Gina Raimondo’s new $500 million plan to help workers survive the AI economy
TL;DR
Gina Raimondo and former Indiana governor Eric Holcomb are launching Raise US, a bipartisan nonprofit focused on the AI labor-market shock. The initiative has already raised about $500 million and reportedly aims for $1 billion over multiple years. Backers include the OpenAI Foundation, Anthropic, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Bank of America, Eli Lilly, state governments and philanthropies.
Nauti's Take
This is not a feel-good reskilling poster. It is a quiet admission that AI will break jobs faster than traditional training can respond.
For builders, the message is blunt: if you sell automation, you need to design retraining, transitions, and work redesign too, or you are just building more efficient layoff machines.
Briefingshow
Raise US matters because the companies building and deploying AI are now putting serious money into the labor disruption their technology may accelerate. The state-level approach is practical, since unemployment rules, workforce training and employer incentives often move faster outside Washington. The hard test is whether pilots become real job transitions, not just polished retraining language.
Sources