The New York Times published a new article Friday asking whether artificial intelligence tools have disrupted the number of Americans employed. Surprisingly, the article never mentions the word “salary.”
The article, titled “AI Was Supposed to Come for Our Jobs. So Far, the Evidence is Mixed,” was written by Ben Casselman and begins with the question we’re all asking:
Is artificial intelligence taking our jobs?
This is arguably the biggest question facing the job market right now, especially as Tuesday’s midterm elections showed widespread public animosity toward AI and data centers, in particular.
But the evidence is far from clear.
Casselman notes that Microsoft recently offered voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees, but that white-collar industries like accounting, legal services and finance mainly added jobs in October.
The article is quite good, although it contains many more questions than answers. Nobody knows in the long term whether AI will have a significant impact on employment:
Even if AI has a negative impact on hiring, it’s not very clear what that means. Are companies using AI to replace their employees? Or just press “pause” on hiring while they figure out where these new tools will be most useful? Or are they spending so much on tokens and AI infrastructure that they are looking to cut costs elsewhere?
The U.S. economy added 165,000 jobs in October, far more than expected, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%. With these measures, it seems that the Americans are doing well. There is no double-digit unemployment like we have seen in historically difficult times.
But the New York Times article completely misses one of the most important functions of AI in the 2026 job market. Artificial intelligence is being used by bosses to suppress wages. It’s something to hang over workers’ heads to make sure they don’t demand higher wages or think outside the box. Just listen to the bosses themselves.
David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, appeared on CNBC in September, where he spoke about the rise of AI. It was a surprisingly frank discussion.
“They think it’s a scary economy,” Kelly said of workers. “They think they’re threatened by AI and they don’t have the courage, deep down, to ask for a pay raise or demand a pay raise in this economy.”
CNBC host Leslie Picker agreed with Kelly, pointing out that workers recognized that “the machine could potentially do your job more cheaply. So you’d better put your head down and keep doing the job.”
And there is evidence that this fear is changing the way workers perceive their pay. A study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in September found that workers who feared losing their jobs to AI were also less likely to believe they had the leverage to negotiate higher wages.
Typically, low unemployment translates into higher wages. When most people have jobs, labor is scarce and companies must start offering higher wages to attract workers. And workers are less afraid of being fired or asking for a raise because they know they have a very good chance of finding another job.
AI appears to have disrupted this traditional cycle. Wages have increased just 3.1% over the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the latest available annual inflation rate was 3.7% in September. This means that workers actually earn less today than they did a year ago, when accounting for inflation.
Kelly said this on CNBC a few months ago: “So, based on the numbers, it seems like it’s a very tight labor market, but that’s not the case for workers. And they don’t feel like they have the ability to ask for wage increases. In fact, the wage number today, year over year, was the lowest since May 2021.”
Once again, the New York Times article provides insight into the confusion people are currently living in. There has been no major upheaval where AI replaces every worker. But the paper fails to acknowledge another potential upheaval: AI could weaken workers’ bargaining power long before its effects are seen on unemployment rates. Wages are already lower in inflation-adjusted terms, and fear of being replaced by AI could make it even harder for workers to fight for higher wages.
The debate over AI is mainly focused on the more dramatic possibilities: will it destroy humanity or create an environment in which everyone is unemployed?
There is a much more mundane world of possibilities that doesn’t seem to be breaking through in the mainstream media: maybe the middle class is hollowing out and we spend a decade with a lower quality of life because AI is effective at suppressing wages. This will perhaps lead to some downsizing, but it does not show up significantly in the unemployment figures in relative terms as a massive generation like the baby boomers retires.
Maybe AI doesn’t radically change the world. Maybe everything is a little worse for the average American, as the ruling class becomes billionaires. Maybe. We don’t have a crystal ball. But there is no doubt that some players in the financial networks see what is happening.
Gn bussni
