For Parents

Your Teen Thinks AI Will Take The Jobs. Now What?

For the first time, a majority of US adults under 30 are more worried than excited about AI, and 73% expect fewer jobs. Here is what the numbers actually measure, and how to answer a worried 16 year old without lying to them.

Foundra Kids·8 min read

Your Teen Thinks AI Will Take The Jobs. Now What?

What the new numbers actually say

Pew Research Center surveyed 3,488 US adults in late June. The result that stopped people: for the first time, a majority of adults under 30, specifically 55%, say they are more concerned than excited about AI in daily life. Only about one in ten say the reverse.

Five years ago that same group was the optimistic one. In 2021, 31% of under-30s were more concerned than excited and 25% were more excited than concerned. Both numbers have now flipped hard.

On jobs the picture is sharper. Across all adults, 71% think AI will lead to fewer US jobs over the next 20 years, up from 64% in 2024. Among under-30s it is 73%, up from 61% two years ago. Five percent of Americans think AI will produce more jobs.

If your teenager has said something bleak about their future at dinner recently, they are not being dramatic. They are at the center of the distribution.

Why did this flip?

A few things happened at once, and the age pattern tells you which mattered.

Older Americans got worried early, mostly in 2022 and 2023, and then stayed roughly where they were. Under-30s kept climbing every single year. That is the signature of a group whose direct experience keeps changing, not one reacting to headlines.

They use these tools the most. They are also the ones entering a job market where entry level white collar hiring has visibly tightened. And Pew's earlier work found something quietly important: among under-30s who use chatbots, they are just as likely to say the tools hurt their own creativity as help it. That is not fear of an abstraction. That is a review from a heavy user.

So when a 17 year old says AI is going to take the jobs, they are usually not repeating something from TikTok. They are generalizing from their own week.

What the survey does not measure

This is the part to hold onto, and it is not a dismissal.

Pew asked people what they expect. It is a very good measurement of what Americans believe about the next 20 years. It is not a measurement of what will happen in the next 20 years, and public forecasts about technology have a mixed record.

The people who study this for a living disagree with each other right now, in public, using the same data. Some economists argue AI is a serious threat to employment and the effects are already showing up. Others, including Apollo's chief economist Torsten Slok, have argued there is no evidence in the aggregate numbers that AI is killing jobs and that it is creating them.

Two honest experts, opposite conclusions, same month. That is what genuine uncertainty looks like, and it is more useful to a teenager than either side's confidence.

So the accurate thing to tell your kid is not "don't worry." It is: most people expect this, serious people disagree about it, and nobody actually knows. That sentence is true, it respects their intelligence, and it leaves room to do something.

Meanwhile, teen jobs did not vanish

Worth putting next to the worry, because it cuts against the mood.

In summer 2026, 35.5% of US teens aged 16 to 19 held a paying job, up from 33.8% the summer before. About 6.2 million teens were working across June and July, roughly 19,500 more than the same months in 2025. Summer 2026 was widely predicted to be a terrible teen job market. It was not.

The long trend is still down, and it is a big decline: more than half of teens worked most summers before 2000, and the peak was 58% in 1978. But the decline started decades before AI existed, and the reasons economists give are mostly mundane. Fewer entry level clerical jobs. School years that start earlier and end later. More summer classes, volunteering and unpaid internships that the employment data does not count.

Where teens work now is also concrete: about 1.5 million in food preparation and serving, 1.1 million in sales. Older teens work far more than younger ones, 48% for 18 and 19 year olds versus 24% for 16 and 17 year olds.

None of that proves AI will be fine. It does mean the job market your 16 year old faces this fall is not the one in their head.

What not to say

Three responses that feel supportive and land badly.

"Every generation thought this about technology." True in a general sense, useless in a specific one, and it tells a worried kid you are not going to engage. They can hear the door closing.

"Just learn to use AI and you'll be fine." This is the advice everyone gives and it is thinner than it sounds, because everyone their age is already doing it. Being competent with tools that are free and easy to use is not an advantage. It is a floor.

"Don't worry about it, you're 16." Their worry is proportionate to real uncertainty. Telling them the feeling is wrong teaches them to stop bringing you real feelings, which costs you far more later than this conversation does now.

What to say instead

Start by agreeing with the part that is true. Nobody knows. That is unsettling, and they are right to notice it.

Then move to the only useful question: what do you get to decide?

The honest answer is that nobody can pick a safe career in 2026, because the list of safe careers is exactly what is in dispute. What a person can do is get good at things that transfer. Being able to explain something clearly to a stranger. Being reliable enough that adults hand you responsibility. Being able to sell, which most people never learn. Knowing how money actually moves through a business. Being willing to be bad at something in public long enough to get good.

Those held value through the internet, through offshoring and through automation. They are also, conveniently, exactly what a part time job or a small business teaches and a classroom mostly cannot.

If your kid's instinct is to build something rather than apply somewhere, that is a legitimate answer to this anxiety and not just avoidance. A teenager with a lawn service, a repair side hustle or a small online product is learning pricing, customers and follow-through at an age when the downside is zero. Structured planning tools aimed at first-time founders, Foundra among them, are one way to keep that from staying a daydream, though a notebook and one paying customer works too.

What to actually do this month

Small and specific beats reassuring.

Ask what they have seen. Not "are you worried about AI" but "what made you think that?" Usually there is one concrete thing: a cousin who cannot find work, a teacher's comment, a video. Address the actual input.

Point at the near term, not 2046. Twenty year forecasts are unmanageable for anyone. What a job pays this fall, what a community college certificate costs, what a first customer would pay: those are knowable.

Get them one thing on their record this year. A paid shift, a bounty, a client, a repaired bike somebody handed them cash for. The confidence effect of having earned money once is out of proportion to the amount.

Say out loud that you do not know either. Parents underestimate how much this helps. A 16 year old who believes the adults have secret certainty and are withholding it feels more alone than one who is told the truth.

Then stop talking about it for a while. Constant reassurance reads as concealed alarm. One good conversation beats ten anxious check-ins.

Key takeaways

55% of US adults under 30 are now more concerned than excited about AI, the first majority Pew has recorded for that group.

73% of under-30s expect AI to mean fewer jobs, up from 61% in 2024. Only 5% of all adults expect more jobs.

A survey measures expectation, not outcome. Credible economists disagree with each other about what is actually happening.

Teen employment rose slightly this year, to 35.5%, against predictions of a collapse. The long decline predates AI by decades.

Transferable skills beat safe careers, because nobody can currently name a safe career with a straight face.

Agreeing that it is uncertain is stronger than reassurance. It keeps the conversation open.

FAQ

Should my teen avoid majoring in something AI might automate?

Nobody can list those fields reliably right now, which makes it a shaky basis for a decision. Choosing for skill transferability, ability to sell, write, and handle responsibility, ages better than choosing for predicted safety.

Is entry level hiring actually worse, or does it just feel worse?

Both claims have support depending on which sector and which data you look at, which is why the economists are arguing. What is measurable is that teen summer employment ticked up in 2026 rather than down.

My kid uses AI for everything, including homework. Is that hurting them?

Pew found under-30s who use chatbots are as likely to say the tools hurt their creativity as help it, which is worth asking your kid about directly. Their own read on it tends to be sharper than a parent expects.

Is starting a small business a reasonable response to this, or is it escapism?

It is reasonable if it involves a real customer paying real money. The lesson is in the transaction, not the idea.

How do I talk about this without passing on my own anxiety?

Say what you know, say what you do not, and let them ask the follow-up. Kids read tone more accurately than content.

Where can I see the underlying data?

Pew publishes the full questionnaire, topline and methodology for these surveys, linked from the sources below. The teen-specific report from February 2026 is worth reading alongside the adult numbers.