Contingency: a last word
Having refuted (here, here, and here) a lot of folk wisdom about increased volatility in the job market, I’d to file a postscript on the meaning of it all. The folk wisdom exaggerates the prevalence of contingent and temporary work, but that doesn’t mean the working class is living in ease and comfort. It’s not. For evidence we can turn to a very orthodox source—the Federal Reserve’s survey of economic well-being (and data appendix). A third of respondents, 33%, report themselves “living comfortably”; 40% are “doing okay,” 19% are “just getting by,” and… Read More
Contingency: a follow-up
My post on contingent and “alternative” work (and the demographic follow-up) annoyed some people who think the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the source of the data, is missing the point through bad definitions and bad techniques. (As am I, for using it.) According to these critics, asking people whether they expect their jobs to last the year is using the wrong definition of contingency—though it’s not clear what the right one is, since most employed people in the U.S. can be fired for no reason at all at any time. Or the… Read More
Contingency: almost every demographic is down
Someone on Twitter, reacting to my last post on contingent employment, wrote this: “Contingent workers were more than twice as likely as noncontingent workers to be under age 25.” Profitable corporations are putting lots of young people in incredibly exploitative jobs and making it normal. For the young work is a new hell, and it’s not temporary. Workers under the age of 25 are less likely to be contingent than they were 22 years ago. Here’s the detail by demographic group. The share for workers in the 20–25 age group declined more than the… Read More
No it’s not a gig economy
Despite the voluble testimony of pundits and bar companions, the world of work is not one of Uber drivers and temp workers. In fact, the share of U.S. employment accounted for by contingent and “alternative” arrangements is lower now than it was in 2005 and 1995. That testimony is derived from several original sources. For example, a much ballyhooed 2014 study commissioned by the Freelancers Union—which is not a materially disinterested party—reported that a third of workers are freelancers. The claim of a 2016 paper by Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger that… Read More
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): May 31, 2018 Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson on why black Americans should resist gun control • Sabri Oncu on Turkey—the currency panic, the political and economic troubles
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): May 24, 2018 Richard Walker, author of Pictures of a Gone City, on what the tech boom has done to the Bay Area
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): May 10, 2018 Christy Thornton on AMLO and Mexico’s July elections • Richard Florida on the spatial dimensions of inequality
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Just posted to my radio archive (with a few days’ delay—sorry!). Click on date for link: May 3, 2018 Alejandro Velasco on Venezuela • Jessica Blatt, author of Race and the Making of American Political Science, on the racist origins of the discipline
Bosses getting raises, working stiffs not
Stock markets have been swooning, in no small part because last Friday’s U.S. employment report showed that average hourly earnings (AHE)—the average wage, excluding benefits, received by private sector workers—rose smartly in January. This prompted fears that inflationary pressures are mounting, wages will eat into profits, and the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates more aggressively than had been thought as recently as last Thursday. Or, as the New York Times put it in a headline, with its patented mix of dullness and alarm: What these scaremongers aren’t telling you is that it’s only bosses… Read More
Market timing, lbo-news style
As I’m typing this, bitcoin is having another terrible day, trading at $10,050, down 11% from yesterday and 48% from its all-time high of $19,290. (For the latest price, click here.) Of course, it also had a spectacular upward run. On August 17, 2010, when the cryptocurrency’s price history begins, it was worth $0.08. Four-and-a-half months later, January 1, 2011, when the chart just below begins, it was worth $0.30, a gain of 290%. A year later, January 1, 2012, it traded at $5.20, a gain of 1,633%. Five years later, January… Read More
Liberal suffering
Dahlia Lithwick had a cri de coeur in Slate the other day, worrying that the faith she’d placed in Robert Mueller & Co. to deliver us from Trump may be misplaced. It might have been good news had this paradigmatic liberal realized that trusting prosecutors and the national security state to perform good works might not be such a great idea after all. But, no, Lithwick’s concern is that Trump and his cronies have no respect for the rule of law. This faith in the rule of law is touching—though, as Corey Robin often points out,… Read More
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): August 24, 2017 Jodi Dean on class vs. identity, and the online life vs. practice • Jason Wilson on Charlottesville and the far right
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): July 13, 2017 Alex Kotch (articles here and here) on the Koch campus network • Alfredo Saad Filho on the economic and political crisis in Brazil (Temer’s indictment, Lula’s sentencing)
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): July 6, 2017 James Forman, Jr., author of Locking Up Our Own, on race and mass incarceration • Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, in a reprise of her June 2016 interview, on a political response to mass incarceration and racist cop violence
LBO News from Doug Henwood 