Metro area, Wisconsin
Wausau, WI
69,530 people work in this area, at mean pay of $60,120 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: 29 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.
- 33%
- 16%
- 51%
of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 18% is within reach in tasks not yet seen there.
Across the US: 22% within reach now and 37% 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, 20%. Today's estimate: 22%.
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 55% of the people.
| People | Pay here | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer Service Representatives | 1,000 | 64% | 1.3 million | $46K |
| Office Clerks, General | 1,170 | 54% | 1.3 million | $45K |
| Registered Nurses | 1,830 | 28% | 1.1 million | $89K |
| Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 600 | 78% | 968,449 | $49K |
| Receptionists and Information Clerks | 790 | 59% | 966,202 | $40K |
| Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products | 970 | 36% | 722,303 | $64K |
| Retail Salespersons | 1,660 | 19% | 669,843 | $34K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers | 1,000 | 32% | 663,522 | $74K |
| Cashiers | 1,660 | 19% | 638,768 | $30K |
| Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks | 540 | 53% | 594,173 | $48K |
| Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive | 590 | 43% | 522,788 | $47K |
| Team Assemblers | 2,110 | 10% | 456,435 | $46K |
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. 259 smaller jobs (28,450 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 91% 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.
- Formulate or modify recipes for specific kinds of food products.Food Batchmakers312,295 hours99% of the task within reach
- Perform administrative or managerial functions, such as taking responsibility for a unit's staff, budget, planning, or long-range goals.Registered Nurses306,612 hours60% of the task within reach
- Compute, record, and proofread data and other information, such as records or reports.Office Clerks, General293,054 hours100% of the task within reach
- Record numbers of units handled or moved, using daily production sheets or work tickets.Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand256,269 hours100% of the task within reach
- Perform administrative support tasks, such as proofreading, transcribing handwritten information, or operating calculators or computers to work with pay records, invoices, balance sheets, or other documents.Receptionists and Information Clerks244,771 hours100% of the task within reach
- Keep periodic balance sheets of amounts and numbers of transactions.Cashiers244,078 hours100% of the task within reach
- Plan and establish work schedules, assignments, and production sequences to meet production goals.First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers234,625 hours100% of the task within reach
- Obtain and examine all relevant information to assess validity of complaints and to determine possible causes, such as extreme weather conditions that could increase utility bills.Customer Service Representatives226,325 hours100% of the task within reach
- Plan, organize, and control the operations of a cocktail lounge or bar.Bartenders224,146 hours50% of the task within reach
- Monitor market conditions, product innovations, and competitors' products, prices, and sales.Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products220,422 hours100% of the task within reach
Other areas in Wisconsin
Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI820,780 people22% now, 36% by 2028
- Madison, WI408,070 people22% now, 39% by 2028
- South Central Wisconsin nonmetropolitan area210,950 people20% now, 29% by 2028
- Northeastern Wisconsin nonmetropolitan area196,170 people22% now, 32% by 2028
- Green Bay, WI174,550 people22% now, 34% by 2028
- Western Wisconsin nonmetropolitan area127,550 people20% now, 30% by 2028
- Appleton, WI124,230 people22% now, 33% by 2028
- Oshkosh-Neenah, WI93,750 people22% now, 35% by 2028
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