{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/social-and-community-service-managers/", "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": "Social and Community Service Managers", "soc_code": "11-9151", "category": "Management", "us_employment": 209330, "median_annual_wage": 80390 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 52, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 9, "liability_shield": 5, "trust_premium": 13, "judgment_accountability": 14 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "An 11 reflects a week genuinely split down the middle: HUD CoC applications, HMIS outcome tables, Title XX and CDBG reporting, staff schedules and policy-manual updates are all draftable by machine, while the un-automatable residue — walking a case aide through a client death, negotiating a subcontract with a partner agency, testifying at a county commission budget hearing — is real but does not fill the calendar.", "embodiment": "A 9 rather than a 3 because the job is not run from a desk: site visits to shelters and group homes, licensing and fire-marshal inspections, filling in on the floor when a shift is short, driving between satellite sites, and being physically present during a client crisis or a staff incident — but the manager is not the one doing the direct hands-on care.", "liability_shield": "A 5 recognises that most postings ask for an MSW or a bachelor's plus experience with no state licence attached, so nothing personally bars an unlicensed person from the chair; the credential that does exist in some roles — LCSW, licensed administrator for a residential facility — plus mandated-reporter duty under state statute is what lifts it off the floor rather than nothing at all.", "trust_premium": "A 13 sits at the threshold because the funders, the school principal, the police liaison and the donor board are dealing with you specifically — a replacement manager spends a year rebuilding those before referrals flow again — yet the agency's name and its contract, not your face, is ultimately what the county renews.", "judgment_accountability": "A 14 is earned by the calls no procedure covers: who gets the last bed on a cold night, whether to discharge a non-compliant client, whether an allegation against a staff member goes to CPS and to termination, and which program you cut when a grant is not renewed — each defensible only after the fact, each with a named person answering for it." }, "rationale": "The paperwork half of this job — grant narratives, outcome reports to funders, budget spreadsheets, program summaries, policy manuals, intake data analysis — is exactly what current AI drafts at usable quality, and that is a large share of a typical week. What survives is the other half: standing in front of a board or a county funder and owning the numbers, deciding which clients get scarce beds or slots, supervising and disciplining frontline staff, and holding relationships with police, schools, hospitals and donors. Licensure is inconsistent (some roles require an LCSW or clinical credential, most do not), so the regulatory moat is thin and the protection comes from accountability and presence instead.", "outlook": "Administrative headcount under these managers shrinks and reporting cycles get cheaper, but the role itself persists as a smaller, more accountability-heavy job centered on staff, funders, and rationing decisions.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State licensing of program administrators in regulated service lines — e.g. state child-placing agency and residential facility rules (already in several states' DCFS/DHS licensing codes) requiring a named, licensed program director with an LCSW/LMSW or equivalent who personally signs placement, restraint-review and critical-incident reports. Expansion of that named-responsible-person requirement to homeless CoC-funded, SUD (42 CFR Part 8 opioid treatment program sponsor model) and Medicaid HCBS providers would make a licensed human's signature legally unavoidable on the exact judgment calls AI drafts.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Funder/insurer terms rather than statute: HUD CoC and SAMHSA grant agreements, or nonprofit D&O and professional liability carriers, requiring a named human program manager to attest that outcome data and eligibility determinations were reviewed by a person, with attestation liability for false claims (FCA exposure already attaches to grant certifications).", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If coordinated-entry and bed/slot rationing decisions become formally auditable — state or CoC policy naming an accountable human for each prioritization override, as some Continuums already require for vulnerability-score deviations — the role's ownership of scarce-resource triage becomes documented rather than informal.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier job: if grant narratives, outcome reporting and budget assembly are absorbed by AI, the residual week is staff discipline, union grievances, board and county-funder confrontation, incident review and interagency negotiation — none of which current systems do. Watch for job postings dropping 'grant writing' from the essential functions while adding supervision and compliance scope.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Buyer here is a funder, not a consumer, so the premium is thin. The narrow route: county and state RFPs adding key-personnel clauses that name and price the program manager as a deliverable (common in government contracting), and AI-content disclosure rules in grant applications making human-authored narratives a scored criterion.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "The paperwork share is large and already automatable, so task_resistance has limited headroom. The strongest realistic gains are institutional and uneven — they attach to licensed, regulated service lines (child welfare, residential, OTP) and largely bypass managers at unlicensed community nonprofits, where no plausible lever exists." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 141830, "wage": 64100 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 149870, "wage": 65320 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 156460, "wage": 67150 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 155800, "wage": 69600 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 156400, "wage": 74000 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 162880, "wage": 74240 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 173650, "wage": 77030 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 195490, "wage": 78240 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 209330, "wage": 80390 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 47.6, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "education-administrators-kindergarten-through-secondary", "title": "Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "median_wage": 105870, "overlap": 86, "skills_to_close": [ "Speaking", "Learning Strategies", "Management of Financial Resources", "Quality Control Analysis" ] }, { "slug": "first-line-supervisors-of-police-and-detectives", "title": "First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 76, "median_wage": 106040, "overlap": 80, "skills_to_close": [ "Persuasion", "Equipment Maintenance", "Equipment Selection", "Operation and Control" ] }, { "slug": "special-education-teachers-secondary-school", "title": "Special Education Teachers, Secondary School", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "median_wage": 74260, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [ "Instructing", "Learning Strategies" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }