Every wave of technological disruption promises efficiency and threatens livelihoods at the same time — and every wave lands harder on Black Americans than on anyone else.
Black unemployment has long been higher and wages lower than among other Americans. Now artificial intelligence is reshaping the labor market again, and these disparities risk getting worse. As the saying goes, when America catches a cold, Black Americans catch the flu.
For Black Americans to not merely ride out the storm, but even thrive in the AI era and reverse these negative trends, they should embrace an industry that will only keep growing as AI improves: healthcare.
Unlike previous waves of automation, AI is compressing decades of disruption into a few years. Office work, customer service, administrative roles — the jobs that served as stable entry points into the middle class for generations of Black workers are among the most exposed. A Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis study found that occupations with higher AI exposure experienced larger unemployment rate increases between 2022 and 2025. For Black men, who already face a 7.3 percent unemployment rate compared to 3.2 percent for white men, a median weekly wage of $970 versus $1,225, and a life expectancy gap of nearly six years, the margin for error is not wide.
Thus, Black Americans have an even greater need to pivot quickly in the AI era, and health care offers a promising path.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that healthcare and social assistance will be the largest and fastest-growing industry sector in the United States from 2024 to 2034, generating approximately 1.9 million job openings per year. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. Nursing shortfalls are already straining emergency departments nationwide.
AI can help create efficiencies in the medical industry, especially when it comes to data entry, record keeping, billing, and diagnosis. But at root, health care jobs are at less risk of automation. They require human judgment, physical presence, and the kind of trust that no algorithm can manufacture.
And not all of these careers require a medical degree. Registered nurses, who can enter through associate-degree programs, earned a median $93,600 in 2024. Radiologic technologists earned $77,660. Community health workers—the frontline connectors between clinics and neighborhoods—earned $51,030 with 11 percent projected growth through 2034. Health information technologists, another associate-degree pathway, are projected to grow 15 percent with median pay of $67,310.
Taken as a whole, the health care industry offers accessible, well-compensated, and structurally growing careers. They are exactly the kind of stable, dignified work that previous waves of disruption erased.
There is a deeper reason why Black Americans are particularly well-positioned to meet this demand — and why the country needs them to. Healthcare outcomes in underserved communities do not improve simply by adding more clinicians. They improve when those clinicians are trusted.
Research consistently shows that Black patients have better outcomes with Black providers. Community health workers who share the background of the populations they serve reduce emergency department use, improve chronic disease management, and lower systemic costs. This should be no surprise. Health care is deeply personal, and people are more likely to open up, connect with, and trust those who understand them and have shared experiences.
Thus, the workforce gap in healthcare is not just a numbers problem. It is a representation problem. Filling it with community-rooted workers will not only improve employment outcomes, but health outcomes as well.
Environmental factors only serve to emphasize the urgency. While African-Americans are being squeezed by AI on one side, extreme heat events, worsening wildfire smoke, rising rates of respiratory illness, and other climate-change-induced pressure squeeze them on the other. Black communities face disproportionate exposure to environmental health risks. As climate-driven health burdens grow in underserved areas, the demand for trusted, locally-rooted healthcare workers will grow with them. This is not a distant projection. It is happening now, in cities and rural communities across the country, and the healthcare workforce pipeline is not keeping pace.
Models that can help Black Americans access jobs in a rapidly growing industry exactly when they are needed the most already exist. Organizations like the Family Health Sciences Institute, a nonprofit in Fresno where I am a board member, are trying to build infrastructure that meets this moment — simulation centers, allied health training, mentorship pathways, and explicit pipelines for people of color into healthcare careers. We need these type of training centers in minority communities across the nation.
The fastest-growing, most AI-resistant, most community-dependent sector in the American economy has a workforce shortage — and Black Americans are ideally positioned to fill it. We just need the pipeline to get them there.
Chet Love is CEO of Cornerstone Group and also serves on the board of the Family Health Sciences Institute.
