All the good jobs in America are at risk of going to a handful of cities, but there’s still time to stop it
By Sen. Mark R. Warner
in CNBC

The truth is, the opportunity to earn a good life through hard work is moving out of reach for too many Americans. As someone who has benefited greatly from our free enterprise system as an entrepreneur, I recognize that modern American capitalism just isn’t working for enough people in this country.

Over the last 50 years, globalization, automation and disruptive technologies have both destroyed and created millions of jobs. But the benefits have not been spread evenly. The result is an inequality of opportunity, with new, good-paying jobs increasingly concentrated in a handful of urban centers, available to a small, skilled workforce that does not represent the racial, geographic and socioeconomic diversity of our country.

Workers now face not only historic income inequality but great income insecurity due to the growing threat of their jobs being automated, outsourced or eliminated in the next round of corporate mergers. These problems are only made worse by companies that put short-term profits ahead of long-term growth — prioritizing mergers and acquisitions over investments in their physical and human capital.

Unfortunately, the temptation for policymakers is to treat the symptoms of inequality when what we really need is a new economic model to prepare Americans for work in the 21^st century.

Let’s address the issue of income insecurity and recognize that many folks aren’t working one job for their entire career or even one job at a time. We need federal and local government to experiment with industry to develop a portable benefits system to follow workers from job to job and gig to gig.

We also need to think big. We need real bipartisan tax reform that rewards hard work and investments in American workers. Now, if a company buys a new robot to replace its workers, that’s an asset. If the company invests in training its workers, that’s an expense. Let’s fix that. While we’re at it, let’s replicate the success of the R&D tax credit and give companies an incentive to train low- and moderate-income workers to help them climb the economic ladder.

We need to do this if we are serious about closing a skills gap that will only get worse with automation. One recent study found that by the year 2030, up to one-third of American workers will need to retrain or change jobs to keep up with disruptions due to automation and a changing economy. We need to radically change our approach to job training in this country, from investments in community and technical colleges, to apprenticeship programs, to savings accounts that aid in lifelong learning.

The American dream might feel like it’s fading away. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Done right, we can rebalance the economic scales a little more in favor of American workers while nurturing the competitive spirit that built the U.S. economy into the dominant global force it is today.