In recent months, the subject of automation and its role in our economy has taken hold in our discourse. As anyone who has visited Youngstown, Ohio or Buffalo, New York could tell you, automation has already taken its toll on the American middle class. Technology broadly and automation specifically are dramatically reshaping the way we work. And we need to have a plan for what's still to come.

We don't have to look further than our own communities to see the evidence. From automated warehouses to touchscreen fast food restaurants, from Amazon's new cashier-less grocery stores to neighborhood libraries that offer self-checkout lanes in lieu of employing real people – automation is increasingly replacing jobs and leaving too few good new jobs in its wake.

The statistics in manufacturing are staggering. Despite the prevailing narrative from talking heads on TV, a recent Ball State report showed that just 13 percent of jobs lost in manufacturing are due to trade – the rest of the losses have been due to advances in technology.

That is just one reason more and more people from across the political spectrum are crying foul over the ever-increasing role of technology in our economy. Our country is manufacturing more than ever before, but we are doing it with fewer workers. But it's not just factories that are seeing losses – software and information technology are also having a dramatic impact on jobs most people think are secure from the forces of rapidly changing economy. Something transformative is happening in America that is not good for American families. Whether policymakers and politicians are willing to admit it or not, workers spoke loudly and clearly in the last election about their economic insecurity and desire to keep good jobs in America.

So why are the same people who missed what globalization did to America – the same people who missed the rise of Donald Trump – now so insistent on ignoring the perils of automation? Why are the same people who pushed failed trickle down economics and deregulation now missing what's happening in our communities? As Barclays' Stephen Berkenfeld put it, ""Economists are expected to look backwards, predicting the future by what's happened in the past and debating whether we are measuring the right things. But now, more than ever, we need to be looking ahead and to be thinking about what we should be doing about it."

That's not to say we should swim against the tide – automation is as inevitable as industrialization was before it. I sincerely hope the economists are right that automation will make us more effective and pave the way for new occupations. But, no one can currently say where the new jobs are coming from or when, and any sensible company or country should prepare for all alternatives.

Just look at what's happened to the labor force. According to economic research by Nicholas Eberstadt, one in six working-age men, 25-54, doesn't have a job. Fifty years ago, nearly 100 percent of those men ages were working. Women's labor force participation has slipped back to the level it was at in the late 1980s.

Automation is not only transforming the kinds of jobs available to working people today, but new innovation from robots to software to artificial intelligence will further uproot the labor market.

Smart people and economists alike have already recognized that automation is a problem for the American worker. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz said that automation would lead to "more inequality and lower wages." Elon Musk thinks that universal basic income will become necessary to alleviate economic distress from automation. Economist Angus Deaton supports governments creating basic income grants, and Bill Gates supports a robot tax.

It's no wonder President Obama, while still in office, acknowledged that artificial intelligence "has some downsides that we're going to have to figure out in terms of not eliminating jobs."

American families and prominent business leaders get that there's a big problem with automation – so why don't our current elected officials do something about it? President Donald Trump claims he's going to lead a party of the working people, yet to date few too many leaders are moving toward creating policy that will tackle automation's effect on the everyday worker.