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Redefining Work

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Is technology a net creator or destroyer of jobs? The question is as old as the Industrial Revolution, when workers in mills found themselves put out of work by large industrial looms. In France, they threw their shoes (sabots) into the weaving machines to destroy them – the origin of the term “sabotage”. The protests didn’t stop the machines, however, and the workers had to find something else to do in an ever-changing economy where machines did more and more work.

Today, the pace of technological change is faster than ever, with new gadgets coming into our lives constantly. Automation is also transforming our lives, with new robots and artificial intelligence replacing workers constantly. Are today’s productivity gains tomorrow’s unemployment? Increasingly those who study technology in our lives and the popular media are coming to the conclusion that yes, workers are net losers in the race against tech. And this is not a partisan issue.

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Contracted Change

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A generation or two ago, workers were able to count on companies large and small to take care of them. More than just their pay, the working people of America got something critical from their job – security, a promise that the material things in their life were something they could depend on. In return, there was loyalty – and after decades of work, a pension.

There is little doubt that the nature of work is changing. The exact nature of these changes and the magnitude is hard to pin down, but it’s clear that people don’t work the same way they used to. As we contemplate the next version of the economy forming around us as this Depression slowly comes to an end it is more and more clear that the nature of work – and the corresponding social arrangements that come from it – will continue to change.

This is why reform in policy, taxation, and many other fixed arrangements is essential.

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Labor Creates All Wealth

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As Democrats contemplate the possibility of losing the Senate, there are many ways we can handle it.  We could all sit in the back and throw stuff, much as the Republicans did for the last few years.  We could turn on each other and rip our own guts out in a festival of shame and blame.  Or, if we’re intent on really standing up to our principles, we can use this time away from being the responsible ones and understand what it is that we, as a party really stand for.

We have a lot to offer if we can only get it together for once.  But I, for one, think it’s going to take a much deeper understanding of our core values and what is really happening around us before we can make it happen.

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A Jolt of Confidence

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There are many ways to measure an economy, as we’ve discussed before. There are thousands of workers toiling away at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and many other agencies providing more data than anyone will ever be able to fully understand. It’s something like the internet in terms of data overload, except many of these measures were developed before the information age. It used to be fun to get the reports in big thick binders of paper that professionals at least pretended to read.

We have this all real-time now, and there is a lot of it. One of the most comprehensive employment reports that comes out monthly is the rarely lauded Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) from the BLS. It’s worth getting to know if you really want the details on the state of employment today.

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Greed Beats Fear – For Now

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The the sun beats out beads of sweat and the kids laze at home without school to worry about. It’s summer, the season of loafing. Typically this is the time of year when there’s work to be done and jobs are plentiful but the stock market takes a gentle pause.

Not last year, and not this year. The stock market is hitting new highs as investors find US securities the safest and most promising investment on the planet. But just like last year, the pace of job growth is still not accelerating beyond the roughly 190k jobs created every month. It’s a decent pace, but not what we need to claw out way out of the six year hole and bring back the boom. Barataria called that one completely wrong.

It’s past time to get serious about income inequality – or really the lack of opportunity for those who don’t have money to invest.

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