Depending on who you ask, artificial intelligence is either about to make this far worse or create tens of millions of new jobsin the next decade. It’s too early to be too confident on either side of the debate. But whoever’s right, young people are already struggling with a strong on-ramp to work.
I’ve spent my career focused on economic and educational pathways for youth from underserved communities, and as the leader of Eckerd Connects, I can’t walk into a room without being asked how concerned I am that AI will obliterate the next generation’s chances of having a prosperous future. Employers tell me constantly that they can’t find workers with the basic interpersonal skills that hold an organization together.
So, what do we do? The answer, in part, lies in paid, structured service.
Too often, service is dismissed as charity instead of the workforce strategy it actually can be. I’ve watched it work for more than 20 years, both as a young adult who served their community and as CEO of AmeriCorps.
Year after year, I’ve watched AmeriCorps members, who walked in unsure of themselves, develop critical workplace skills and complete their service ready to lead. Ninety-four percent of AmeriCorps alumni say they can solve most problems they run into. Most say they can hold their own in front of a room, and that they can work across political and cultural differences.
Governors are beginning to recognize the strength of AmeriCorps’ model, and use their states as innovation labs to replicate it. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has made service his signature project as the new chair of the National Governors Association, launching “Service United” with $10 million from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation and Schultz Family Foundation to help states build or scale these programs. Gov. Moore’s Maryland Corps, along with similar efforts in California, Colorado, Utah, and other states, are frameworks that the dozens of new governors taking office next year should watch.
Giving young people a reason to commit is a challenging, but important, part of this equation, though. Ask a young person today if they want to “serve,” and don’t expect them to jump out of the chair. But ask if they want to solve a problem and walk away with a pathway to what’s next, and now you’ve got their attention.
Service can be a viable training ground for future leaders, and it comes down to three things being done right: provide stipends that members can actually live on, put them to work on something urgent (not some vague notion of goodwill), and hand them something durable to carry forward, like a credential or a clear line from a year in the program to a real job. Get those three right, and young adults will find a bridge to their purpose, education, and often, their first job.
The need for paid service opportunities cannot be overstated. When I took the helm of AmeriCorps in 2021, too many national service opportunities were out of reach for the very people they were meant to serve. AmeriCorps VISTA members receiving the minimum living allowance earned $6.44 per hour that year—less than the federal minimum wage. Many relied on SNAP benefits, food pantries, and other support just to stay afloat. That was a policy failure. It fell hardest on young people who needed national service to be an on-ramp to opportunity, not an act of personal sacrifice. I was proud that during my tenure, we raised the minimum living allowance nationwide to the equivalent of $13 an hour, with many local partners providing additional support that brought members closer to a life-sustaining wage.
Although research shows full time, extended service with individuals from diverse backgrounds gets the best results, service doesn’t have to mean a full year in AmeriCorps. Cat Ward, CEO of Taproot Foundation, recently asked the question: If there’s no first rung on a career ladder, who fills the middle? She advocates for placing young people into “skilled volunteerism” roles that develop the skills they’ll need to be prepared for what comes next.
And the private sector can also play its part in building new on-ramps. Anthropic’s Claude Corps, whose first cohort starts this month, will place a thousand early-career fellows inside nonprofits for a year to build things like an intake screener for a legal aid clinic or an inspection-report tool for a housing nonprofit. It pays $85,000 (enough to live with dignity), puts them to work on something urgent, and hands them a credential worth having.
At every level and every career stage, this work builds people, not just résumés. Nobody knows yet exactly how AI reshapes that first rung of the ladder. But we don’t need to know that to act on what we do know. Paid, purposeful service works. We’ve had decades to prove it, and the infrastructure already exists. What’s missing is the capital to match the ambition. Employers, policymakers, and philanthropists can supply that without waiting for a single AI company to figure out its own future first.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
