During President Donald Trump’s two presidential terms, the pattern has been the same. While the left is having a cow over reflecting pools and White House ballrooms, the big things that are humming along smoothly are intentionally ignored or overlooked.
Case in point, the U.S. job market. According to the Wall Street Journal, “By most key metrics, the U.S. labor market is in fine shape: the economy has added jobs for four straight months, much improved from late last year, and the unemployment rate has drifted down to 4.2%.”
This data point is always one of the most significant real factors in determining the success of a presidency’s economic performance. In political terms, it’s the number-one “kitchen table” issue, right next to grocery and gas prices. But no one’s talking about it on the left because it doesn’t help them. And no one’s talking about it on the right, because the right is awful at leveraging its successes.
Never mind that the stock market has made a routine out of hitting all-time highs under Trump. Sure, the Elizabeth Warrens of the world would have you believe the only beneficiaries of a strong stock market are “millionaires and billionaires.” But the real beneficiaries are millions of middle-class and working-class Americans who are counting on their 401(k) plans to be there for retirement. On top of that, something the Democrats well know is that a strong stock market benefits those massive pension funds to ensure that your favorite teachers’ unions and other unions shore up their own retirement systems.
Trump is taking care of them, and they know it. But they will never say so.
Something the Wall Street Journal added to its report on those job numbers was mention of the impact artificial intelligence (AI) is having on the job market.
“Nearly two million Americans have been locked out of the job market for at least half a year. The long-term unemployed—people without work for 27 weeks or more, the longest period the Labor Department reports in each monthly jobs report—accounted for 27.3% of all unemployed people in June, up 4 percentage points from a year earlier.”
Reporter Harriet Torry of the Journal argues that federal data indicate those numbers are due to reduced opportunities for “white-collar workers” who, she says, are enduring “long-term unemployment” because of AI. As an aside — and this is “inside baseball” — if you ever see a journalist describe employees as “workers,” you’re observing socialist indoctrination at play. Especially if those staffers are white-collar. In a style sense, "worker," when applied so generally and broadly, is a socialist word, and most new J-school grads don't even realize it.
To be sure, Torry’s article is somewhat anecdotal, building its case around some struggling job hunters like Norig Karakashian, a California accountant who hasn’t found a job after roughly 18 months of looking.
“The 38-year-old quit his last job after a sudden divorce forced him to temporarily move in with his parents to save money, and he was unable to transfer to a new work location. Since he had worked at numerous firms and had a wide network, Karakashian thought he would find something new in his specialty, financial auditing, much faster. He said he is now considering switching to a different career, such as locksmith or watchmaker,” Torry wrote.
I dunno… divorce, moving in with parents, can’t find an accounting job after 18 months, now thinking of becoming a watchmaker — something tells me there’s more going on here than a national job market problem. Last I checked, “watchmaker” wasn’t one of those hot job categories. But I digress.
The money quote from Torry for our purposes, and one worth considering, is this:
Many workers fear getting replaced by artificial intelligence. AI’s impact on the job market remains a big question mark, though some companies have cited AI investments while announcing high-profile layoffs. Many firms have also unveiled plans to cut management layers after a hiring binge in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The truth is that companies are actively looking for ways to reduce headcount with AI. It makes sense. AI isn’t likely to seek 18 weeks of maternity or paternity leave, for one thing. It won’t sue you for managerial “microaggressions,” and if you run a fast-food chain, unlike most part-time employees, AI knows how to make change.
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In an ironic twist, television host and advocate for the skilled trades Mike Rowe recently talked to some young people who are making big bucks as electricians, and they have AI to thank.
"The electricians that I interviewed and met two months ago in a data center in Plano, Texas, [are] all under 30 years old, all making $240,000 to $280,000 a year, all with as much overtime as they want, none with any debt, all three of whom were poached three times in the prior 18 months," Rowe told Brian Sozzi on his Power Players podcast.
Mike Rowe says he visited a Texas data center and met three “debt-free” electricians under 30 making “north of $240,000/year.”
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) July 8, 2026
All three have been “poached” three times in the last 18 months because the demand for electricians is crazy high.
ROWE: “I was in Plano, Texas… got a… pic.twitter.com/lgY0vk7ft3
Fortune has reported that “By 2030, an estimated 2.1 million skilled trades jobs in the U.S. could go unfilled, with potential economic losses reaching $1 trillion annually, according to U.S. Department of Education estimates.”
The hot occupations include plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, pipe fitters, carpenters, and maintenance workers.
Since the skilled trades often pay an hourly rate, and overtime earns you proportionally more income, a young person can make anywhere from $50,000 per year to $250,000 per year, depending on industry, location, and hours worked. All of that without taking out over $200,000 in college loans for a four-year degree, only to take a salaried position at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and hope for the best – while your employer is working to eliminate your job and replace you with AI anyway.
In the business world, the consensus right now seems to be that most employers will use AI to make their current workforces more productive. But that does not mean AI won’t be replacing people in the workforce. It will, so if your work can be done by AI or some robot, count on that happening at some point.
But if you’re a plumber or an electrician, you can rest a little easier, because you’re doing something that AI just wasn’t designed to do.
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