Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb launched RAISE US on June 25, a nonpartisan nonprofit that has secured more than $500 million from AI companies, major corporations, and philanthropies to retrain American workers facing displacement from AI and automation. The organization plans to raise $1 billion total.
Who Is Funding It
The anchor corporate partners are Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, the OpenAI Foundation, and Bank of America. Bank of America is the primary sponsor of RAISE US’s advanced manufacturing apprenticeship initiative, according to the Rockefeller Foundation announcement.
The broader coalition includes ADP, AMD, Autodesk, Blackstone, Boston Consulting Group, Cisco, Cognizant, Deloitte, Eli Lilly, General Motors, IBM, Infosys, Mastercard, Rockwell Automation, ServiceNow, UPS, and Workday, among others. Philanthropic backers include the Rockefeller Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Emerson Collective, and the Stephen A. Schwarzman Foundation.
Why the AI Companies Are at the Table
Anthropic and OpenAI sitting on the same side of a workforce retraining effort is notable. Both companies are deploying the agent systems most likely to automate white-collar work at scale, and both now fund an organization explicitly designed to mitigate the consequences.
“We’re talking about a certain level of unemployment that could destabilize our country and our democracy,” Raimondo told AP News. “If you want to lead the world in AI, you have to take action to make sure our democracy doesn’t crumble.”
The advisory board reinforces the bipartisan framing: former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler serve alongside economists David Autor (MIT), Erik Brynjolfsson (Stanford), and Raj Chetty (Opportunity Insights), according to AP reporting.
How It Works
RAISE US operates across four areas: state partnerships, an employer coalition, education and training programs, and a policy lab. The organization will pilot programs in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah as its first proving grounds, according to the official announcement.
In Arkansas, RAISE US is supporting an AI-powered career navigation platform called Arkansas LAUNCH. In Maryland, the collaboration includes expanding service-year pathways into healthcare and education, launching a competitive fund for career transition models, and creating an accelerator for displaced workers pursuing entrepreneurship.
Raimondo will serve as CEO. Eric Beane is President and COO, and Janet Foutty leads corporate partnerships.
The Displacement Numbers
The urgency behind RAISE US comes from accelerating displacement estimates. An April analysis by Boston Consulting Group estimated that roughly half of U.S. jobs will be reshaped by AI in the coming years, with as many as 25 million jobs eliminated within five years, according to AP reporting. Goldman Sachs separately estimated in March that a quarter of U.S. work hours could be automated by AI.
“Neither our education system nor our labor policies are building the foundational human capital that AI-era work actually requires,” neuroscientist Vivienne Ming told AP.
The Federal Gap
RAISE US is explicitly designed to operate through states rather than waiting for Congress. “I don’t have a lot of hope for bold action by Congress in the next few years on this issue, and I don’t think we can wait a few years,” Raimondo told AP. The organization’s policy lab will test state-level ideas that could later inform federal legislation.
The launch comes as President Trump has expressed little concern about AI-driven job losses, telling reporters on Tuesday that “Right now, they’re not” taking jobs, according to AP. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows manufacturing has shed 68,000 jobs and trucking transportation has cut 28,300 jobs since the start of Trump’s second term.