{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/social-workers-all-other/",
  "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 Workers, All Other",
    "soc_code": "21-1029",
    "category": "Social Service",
    "us_employment": 62930,
    "median_annual_wage": 71900
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 57,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 11,
    "embodiment": 10,
    "liability_shield": 8,
    "trust_premium": 15,
    "judgment_accountability": 13
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "An 11 reflects the split you already live: the eligibility screens, referral matching, case notes, and grant/outcome reporting that fill your afternoons are drafting-and-lookup work an LLM does adequately, while the crisis interview, the family meeting where three people want different things, and the facility walkthrough don't compress into a prompt — if you were a policy-research social worker with no caseload you'd score nearer 7, if you carried a full field caseload nearer 14.",
    "embodiment": "A 10 rather than a 4 because home visits, correctional units, barracks, shelters, and hospital bedsides are part of the standard week and you cannot assess a household's safety or a client's condition over the phone — but it isn't 15, because unlike a child protective investigator you are not routinely doing forcible removals or sustained physical intervention, and a real share of this bucket's hours are spent at a desk on program coordination.",
    "liability_shield": "An 8 fits because LCSW/LMSW licensure is common but not universal across this residual bucket — many program coordinator, community outreach, and military/correctional social service posts hire at bachelor's level or accept unlicensed MSWs under supervision — so the credential that would make you personally answerable to a state board is a preference in many postings rather than the statutory gate it is for clinical social workers.",
    "trust_premium": "A 15 is right because your effectiveness with a veteran, an inmate approaching release, or a family in a housing crisis is built on their willingness to disclose to you specifically, and disclosure follows from months of showing up, keeping confidences, and having been the one who actually got the voucher approved — that history does not transfer to a replacement, human or otherwise.",
    "judgment_accountability": "A 13 sits just under the top band because you make genuinely contestable calls — whether a home is safe enough, whether to escalate a suicide risk, which of eight equally needy families gets the last slot — but those calls usually route through a supervisor, a treatment team, or agency policy before they become final, so you own the assessment and the recommendation more often than you own the irreversible decision alone."
  },
  "rationale": "This is a residual BLS bucket — program coordinators, policy and research social workers, military and correctional social workers, community program staff — so the modal worker splits time between direct client contact and a heavy documentation load: intake forms, case notes, eligibility screening, resource referrals, grant reporting. The paperwork half is squarely in reach of current AI, which drafts case notes, summarizes records, and matches clients to benefit programs faster than a human. What holds is the in-person part: sitting with a person in crisis, home and facility visits, and being the named human accountable when a placement or safety call goes wrong.",
  "outlook": "By 2035 the documentation and referral-matching half of this job is largely AI-assisted, shrinking coordinator-heavy positions, while licensed field and crisis roles hold steady on public funding.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State licensure boards (e.g., ASWB-model rules already tightening telehealth and supervision requirements) or state Medicaid billing rules requiring that an LCSW personally sign and attest to any AI-drafted assessment, safety plan, or level-of-care determination — with the attestation naming the licensee as responsible for content, as CMS has done for physician attestation of scribe output",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Correctional and military settings adopting DoD/BOP policy barring automated risk-classification or suicide-risk determinations without a credentialed clinician of record; VA has already issued restrictions on AI in clinical decision paths",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: the occupation genuinely has two tiers. If note-writing, eligibility screening, referral matching and grant-report drafting are absorbed, the residual day is crisis contact, home/facility visits, mandated-reporter judgment and interagency negotiation — the harder tier becomes the whole job. Rises only if headcount is retained rather than cut with the paperwork",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Child-welfare and placement litigation (post-Allegheny/Oregon algorithmic-screening controversies, and the 2024 DOJ inquiry into predictive screening tools) producing consent decrees or state rules that require a named human decision-maker for any removal, placement, or involuntary-hold recommendation and forbid citing a tool as the basis",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Grant and contract language — federal SAMHSA/HRSA notices of funding opportunity, or state block-grant scopes — specifying minimum in-person contact hours or caseload ratios per licensed worker, making the human hour the billable unit rather than the outcome",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "The trust premium here is paid by agencies and payers, not clients, so it tracks funding rules rather than consumer preference — and public-sector budget pressure pushes the other way. Embodiment has no upward route; visits are already counted."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 58150,
        "wage": 61980
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 57440,
        "wage": 63140
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 58410,
        "wage": 61230
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 60390,
        "wage": 64210
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 49730,
        "wage": 61190
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 54620,
        "wage": 61420
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 58460,
        "wage": 63770
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 64940,
        "wage": 69480
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 62930,
        "wage": 71900
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 8.2,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}