What is the NBER?: The National Bureau of Economic Research is America's largest private non-profit economics body, founded in 1920. It is the official arbiter of US recession dates.
What did the NBER find about AI and jobs?: A working paper by Humlum and Vestergaard found LLM adoption is linked to occupational switching and task restructuring but without net changes in hours or earnings.Source: NBER
Does AI destroy jobs or change them?: NBER research suggests AI changes what jobs involve rather than eliminating them. Oxford Economics found fewer than 5% of firms report direct AI-driven workforce reductions.Source: NBER / Oxford Economics
How many US workers use AI?: LLM adoption among US workers rose from 30.1% in December 2024 to 38.3% by December 2025, according to research by Hartley et al.Source: Hartley et al.

Background

The National Bureau of Economic Research, founded in 1920 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is America's largest private non-profit economics body and the official arbiter of US recession dates. Its working papers carry policy weight even before peer review because they are produced by leading academic economists and circulate rapidly through Washington and international policy circles.

The NBER has produced the most cited evidence in the 2026 AI displacement debate, with a working paper finding that AI shifts tasks rather than employment levels while a separate study documented one in three US workers now using LLMs . Its findings have been weaponised by both sides: the AEI cited them against the Sanders moratorium .

CFOs now project a ninefold surge in AI job cuts , yet nine in ten firms report zero AI workforce impact so far . The gap between intention and action is exactly the kind of puzzle NBER exists to quantify, and its next round of papers will shape whether Congress legislates or waits.

Source Material

NBER National Bureau of Economic Research

How the World Sees Them

US Congress

NBER papers are the empirical ammunition in the AI regulation fight. Both the Sanders moratorium camp and its opponents cite NBER data to support opposite conclusions.

EU regulators

Brussels cites NBER data in AI Act consultations. American academic evidence carries weight in European policy precisely because it is perceived as non-partisan.

Tech industry

Silicon Valley points to NBER findings that AI shifts tasks rather than destroys jobs. The nuance suits the industry's narrative of transformation, not elimination.

Labour economists

NBER's task-restructuring finding is more complex than either side admits. Workers change what they do, not whether they work, but the new tasks pay differently.