Elizabeth Warren Takes On the ‘Gig Economy’

http://www.thenation.com/article/elizabeth-warren-takes-on-the-gig-economy/

Warren’s essential point is that for all the talk about Uber, ride-sharing apps and their brethren are only part of a larger, destructive trend toward classifying workers as part-time. “Long before anyone ever wrote an article about the ‘gig economy,’ corporations had discovered the higher profits they could wring out of an on-demand workforce made up of independent contractors,” Warren said. Indeed, 53 million Americans—one in three workers—is a freelancer.

Moreover, the recession has forced millions of Americans into lower-paying jobs. According to the National Employment Law Project, there are 1.2 million fewer jobs in mid- and higher-wage industries than there were prior to the Great Recession and 2.3 million more jobs in lower-wage sectors.

Warren sees the gig economy as more of a symptom than a cause. “The gig economy has become a stopgap for some workers who can’t make ends meet in a weak labor market,” she said. “For many, the gig economy is simply the next step in a losing effort to build some economic security in a world where all the benefits are floating to the top 10 percent.”