News

Bill de Blasio proposes 'robot' tax on companies to protect workers from automation

September 13, 2019

New York Mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bill de Blasio has proposed an automation policy that includes a "robot" tax to protect working people whose livelihoods are threatened by automation.

The candidate called current automation practices "an existential threat to our nation's workforce that destroys good jobs and directs more and more of the profits only to the wealthiest Americans," according to a press release.

The de Blasio plan would create a new agency, the Federal Automation and Worker Protection Agency, with authority to regulate the growth of automation and oversee its impact on working people. Any major company seeking to increase automated operations would be required to seek a permit from FAWPA with approval conditioned on the company's plans to protect existing workers, either by ensuring they receive new jobs with similar pay or severance packages that reflect their tenure of service to the company.

The proposal would also close tax loopholes like the "accelerated depreciation" loophole and others that allow corporations to invest in automation and then deduct those investments from their taxes, even if such automation investments would destroy their employees' jobs.

It would further institute a "robot tax" on large companies in an attempt to slow the rate of job losses due to automation and hasten the creation of more secure jobs. Corporations that automate procedures that eliminate jobs and fail to provide adequate replacement employment would be required to pay the equivalent of five years' worth of payroll taxes up front for each worker whose job is eliminated.

The "robot tax" would facilitate the creation of high-paying union jobs in fields such as green energy, health care and early childhood education. 

Roughly one quarter of U.S. employees face "high exposure" to the automation of their jobs in the coming decades, the press release said, citing a Brookings Institution report. 

Photo courtesy of de Blasio 2020.