Promise and Pitfalls of the Gig Economy

860,000 Americans filed for unemployment insurance again in September, many of them gig workers driving for Uber and Lyft or finding work via TaskRabbit, PostMates, or other app-based services. The promise of the gig economy was flexibility and autonomy, but those very characteristics have made workers vulnerable during the pandemic and as we’ve seen in recent years, exploitation by the companies themselves. Boston College sociologist JULIET SCHOR believes that the gig economy has never lived up to its promise and, in fact, has made things more inequitable, creating a “servant economy” for the privileged. We’ll talk to Schor about her new book, After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back.

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