There’s something telling about where Sam Liccardo chose to announce his new legislation. Not Washington. Palo Alto is not a tech campus. In an era where artificial intelligence is subtly changing job descriptions more quickly than most people realize, he presented a vision for workforce training at West Valley College in Saratoga, California, a community college that seldom hosts congressional press conferences.
The bill is called the SKILL Act, short for Supporting Knowledge Through Industry-Led Learning. On paper, it’s straightforward enough: companies that fund training programs at community colleges and public universities would receive tax credits. Employers get $2,500 for each student who completes a qualified program, and another $2,500 if they actually hire that graduate. The $500 million annual total tax credit authority would be allocated to each state on a per capita basis.
Prior to entering Congress, Liccardo served as mayor of San Jose for a number of years, so he has firsthand knowledge of Silicon Valley’s economic paradoxes. The same businesses that are making a lot of money in the area have long had trouble filling technical positions, which has left a larger workforce feeling left behind. He contends that the private sector only needs a gentle prod to address this issue because it has the means and the motivation to do so.
It’s reasonable to wonder if $5,000 per hire is a true nudge. Large tech companies hardly notice that amount as a rounding error in an annual budget, as some critics have already pointed out. Perhaps the credit is more important to mid-sized businesses than to the world’s Nvidias. It’s interesting that Nvidia’s head of ecosystem development attended the Saratoga press conference to offer support, though it’s unclear exactly what this means.
The bill comes at a time when municipalities and states are frantically trying to find a practical solution to the issue of AI displacement. Recently, New Jersey suggested spending close to $200 million on state-level retraining initiatives. The SKILL Act imagines a federal framework layered on top of those efforts, channeling private money through public institutions rather than relying on government funding alone. That strategy has a certain grace as well as an optimism about corporate involvement that isn’t always supported by history.
One could argue that the legislation’s emphasis on curriculum co-development is what it does well. Businesses that contribute to the creation of the programs that their employees will eventually complete are creating something beneficial rather than just writing checks. Workforce development circles have long been frustrated by the discrepancy between what community colleges teach and what employers really need. The investment has genuine value if tax credits can even partially close that gap.
There is, however, a mismatch that is worth enduring. The SKILL Act focuses on preparing individuals for jobs related to artificial intelligence, assisting them in adjusting to a changing economy. But the workers most likely to be displaced by automation aren’t always the ones positioned to pivot quickly into tech-adjacent roles. It’s still unclear if a community college certificate program, no matter how well-designed, will be sufficient for a person in their 40s who has worked for 20 years in a field that artificial intelligence is now covertly consuming.
Liccardo appears to be genuinely conscious of the risks involved. His approach is measured rather than sweeping, treating this bill as one piece of a much larger response that no single piece of legislation could fully address. Whether Congress moves it forward is another matter entirely. For now, the SKILL Act sits somewhere between serious policy and educated hope — which, in the current political climate, might actually be the most realistic place to start.
