Every indicator, every scoring anchor, and every known weakness. Published free and unpaywalled, permanently — because a number you can't interrogate isn't worth paying for.
What the index does
Eighteen signals, scored 0 to 4 each week against fixed written anchors, rolled into two numbers.
The ADI measures escalation, 0–100. The Response Index measures policy response on the same scale. Their difference is the Policy Lag Gap — positive and widening means displacement is outrunning the response.
Keeping response out of the composite is deliberate. Response is not escalation, and folding them together would hide the one number that matters most.
Architecture
Pillar | Weight | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
A — Labor market signal | 35 | Whether displacement shows up in hiring, participation, claims and trade wages before it shows up as unemployment |
B — Offshore & contract | 20 | The channel cut first, because it carries no US political friction |
C — Deployment & capability | 20 | Whether capability is reaching production, and whether regulatory friction is slowing it |
E — Fiscal & structural | 25 | Whether gains reach wages or accrue to capital, and whether the payroll tax base is eroding |
D — Policy response | — | Scored separately as the Response Index. Displacement-relevant measures only. |
Pillar points = (sum of scores ÷ (4 × indicator count)) × weight. Equal weighting within a pillar is deliberate — unequal weights would imply a precision the signals don't support.
Bands
ADI | Band | Scenario |
|---|---|---|
0–20 | Dormant | Benign absorption |
21–40 | Background drift | Grinding drift — the modal case |
41–60 | Active escalation | At least one channel outrunning absorption |
61–80 | Sectoral shock | A named sector tipping |
81–100 | Compound conditions | The tail case — verify inputs before publishing |
Policy Lag Gap bands: 0–5 response tracking · 6–15 mild lag · 16–30 clear lag · 31+ severe lag. A negative gap means policy is running ahead of displacement, which historically almost never happens — investigate it as a scoring error before treating it as real.
Pillar A — Labor market signal (35 points)
A1 · Entry-level vs senior posting ratio — weekly. Source: Indeed Hiring Lab, LinkUp, or a manual count across a fixed occupation basket.
0 ratio rising, junior hiring recovering · 1 flat within normal variance · 2 falling steadily 3+ weeks · 3 down sharply, junior reqs pulled · 4 junior hiring near-frozen in 2+ exposed occupations
A2 · Prime-age (25–54) participation rate — monthly. Source: BLS Employment Situation, table A-1.
0 rising · 1 flat within 0.1pt · 2 down 0.1–0.2pt over three months · 3 down 0.3–0.5pt over three months · 4 down 0.5pt+ with no cyclical explanation
A3 · Continued claims, four-week average — weekly. Source: DOL ETA 539, Thursdays.
0 falling · 1 flat · 2 rising modestly, no concentration · 3 rising with information and professional-services concentration · 4 sharp rise concentrated in exposed sectors
A4 · Skilled trades wage growth vs trend — monthly. Source: BLS CES, construction and installation/maintenance/repair. This is the shelter-flooding test.
0 accelerating, trades still scarce · 1 on trend · 2 decelerating slightly · 3 clearly below trend, applicant volume up · 4 flat or negative real growth in the trades
Pillar B — Offshore & contract channel (20 points)
B1 · Indian IT/BPM headcount — quarterly. Source: TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL results.
0 net adds accelerating · 1 positive but slowing · 2 roughly flat · 3 net reductions at two or more · 4 reductions across all four, or guidance cut citing automation
B2 · US staffing industry volume — weekly. Source: ASA Staffing Index.
0 rising · 1 flat · 2 declining modestly · 3 declining with IT and clerical concentration · 4 sharp decline plus guidance cuts citing automation
B3 · Named BPO/CSR/MSP losses attributed to automation — continuous. Source: trade press, earnings calls, client announcements.
0 none · 1 isolated mention · 2 two or three named accounts in a month · 3 multiple large accounts, a provider warns · 4 a major provider restructures or exits a service line
Pillar C — Deployment & capability (20 points)
C1 · Enterprise agent deployments at large employers — continuous. Source: earnings calls, press releases, vendor case studies.
0 pilots only · 1 production in narrow low-stakes functions · 2 production in a core function at one large employer · 3 multiple large employers, core functions, headcount tied · 4 explicitly framed as headcount replacement at scale
C2 · Layoffs explicitly attributed to AI — monthly. Source: Challenger Gray, WARN filings, layoffs.fyi.
0 none attributed · 1 scattered, likely cover for other causes · 2 consistent monthly attribution at small counts · 3 large single-employer action explicitly attributed · 4 multiple 1,000+ actions attributed within one quarter
C3 · Frontier agentic capability releases — continuous. Source: lab release notes, long-horizon agentic benchmarks.
0 no meaningful movement · 1 incremental gains · 2 notable jump on long-horizon tasks · 3 credibly performs multi-day autonomous work · 4 capability jump plus immediate enterprise availability
C4 · Regulatory friction on deployment — continuous. Source: bias-audit and disclosure duties, human-review mandates, preemption litigation. Scored in the escalation direction: high means little friction.
0 binding audit or human-review duties in force across multiple states, broadly scoped · 1 binding duties in force but narrowly scoped (hiring, health care) · 2 duties adopted somewhere but weakly enforced · 3 little effective friction, preemption gaining · 4 no effective friction, deployment legally unimpeded
Pillar E — Fiscal & structural (25 points)
E1 · Payroll tax receipts vs prior-year trend — monthly. Source: Monthly Treasury Statement, table 3.
0 above trend · 1 on trend · 2 slightly below · 3 below trend three months running · 4 below trend with employment flat — wage-base erosion
E2 · Labor share of national income — quarterly. Source: BEA NIPA, compensation share of gross domestic income.
0 rising · 1 flat · 2 declining slightly · 3 declining while productivity rises sharply · 4 sharp decline, gains landing on capital
E3 · Real wage growth, production & nonsupervisory — monthly. Source: BLS CES real earnings.
0 positive and accelerating · 1 positive, on trend · 2 slowing but positive · 3 flat in real terms · 4 negative in real terms while output rises
Pillar D — Policy response to displacement (Response Index)
Displacement-relevant measures only. Bias-audit, disclosure and discrimination law is not response — it scores under C4 as deployment friction.
D1 · Federal displacement-response legislation — income support, UI, worker transition only.
0 nothing, or the federal posture is actively deregulatory · 1 rhetoric only · 2 a displacement-focused bill introduced · 3 hearings held, a bill advances · 4 enacted
D2 · State displacement-response legislation — excludes bias-audit and disclosure bills.
0 nothing addressing displacement · 1 scattered introductions · 2 multiple states with active bills · 3 a state enacts · 4 several states enact, pattern forming
D3 · Restrictions on substitution — licensing, scope of practice, operator mandates.
0 none · 1 discussion only · 2 a board or agency opens a proceeding · 3 a binding restriction adopted in one state · 4 restrictions across multiple states or federally
D4 · Organized labor action on automation
0 none · 1 statements only · 2 automation language raised in negotiations · 3 protections won in a major contract · 4 strike or major action centered on automation
The weekly run
Twenty to forty minutes. Carry forward last week, then update only what has fresh data: A1, A3 and B2 weekly; the continuous signals as news warrants; monthly and quarterly indicators only in their release weeks.
Check the staleness figure. Above 40% carried-forward weight, the reading is low-confidence and should be published with that flag attached.
Reading discipline
A single week is noise. Only a four-week move of six points or more is worth writing about. Only a twelve-week trend justifies changing a conclusion.
Watch the gap, not just the number. The ADI can sit flat at 45 for a year while the Response Index falls — a meaningfully worsening situation the composite alone would hide.
Score conservatively. Between two levels, take the lower one. Upward drift is the standard failure mode of hand-scored indices, because escalation makes better copy than stability.
Changed in v1.1
The v1.0 model produced a Policy Lag Gap of −6 on its first scored week, implying policy was running ahead of displacement. Its own instructions said to investigate that as a scoring error. It was one.
Pillar D was measuring legislative volume rather than relevance. The 1,561 state AI bills that produced a high D2 score govern algorithmic discrimination, hiring-tool bias audits, disclosure and health care decision-making — none of which respond to displacement.
The fix has two parts. Pillar D is rescoped to displacement-relevant measures. The displaced content moves to C4 rather than being discarded, because bias audits and human-review mandates don't respond to displacement but they do slow deployment — which is exactly what pillar C measures. The laws were never irrelevant; they were filed under the wrong heading.
Re-scored under v1.1, the July 26 2026 baseline reads ADI 41 (was 44), Response Index 25 (was 50), gap +16 (was −6). Note that C4 pulled the composite down: regulatory friction is genuinely slowing deployment and v1.0 couldn't register it. Scores are not comparable across versions.
Known limitations
This is an index, not a probability or a forecast of any date. Scoring is subjective and two analysts will not produce identical readings. Several indicators have no clean public weekly series and depend on a hand-built basket, which introduces construction bias. The pillar weights encode a specific thesis about how displacement propagates; if that thesis is wrong, the weights are wrong with it.
And the model cannot see the thing it most wants to measure — work that is never posted, never offshored and never announced, because the role simply stops being backfilled.