Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg
“You have one year to escape the permanent underclass.”
This warning has been ricocheting across social media, tapping into deep anxiety about
As an investor in both private and public businesses for the past 20 years, most of my job has consisted of trying to predict the future: whether customers will buy a particular product, how profits will grow, what macroeconomic trends mean for my portfolio companies. Today, I am more concerned than I have ever been, much more so than at the onset of the Great Recession or COVID-19. We are heading toward a tremendous wealth transfer due to AI, and most people will be on the wrong side of it — unless we act now.
Here’s what keeps me up at night: AI’s enormous productivity gains will flow almost entirely to capital owners — the shareholders of companies deploying these technologies — at the expense of workers whose jobs are being reduced or eliminated. The promise of the American economy runs on a simple premise: If you get educated and work hard, you can build a comfortable life. But AI threatens to break that bargain. When productivity and profits soar but only shareholders benefit, we’re not just creating inequality — we’re undermining the foundation of American capitalism itself. One-third of American workers already view AI as a threat to their jobs, and that anxiety is corrosive to both productivity and social trust.
To prevent widespread unemployment and potential civil unrest, we need to make our economy AI-ready now. One proposal: Let’s make every American a capital owner, but not in the traditional communist or socialist framework that history has shown does not end well. We need to preserve the entrepreneurial spirit that made our country great while ensuring AI’s benefits don’t just concentrate among the few who already own equity in technology companies.
I propose “10% for the People”: a plan to give every citizen a stake in AI’s success.
The concept is straightforward: Let’s create individual “social dividend accounts” for every American. These accounts would be funded by raising the federal corporate tax rate from 21% to 31%, taking advantage of the massive profitability increase that companies will achieve through AI. A 31% rate sits below the historical rate prior to the 2017 tax cuts, so we know our economy still functions well at that level. This incremental 10% would be distributed directly to the social dividend accounts. These accounts would function like 401(k)s, invested in mutual funds and market indices, growing tax-free. Based on current corporate profits, this plan would generate roughly $735 per person in the first year alone, compounding annually as AI boosts corporate performance.
Think of it as making every American a shareholder in the AI revolution. As companies prosper from AI-driven productivity, every citizen could participate in those gains. A family of four starts with nearly $3,000 in year one. As the AI economy grows, so do their social dividend accounts. After 10 years, that family of four could have accrued over $40,000.
Unlike traditional retirement accounts, social dividend accounts would allow penalty-free withdrawals for three purposes: retirement, unemployment support or starting a business. This last provision is crucial, as it channels American entrepreneurship rather than stifling it. When displaced workers can access capital to start their own companies, we create a dynamic response to technological unemployment. Tomorrow’s great businesses could be founded by workers using their dividends to bet on themselves. In the AI age, many of the historical complexities and costs of starting a new business — accounting, billing, payroll, etc. — will be simplified with new technology, further lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship. Additionally, by putting some guardrails on when funds can be withdrawn from these social dividend accounts, it should help mitigate the inflationary risks that critics have raised about universal basic income proposals, which would pump out money for immediate consumption.
This isn’t socialism; it’s fixing capitalism to work in the AI age. We preserve private ownership, market incentives and competition. Social dividend accounts would make every American a stakeholder in the economy that they’re helping to build, while encouraging entrepreneurship.
Hopefully we have more than just one year before most of us become part of the “permanent underclass,” but we need to move quickly to put in place a framework to make the AI economy work for everyone, before it’s too late.
This article reflects the author’s personal views and does not represent the positions of her employer.