{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/butchers-and-meat-cutters/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Butchers and Meat Cutters",
    "soc_code": "51-3021",
    "category": "Production",
    "us_employment": 136430,
    "median_annual_wage": 40140
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 51,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 17,
    "liability_shield": 3,
    "trust_premium": 9,
    "judgment_accountability": 7
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Every carcass differs in fat cover, bone position, and grain direction, so seam-boning a chuck or removing a chine bone is a tactile judgment made blade-first — the 15 rather than 18 reflects that primal-level breaking of pork and standardized poultry lines has already been machine-fed in the largest plants, so part of the trade is genuinely being taken by capital equipment.",
    "embodiment": "You stand on a wet floor in a 38-degree cooler swinging a bandsaw and boning knife, lifting hanging quarters onto the rail and hosing down at close — a 17 rather than 20 only because the cooler and cutting room are at least a controlled, dry-goods-free space, unlike slaughter-floor or field-dressing work.",
    "liability_shield": "No state licenses butchers; HACCP plans, USDA/FSIS inspection, and the store's food-safety certification sit with the establishment and the plant's QA, so if a temperature log is falsified or a case is mislabeled the company is cited, not you — the 3 rather than 0 is only your ServSafe-type handler card.",
    "trust_premium": "Counter customers who ask for a bone-in ribeye cut two inches thick, or want the brisket trimmed a specific way for a Saturday cook, come back to the person who remembers the order — but that loyalty is largely to the shop and the case, which is why this sits at 9 rather than the 14+ of a trade where the client will not accept a substitute.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You call yield decisions live — whether a shoulder goes to roasts or grind, whether an aging loin gets trimmed hard or discarded — and that moves real margin, but the specs, price sheets, and cut charts come down from the meat manager or corporate merchandising, so the 7 reflects discretion inside somebody else's plan."
  },
  "rationale": "Breaking carcasses, boning, and trimming to yield are knife-in-hand tasks on biologically variable material — language AI does none of it, and even the best meat-processing robots still struggle with bone location and grain variation. The real threat isn't chatbots but capital: high-throughput plants keep adding X-ray-guided cutting and automated primal separation, which shrinks the industrial tier while retail counter work (custom cuts, case display, customer orders) holds up. No license is required, so there's no regulatory shield — only skill, hands, and the store's need for someone at the block.",
  "outlook": "Industrial cutting jobs keep thinning as plants automate primal breakdown, while retail and specialty butchery stays stubbornly human and modestly better paid.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Continued growth of USDA/state-inspected small custom-exempt slaughter and whole-animal butcher shops, plus 'meat CSA' and local-sourcing programs — buyers pay explicitly for a named human breaking down a specific animal (the Butcher Shoppe/Belcampo-style model, Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network expansion, and USDA's Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program grants funding small plants)",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift as X-ray-guided primal separation absorbs the standardized industrial cuts, leaving the surviving jobs concentrated in variable-carcass work: game processing, whole-animal retail, non-standard species (lamb, goat, heritage pork), dry-aging and curing judgment. The industrial tier shrinks while the residual role is the harder tier",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If HACCP plan responsibility at small plants is formally lodged with a named lead cutter — as FSIS already requires a trained individual to develop and reassess the HACCP plan (9 CFR 417.4/417.7) — and shops designate the head butcher as that person rather than an off-site consultant, the role owns recall-triggering calls on condemnation, temperature deviation, and product disposition",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State-level meat cutter certification with personal accountability is the only route — e.g. a state adopting a mandatory certified-food-protection-manager-style credential specific to on-premise carcass breaking, or an insurer requiring a named certified cutter for retail liability coverage after a Listeria/E. coli claim. Nothing like this is currently in motion in any US state, so treat as low-probability",
        "plausibility": "unlikely",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Even with every lever, the floor is capital economics, not law: roughly 98% of US cattle slaughter runs through large plants where automation decisions are made by plant engineers, and no plausible institutional change touches that. The trust-premium and accountability routes apply to the retail/small-plant tail, which is a minority of the 136k. Realistic ceiling is low-60s."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 131530,
        "wage": 30890
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 133670,
        "wage": 31580
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 136770,
        "wage": 32500
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 142220,
        "wage": 32900
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 145930,
        "wage": 36050
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 129400,
        "wage": 36930
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 136330,
        "wage": 37650
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 140040,
        "wage": 38960
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 136430,
        "wage": 40140
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 3.7,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "cooks-private-household",
      "title": "Cooks, Private Household",
      "verdict": "SAFE",
      "risk_resistance": 67,
      "median_wage": 47940,
      "overlap": 73,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Management of Material Resources",
        "Writing",
        "Learning Strategies"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}