A new report condemns the lack of digital skills among U.S. workers and recommends sweeping policy changes, including boosting computer science training in high schools and colleges as well as workplaces. Tax incentives are also needed, it says.
“The U.S. is far behind its competitors when it comes to broad workforce digital skills,” said Stephen Ezell, vice president of global innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank. He authored the new report, “Assessing the State of Digital Skills in the U.S. Economy.”
“The U.S. has led the global digital revolution in ICT fields, but across the workforce, the U.S. is increasingly faltering which is detrimental to long-term U.S. competitiveness,” he added. “The U.S. need to redouble its efforts here and recommit itself to being a world leader in workforce-level digital skills.”
Ezell compiled data from industry and government sources, including a finding from Coursera that the U.S. ranks 29th out of 100 countries for its digital acumen. Brookings found that 70% of U.S. jobs required a medium to high level of digital skills in 2016, up from 44% in 2002.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that one-third of working Americans have limited digital skills and one in six are unable to use email, web search or other basic online tools.
The ITIF report emphasizes the need to boost the number of computer science graduates, including women who have fallen to 24% of the total, compared to 37% in 1995.
The report calls for:
- Allowing computer science to count for high school science requirements.
- Teaching computer science in all high schools.
- Doubling the number of STEM charter schools in the U.S.
- Establishing an incentive program for universities to expand computer science.
- Investing in cultivating artificial intelligence talent.
- Increasing federal investment in workforce training and reskilling programs.
- Expanding Section 127 Tax Benefits for employer-provided tuition assistance.
- Establishing a knowledge tax credit that allows companies to take a tax credit for R&D and workforce training expenses.
The report found that Austria and Germany investment six or more times in workforce training and support than the U.S. with the American level at just 0.1% of GPS. The U.S. now invests less than half of what it did 30 years ago.
Section 127 of the federal tax code allows employers to provide workers up to $5,250 per year in tuition assistance. An employer deducts the cost of the benefit, but the employee doesn’t have to report it as income. The report calls on Congress to increase the amount to at least $8,700.
The report also calls for converting the research and experimentation credit into a knowledge tax credit, allowing company spending on R&D and workforce training to be taken as a credit and raising the rate from 14% to at least 20%.
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