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Kincaid's Plan for Jobs, the Tech Sector and the AI Transition in Washington's 1st District

Policy · Economy, Jobs & Tech Sector



Washington's 1st Congressional District is home to some of the most productive workers and most profitable companies in the world.  Thousands of small businesses and startups in between. The people of this district built the modern tech economy with their talent, their labor and their decades of expertise.

And yet something has gone badly wrong. American workers in WA-01 and surrounding areas are being laid off at record rates while the corporations they built are filing thousands of petitions to replace them with cheaper foreign labor. Artificial intelligence is accelerating the displacement of workers across every sector and Congress has no coherent plan to help the people left behind. Meanwhile stock buybacks reach historic highs, executive compensation soars and the workers who actually create that value are shown the door.

This page lays out Kincaid's policy proposals on three connected challenges. The abuse of the H-1B visa system, the coming disruption of AI-driven job displacement and the broader question of what a fair economy looks like in one of America's most productive congressional districts.

"Washington's 1st District is not just a tech district. It is a workers' district. Engineers, nurses, teachers, small business owners, tradespeople and service workers all live and vote here. This economy needs to work for all of them, not just the shareholders."

— Kincaid

The Crisis Nobody in Power Will Name

We are facing a crisis and too few people in power are willing to say so plainly.

For decades recent college graduates typically enjoyed lower unemployment rates than the broader working age population. That is no longer the case. Since late 2018 the trend has reversed. In recent years  the unemployment rate for recent graduates has consistently exceeded the national average. As of March 2025 recent graduates faced a 5.8% unemployment rate. Compared to 4.0% nationally. This is not just a rough patch. It is a warning sign. And the trajectory points not toward improvement but toward worsening conditions.

Why is this happening? Several forces are converging at once. Artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, and the steady influx of foreign labor through an abused visa system. These are facts. We can choose to confront them or we can choose to look away.

Today  people you would never expect to struggle are piecing together gig work just to stay afloat. Driving for Uber during the day delivering food at night. All in an effort to survive. A college degree that was supposed to open doors is not opening them. We cannot sit back and watch this continue.

"We need policies that protect American jobs. Invest in innovation without abandoning workers, and ensure that a college degree leads to real opportunity not to underemployment. We must build a future where technology works for us, not against us. And where our own citizens are first in line for the jobs their tax dollars help create."

— Kincaid

Part One: Fixing the H-1B Visa Program

The H-1B visa program was created to help American companies recruit genuinely specialized talent from abroad when no qualified American worker could be found. That was the promise. The reality has become something very different.

In 2025 and 2026 Oracle filed more than 3,000 H-1B petitions for foreign workers while simultaneously laying off thousands of American employees . Including approximately 500 workers in the Seattle area. Microsoft spent $170 billion on stock buybacks over the past decade while cutting American jobs. These are not isolated cases. They are the predictable outcome of a system that has been quietly captured by corporate interests over many years.

The H-1B program is not broken by accident. It has been stretched, exploited  and abused because Congress has failed to update it, enforce it or demand accountability from the companies that use it. That ends with this campaign.

The Core Problem

The law requires that H-1B workers be paid the "prevailing wage" for their occupation . But the definition of prevailing wage has been manipulated for years to allow companies to pay foreign workers significantly less than their American counterparts. The result is a program that functions in practice, as a tool for wage suppression and workforce replacement rather than genuine talent acquisition.

In addition there is currently no meaningful federal requirement that companies demonstrate they have made a good faith effort to hire American workers before filing H-1B petitions. The current "attestation" system is largely self-reported and rarely audited. Companies check a box. Nobody verifies it.

Kincaid's H-1B Reform Proposals

1. The Concurrent Layoff Prohibition No company should be permitted to file new H-1B petitions for positions substantially similar to roles that have been eliminated through layoffs in the preceding 12 months. If you laid off American workers in a job category  you cannot immediately import foreign replacements in that same category. This is common sense. Congress has simply never had the political will to write it into law.

2. Real Prevailing Wage Enforcement The Department of Labor must be required to conduct annual audits of prevailing wage compliance for H-1B employers, with particular scrutiny on companies that are simultaneously reducing their American workforce. Violations should result in automatic disqualification from the H-1B program for a minimum of three years. Not just fines that get treated as a cost of doing business.

3. Mandatory American Worker Priority Documentation Before any H-1B petition is approved the employer must submit verifiable documentation of their domestic recruitment efforts job postings, application data, interview records and written justification for why no qualified American applicant was selected. This documentation must be publicly available, not buried in federal databases that only lawyers can navigate.

4. Dependent Employer Caps and Accountability Companies that rely on H-1B workers for more than 15% of their U.S. workforce . The definition of an "H-1B dependent employer" should face stricter scrutiny, lower petition caps and enhanced reporting requirements. The current threshold for this designation has not kept pace with the scale of the program's growth.

"You cannot lay off American workers and import foreign replacements at the same time. Congress must draw that line."

— Kincaid

Part Two: The AI Displacement Crisis

Artificial intelligence is not a future threat. It is a present one. Across WA-01 and across the country. Workers in software development, customer service, data analysis, legal support, accounting, content creation. And dozens of other fields are already experiencing AI driven displacement. The pace is accelerating, not slowing down.

Unlike previous waves of automation which primarily displaced manual and repetitive labor. AI is targeting knowledge workers. The workers who were told that education and technical skills were their protection are now discovering that the protection they were promised is no longer reliable. Congress has no serious plan for this. The political establishment has not caught up to what is happening to real people in real communities right now.

Kincaid believes that the question is not whether AI will change the economy. It will. The question is whether the benefits of that transformation are shared broadly or captured almost entirely by a small number of corporations and their shareholders. The answer depends on the choices Congress makes in the next few years. Those choices will define the economic landscape of the next generation.

The Scale of the Challenge

Goldman Sachs estimated in 2023 that AI could expose 300 million full time jobs globally to automation. McKinsey has projected that by 2030, up to 30% of hours worked in the U.S. economy could be automated. These projections have consistently moved faster than anticipated. Meanwhile  the productivity gains from AI are flowing overwhelmingly to corporate profits.  Not to worker wages, benefits or job security.

Seattle leads the world in AI-driven job losses. According to data from global financial platform RationalFX, Seattle ranked #1 globally for AI-related tech layoffs in early 2026, with 16,590 employees affected by decisions made at companies headquartered here . More than San Francisco (9,395) or any other city worldwide. Globally  tech layoffs reached 45,363 in early 2026, with roughly one in five cuts directly tied to AI implementation and organizational restructuring. If the current pace holds, analysts warn total 2026 tech cuts could exceed 264,000 by year's end . Surpassing 2025's already severe toll of 245,000 job losses. (Seattle Red, March 2026)

Meta's mass layoff hit Puget Sound workers this week. On May 20, 2026, Meta fired 8,000 employees globally . 10% of its entire workforce. As CEO Mark Zuckerberg redirects billions toward artificial intelligence development. Meta employs between 7,500 and 8,000 workers in the Puget Sound region, and the company has not disclosed how many local employees are affected. Washington State workers had already absorbed nearly 500 Meta cuts earlier this year. At the same time, Meta announced it would shift more than 7,000 employees internally to AI-focused roles. Making clear where the company sees its future and who is being left behind. (Seattle Red, May 20, 2026)

In WA-01 specifically the tech sector that employs tens of thousands of residents is ground zero for this transition. The district has more software engineers, data scientists and tech adjacent workers per capita than almost anywhere else in the country. Many of them are watching their job functions change or disappear in real time.

Kincaid's AI and Workforce Transition Proposals

1. Mandatory AI Displacement Disclosure Any company with more than 500 U.S. employees that reduces its workforce by 5% or more in a 12-month period must publicly disclose whether AI adoption was a contributing factor in those reductions. This is a basic transparency requirement. Workers, communities, policymakers and investors deserve accurate information about what is actually driving job losses. Right now companies can quietly attribute AI-driven displacement to "restructuring" with no accountability.

2. Community College and Technical Training Investment Federal funding for community college workforce retraining programs must be substantially increased and modernized. Current programs are underfunded, slow to update their curricula and often disconnected from the actual needs of the regional labor market. Kincaid supports a direct partnership model between community colleges in WA-01 and major employers in the district. With federal funding contingent on demonstrated job placement outcomes  not just enrollment numbers.

3. Worker Voice in AI Adoption Companies that receive federal contracts above a defined threshold should be required to establish formal worker consultation processes before deploying AI systems that substantially change or eliminate job roles. Workers have institutional knowledge and practical insight that management often lacks. Including them in these decisions is not just fair it produces better outcomes. This is standard practice in many European economies and should become standard here.

4. No Federal Income Tax for Workers Earning $61,000 or Less As AI and automation compress wages and increase economic insecurity for millions of working Americans, the tax burden on lower and middle income workers must come down. Kincaid's proposal to eliminate federal income tax for Americans earning $61,000 or less is directly relevant to the AI displacement crisis. When a worker loses a software job and finds work that pays $61,000 or less, they should not be paying federal income taxes while they rebuild. Read the full proposal here.

"The productivity gains from AI belong to the workers and communities that made them possible. Congress needs to stop pretending this transition will sort itself out. It will not. Not without a plan."

— Kincaid

Part Three: A Balanced Approach  Innovation and Accountability Together

Kincaid is not anti technology and not anti business. Washington's 1st District has thrived because it is home to innovative, ambitious companies and the talented people who work for them. That is a genuine strength of this district and this country and it should be protected and built upon.

The argument here is not that innovation is bad. The argument is that innovation without accountability produces inequality, not prosperity. A company that generates $50 billion in profit in a single quarter while laying off 10,000 American workers and filing thousands of H-1B petitions is not a good corporate citizen. Regardless of how impressive its earnings report looks. Congress has a responsibility to set rules that reward genuine innovation and job creation while holding accountable the corporations that exploit legal loopholes at the expense of American workers.

That is exactly what these proposals are designed to do.

Additional Economic Priorities for WA-01

  • Small business access to capital: The SBA's loan programs must be modernized and better targeted toward the small business owners. Including many immigrant entrepreneurs and women owned businesses. Who are the backbone of WA-01's local economy but who have historically struggled to access federal support.
  • Federal contracting accountability: Federal contractors should be required to maintain minimum U.S. employment levels as a condition of their contracts. Taxpayer money should not be subsidizing the offshoring of American jobs.
  • Retirement security: The 401(k) system has transferred enormous investment risk from employers to workers over the past four decades. Kincaid supports strengthening Social Security and exploring portable retirement benefit models that do not depend entirely on a single employer's decisions.

The Bottom Line

Washington's 1st District deserves a representative who understands this economy . Who understands the injustice when a worker gets a layoff notice and sees their job posted on an H-1B petition filing the next week. Who understands what it feels like to watch a company you helped build post record profits while cutting the team that built it.

The current representative, Suzan DelBene, has been in Congress for over twelve years. Her net worth has more than doubled during her tenure in office. The H-1B abuse problem has gotten worse. The AI displacement challenge has arrived with no federal framework to address it. The workers of WA-01 deserve better than a Congress that has grown comfortable with the status quo.

This campaign is built on a simple premise. A thriving tech economy and a fair economy for workers are not opposites. They require each other. And achieving both requires a representative who is accountable to the people of this district not to the corporations that have benefited from the imbalance.

"I am running to be the common sense Democrat in this race. That means holding corporations accountable when they abuse the system, protecting workers from displacement without a safety net and making sure that the gains of the AI revolution are shared by the people who made it possible."

— Kincaid

Related pages: Kincaid on Oracle's H-1B Filings · Statement on Microsoft Layoffs · No Federal Income Tax Under $61K · DelBene's Record in Congress

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