former U.S. commerce secretary. launched a nonprofit called Raise Us with a simple premise: the transition to an AI-driven economy is already here. and American workers need a faster. smarter path to new jobs.
The timing is charged. The same companies warning that artificial intelligence could devastate the American workforce are now writing checks to help prevent that outcome—and at least one of the largest is also the reason the alarm exists.
Holcomb said in an interview with NPR that “There’s a lot of change coming, and there’s a lot at stake.” He added, “Failure is not an option, we have to succeed, and that’s what Raise Us is all about: the how.”
Raise Us set an ambitious target: more than $500 million raised toward a $1 billion goal to fund programs.
The nonprofit is designed around four functions. First, it aims to help states redirect existing workforce funding toward outcomes rather than enrollment. Second, it will recruit employers to publicly commit to retraining their workers instead of laying them off. Third, it will fund AI-enabled training providers. Fourth, it will run a research arm called the Policy Lab, funded exclusively by philanthropic organizations rather than corporate donors.
On its first day. Holcomb and Raimondo named Arkansas. Connecticut. Maryland. and Utah as the first test states. each piloting a different program. Among the plans are an AI-powered job-matching platform. an expanded “service year” for new graduates. and early tests of wage insurance for workers who take a pay cut rather than leave the workforce.
From Amazon’s promise to Amazon’s paperwork
Amazon’s involvement comes with two sides that don’t easily sit together.
On one hand, the company points to programs like Career Choice, which has helped train hundreds of thousands of employees “on the company’s dime.” Raise Us is built around the idea that employers can be part of the solution.
On the other hand, Amazon is at the center of the most detailed paper trail showing how the same technology can be used to avoid future hiring.
Internal documents obtained and reported by The New York Times last year described a plan to automate three-quarters of Amazon’s operations to avoid hiring more than 600,000 workers by 2033. The documents also said the plan could save the company an estimated 30 cents on every item it ships.
The same documents reported Amazon coaching employees to soften the language of its automation initiative—moving away from terms like “robot” or “AI” and toward “advanced technology” or “cobot.”
Since 2022, Amazon has cut about 30,000 corporate jobs, citing AI-driven efficiency. That includes white-collar positions inside its robotics division, even as Amazon’s robot fleet approaches a 1-to-1 ratio with its human workforce.
MIT’s Daron Acemoglu, in remarks reported by The Times, warned that “Nobody else has the same incentive as Amazon to find the way to automate.” He said that once Amazon “work[s] out how to do this profitably, it will spread to others, too.”
This is the contradiction Raise Us is built to confront: employers may be the source of the disruption, but they also hold the levers for retraining—and the job postings that determine who gets hired.
Whose jobs are at risk right now
The bluntest impact of automation isn’t limited to the people already laid off. The most visible victims, so far, are sometimes the workers who never get hired in the first place.
Entry-level job postings are down more than a third since 2023, according to the software company Metaintro. Recent graduate unemployment is also higher than the national rate—5.6% compared to the national average of 4.3%, CNBC reports.
But the debate over how much of that can be tied to AI remains unsettled.
One dispute is whether companies are using AI as a convenient scapegoat. As Straight Arrow previously reported, researchers have argued that companies’ unwillingness to let inexperienced employees work remotely has been a greater cause of unemployment among recent college graduates than AI.
J.P. Gownder. vice president and principal analyst at the consulting firm Forrester. called the trend “AI washing. ” arguing that many companies announcing AI-driven layoffs don’t have the AI systems doing the work. In remarks reported by The Times. Gownder said. “AI washing is pervasive right now. ” adding that “Some of the organizations and leaders who are claiming layoffs due to AI have very self-interested points of view.”.
The picture grows more complicated with research from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which found that young workers without college educations experienced similar increases in unemployment over the same period. That makes it harder to pin the slump on AI alone.
The pilot programs and what they’re testing
Many of the programs Raise Us says it is deploying had already been in motion before the nonprofit’s Thursday launch.
Arkansas’s AI-powered job-matching program debuted in February 2025. The platform is funded by Walmart, with engineering support from Google.
Utah’s approach is similarly structured. The state’s “pro-human AI” workforce push, introduced in December, comes with $10 million for training efforts. Utah also introduced free AI credentials for 50. 000 new graduates. designed to complement students’ existing technical skills as they enter the workforce.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont traced his state’s participation to its AI worker protection law. passed earlier this year. which he said provides the foundation for Raise Us’s platform. Lamont told NPR, “I want the workforce of Connecticut to look at the years ahead and see opportunity, not uncertainty.”.
In Maryland, Raise Us is building off a program started in 2023. The collaboration involves expanding “service year” pathways into industries like healthcare and education by launching a competitive fund to support career transitions. The announcement also said the effort provides support for displaced workers to pursue entrepreneurship.
The harder questions stay unresolved
Raise Us may be launching programs, but the debate about corporate behavior—and how much transparency workers get—doesn’t end with training.
Questions remain about the effects of AI-driven workforce disruption, including on corporate transparency. Connecticut, one of the partner states, has passed legislation to enhance disclosure. Starting this October, the state will require companies filing mass-layoff notices to disclose whether AI was the reason.
Two bills now before Congress would impose similar requirements. One would require companies to identify the specific AI system they’re using and estimate the share of job losses it caused.
Neither bill has passed, and the Trump administration’s own AI framework aims to preempt state laws like Connecticut’s rather than expand them.
At the other end of the political spectrum, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has proposed taxing half the stock of major AI companies to create a $7 trillion public fund that would pay each American $1,000 annually.
Raise Us’s model is different: instead of demanding new rules, it asks companies to volunteer cooperation and capital.
Raimondo said the country’s record on AI is poor and called past retraining efforts “ineffective,” according to The Times. But the central argument she makes is less about whether AI will create new jobs—it’s about whether displaced workers will be the ones filling them.
Raimondo told NPR, “Listen, I hear the skepticism, and I understand where it’s coming from.” She continued, “But I also know we can’t solve this problem without employers. They’re the ones who hire people. They’re at the table, they are committed, and now it’s on us to produce.”
In Raise Us, the pledge and the paperwork are now linked by design: the same forces pushing automation are also being asked to back the path to the next job—even as workers and lawmakers push for clearer answers about who bears the cost of change.
Raise Us Eric Holcomb Gina Raimondo Amazon AI workforce job retraining mass layoffs Connecticut AI worker protection law wage insurance AI job matching Policy Lab