Metro area, District of Columbia
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
3,136,190 people work in this area, at mean pay of $91,930 a year (BLS, May 2025), in every industry. What follows is how much of their working time the best AI models could finish, when, and in which jobs and tasks. Estimates.
of the paid hours. Estimate.
a year: 1.4 billion hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.
- 48%
- 9%
- 43%
of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 17% is within reach in tasks not yet seen there.
Across the US: 24% within reach now and 39% by the end of 2028, on the long-run pace at four in five.
Share of the paid hours within reach, now to 2030
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this area's paid hours were within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 2%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 19%. Today's estimate: 23%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
Where the hours are
Jobs by hours within reach now. The 40 largest jobs hold 47% of the people.
| People | Pay here | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer Service Representatives | 36,750 | 67% | 51 million | $46K |
| Office Clerks, General | 39,410 | 58% | 48 million | $52K |
| General and Operations Managers | 112,530 | 19% | 43 million | $156K |
| Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel | 29,300 | 69% | 42 million | $78K |
| Project Management Specialists | 38,230 | 45% | 35 million | $127K |
| Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants | 18,960 | 87% | 34 million | $48K |
| Cashiers | 50,600 | 30% | 32 million | $35K |
| Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive | 37,010 | 39% | 30 million | $54K |
| Retail Salespersons | 66,920 | 20% | 28 million | $37K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers | 23,390 | 47% | 23 million | $76K |
| Human Resources Specialists | 24,450 | 44% | 22 million | $101K |
| Registered Nurses | 46,830 | 21% | 20 million | $103K |
People: BLS counts for this area, May 2025. Pay here: the median paid for the job in this area, else its mean, else the national median. 655 smaller jobs (1,618,260 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 97% of the area's people; the rest are in BLS "all other" groups with no task list, or in counts BLS does not publish.
The tasks with the most hours within reach by the end of 2028
Across the whole area, on the chosen pace and reliability.
- Develop and implement records management program for filing, protection, and retrieval of records, and assure compliance with program.Management Analysts24 million hours76% of the task within reach
- Analyze data gathered and develop solutions or alternative methods of proceeding.Management Analysts20 million hours98% of the task within reach
- Establish or implement departmental policies, goals, objectives, or procedures in conjunction with board members, organization officials, or staff members.General and Operations Managers20 million hours99% of the task within reach
- Modify existing software to correct errors, adapt it to new hardware, or upgrade interfaces and improve performance.Software Developers19 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Gather and organize information on problems or procedures.Management Analysts19 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints.Software Developers19 million hours99% of the task within reach
- Perform personnel activities, such as supervising and training employees.Fast Food and Counter Workers18 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Maintain knowledge of current sales and promotions, policies regarding payment and exchanges, and security practices.Retail Salespersons16 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Prepare staff work schedules and assign specific duties.General and Operations Managers16 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Set prices or credit terms for goods or services, based on forecasts of customer demand.General and Operations Managers14 million hours100% of the task within reach
How it is built: BLS counts the people in each job in this area; each job's tasks and their lengths give its share within reach at a date; the area's share is those shares weighted by people. Value is pay times 1.43 for benefits and payroll costs. Seen in Claude use splits today's share by whether Anthropic saw people bring each task to Claude in 2025; other AI tools are not counted. How it works