The College Wage Premium in the Generative AI Era
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7364838
Abstract
After expanding for four decades, the U.S. college wage premium is experiencing a sustained contraction, dropping sharply from 0.626 in 2022 to 0.575 in 2026. Using Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group data through 2026, we show that standard market-clearing supply and demand accounting implies an unprecedented drop in relative demand for college labor-the first sustained negative relative demand growth in a series spanning back to 1914. Linking individual wage data to task-based generative AI exposure, we document that post-2022 wage growth slowed disproportionately in high-exposure occupations, which employ a disproportionate share of college graduates. By 2026, going from zero occupational AI exposure to full exposure had a negative effect on wages of -0.086. Combined with the college-non-college exposure gap, this mechanism accounts for roughly 28 percent of the total drop in the college wage premium from 2022 to 2026. While noncausal, these patterns indicate that task displacement in AI-exposed white-collar occupations plays a quantitatively meaningful role in the recent compression of the aggregate skill premium.