Labor · AI · Demographics · 2026 → 2034
A working atlas of the American workforce in the era of AI.
The United States is aging into a labor squeeze. AI will reshape demand for some occupations and barely touch others. Immigration policy decides how many workers we have. This is an instrument, not an argument: see what each combination of assumptions implies for the next decade — and what the country is already saying about it.
Projected gap, 2034 · baseline · 5% wage ceiling
~7.5M
Workers needed to clear demand without wages rising more than 5% above 2024 levels.
Headlines tracked, 2014–2026
10,681
Newspaper articles on labor shortages across 56 outlets — the conversation, over time.
Four ways in.
Atlas
How many workers will the United States need by 2034?
Projected gaps and surpluses by occupation and metro under different combinations of AI deployment, immigration, and wage adjustment.
Pulse
What the country is already saying about its workforce.
10,681 newspaper articles, 2014–2026, on labor shortages — by sector, by month, by source.
Data Centers
Not all data centers are the same.
Synthetic-control evidence from 770 facilities. Hyperscale builds drive a 22% rise in IT employment. Colocation does not.
Stories
The shifts behind the numbers.
Aging, fertility, geography, AI. Short narrative pieces that connect the projections to the structural forces shaping them.