Killing Yourself to Live

Massachusetts, Artificial Intelligence, and the Cost of Staying

A research paper examining the structural vulnerability of Massachusetts' high-cost, knowledge-intensive economy as artificial intelligence changes the relationship between economic output and human labor. Using occupational wage data, illustrative wage-compression scenarios, demographic and fiscal analysis, and the historical transformation of the Route 128 technology corridor, the paper explores how declining household earning capacity could interact with persistent living costs and institutional obligations. It introduces carrying wage capacity, household income headroom, fiscal headroom, and the shrinking-denominator mechanism to explain how economic deterioration could occur without an immediate collapse in employment or output. The paper argues that long-term resilience requires greater physical anchoring of economic activity and lower recurring household costs.