By Zoë Baird
The United States has the opportunity to become a world leader in defining digital age jobs. We are already significantly ahead in creating technology tools and services, and we are on the threshold of a new era of data-driven progress where the jobs of the future will not look like the jobs of the past. The economic growth technology has generated to date has not been widely shared, however, and we therefore also face intractable unemployment, widespread decline in real wages, and a growing national bitterness and divisiveness.
As the presidential candidates face off in their first debate, we need them to address the substantial changes technology and the Internet are bringing to our economy. Each candidate’s economic platform must be built on a true picture of the future, not a version of the past. America’s success depends on their agendas for national economic growth including a vision for what jobs are going to look like in the data-driven, automated, digital age that is upon us. It is critical they address how to broaden its benefits and create a vibrant economic future for all Americans.
