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Adaptation · Labour & consumers

Occupational-mix dissimilarity since ChatGPT (Yale Budget Lab)

consistent with normal65/95 confidence, mixed or hard to operationalisegrade Blaggingrefreshed irregularly: The Budget Lab's update pages block fetchers and the workbook URL changes each release; the source row is moved forward by hand.

1What this measures

How far the occupational mix of the US workforce has moved from its November 2022 baseline, in percentage points, the Budget Lab's dissimilarity index from its monthly labour-market update workbook; the same index from a January 2021 baseline is shown alongside as the pre-AI comparison at the same age.

Why it matters. If AI were reshaping work, the mix of occupations would move faster than in prior technology transitions. The Budget Lab finds it moving at about the historical pace.

Proxy types
deployment, welfare
Unit
pp
Cadence
quarterly
Valve
adoption to adaptation

2How we track this

Normal band
≤ 7.50 pp
Fast band
≥ 10.0 pp
Falsifying
—

Normal = within one and a half times the pre-AI baseline's reading at the same age (the January 2021 baseline sat near 5 pp forty months in); fast = 10 pp or more, twice the pre-AI pace. Between is `emerging`.

Applied to yale_budget_lab_data.us_workers.occupation_dissimilarity_pp.m.

3Tracker interpretation

5.3 pp forty months after ChatGPT against 5.0 pp for the January 2021 baseline at the same age: slightly above the norm, and the curve predates AI.

4Evidence

Latest point
5.26 ppas of 2026-03-01
us_workers
Value the bands apply to
5.26 ppas of 2026-03-01

103 observations. Hollow points are disputed (see counterevidence). Every point links to its observation.

5Status and reasoning

consistent with normalsince 2026-09-10 · evaluate

Evaluator: 5.26 (Budget Lab at Yale labour-market update workbook (dissimilarity index), 2026-03-01) is inside the consistent band (hi=7.5). Auto-reason; band rationale: Normal = within one and a half times the pre-AI baseline's reading at the same age (the January 2021 baseline sat near 5 pp forty months in); fast = 10 pp or more, twice the pre-AI pace. Between is `emerging`.

6Timeline notes

  • 2026-03-01 us_workers · 5.26 ppas of 2026-03-01
  • 2026-02-01 us_workers · 5.17 ppas of 2026-02-01
  • 2026-01-01 us_workers · 5.13 ppas of 2026-01-01
  • 2025-12-01 us_workers · 5.06 ppas of 2025-12-01
  • 2025-11-01 us_workers · 4.94 ppas of 2025-11-01
  • 2025-09-01 us_workers · 4.84 ppas of 2025-09-01

7Counterevidence

What cuts against this reading

Occupational mix moves slowly by construction; a CPS-based index cannot see within-occupation task change; the workbook URL changes with each update, so the series is refreshed by hand.

8Update history

  1. 2026-09-10unmeasured to consistent with normalconf — → 65 · evaluate

    Evaluator: 5.26 (Budget Lab at Yale labour-market update workbook (dissimilarity index), 2026-03-01) is inside the consistent band (hi=7.5). Auto-reason; band rationale: Normal = within one and a half times the pre-AI baseline's reading at the same age (the January 2021 baseline sat near 5 pp forty months in); fast = 10 pp or more, twice the pre-AI pace. Between is `emerging`.

    obs:e024995d

9Confidence

65 / 95 — mixed or hard to operationalise

Confidence is independent of status: 90–95 multiple strong independent sources; 70–89 good evidence, some ambiguity; 50–69 mixed or hard to operationalise; below 50 limited or vague.

10Related