The greatest challenge the U.S. faces today is to lower unemployment rates. To keep pace with population growth, the economy needs to create 2 million new jobs each year.

However, most economists predict that creating vast numbers of human jobs will become more and more difficult as ATMs, online banking, self-checkout stations and other areas where technologies are replacing humans continues to grow.

A recent World Future Society report states that technology is a job killer. The whole idea of automation is to do things cheaper, easier, faster or better than humans can. Automated systems, by their very nature,  are designed to replace human labor.

In addition to automated systems stealing jobs, many financially-stressed companies have moved their facilities offshore or are outsourcing jobs electronically to India, China, and Indonesia; also, poorly-regulated immigration laws allow illegal workers to grab U.S. jobs.

Although todays unemployment hovers around 10 percent, this is mild compared with what we can expect in the future. It is estimated that 50 million jobs will be lost to automated systems by 2030; and by 2040, robots that can accurately mimic human intelligence will capture more than half of all human jobs.

When this writer grew up during the Great Depression, unemployment reached 25 percent, which caused soup lines, riots, and turmoil throughout the country.

In our robotic future, 50 percent of workers will become jobless and this could be disastrous.

Science writer Marshall Brain in his Robotic Freedom blog examines the problem and offers suggestions that would provide humanity with all the benefits expected from tomorrows robot wonders, while protecting us from the financial devastations of unemployment.

This bold visionary believes the solution to our impending unemployment disaster is to create a $25,000 annual stipend for every U.S. adult.

These payments would be paid for through various possibilities, such as allowing ads on currency and public properties, rebates on natural resources, lotteries, consumption tax, and income taxes on the rich, plus taxes on robots, automated systems and emails.

The government collects over $2 trillion in taxes annually, which works out to about $20,000 per U.S. household. Its easy to imagine a stipend program that would pay every adult $25,000.

The stipend would not need to be created immediately. It could be phased in incrementally over the next couple of decades. By 2030 though, Americans could be enjoying a financially-secure, middle class or better lifestyle loaded with leisure time.

Equitable wealth distribution like this allows consumers to spend without fear of losing their jobs and becoming destitute. This increased spending would give the economy its biggest boom ever.

How would people spend their extra time in a futuristic world where work is eliminated from everyday life? Some might enroll in education programs; others could awaken their creative juices and become entrepreneurs; still others may enjoy traveling and make that dream visit to distant points on Earth or become space pioneers and join colonies on the Moon, Mars or artificial habitats hovering above the planet.

Arrival of human-level robots marks a transformative time in history. These silicon wonders promise a utopian wonderworld, but we must revise our capitalist system to turn this vision into reality.

Futurist Dick Pelletier, a graduate of Hermiston High School, writes a weekly column for The Hermiston Herald. Readers may contact Dick through his website, www.positivefuturist.com.