America's Informal Economy
January 25, 2019 6:22 AM Subscribe
This article is part 1 of a 4-part essay about the informal economy by Pascale Joassart, co-producer of "City Rising: The Informal Economy." Read Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.
I remember being in my 20s and 30s (I'm over 50 now) and reading articles about how Gen X was taking on temp agency placement jobs instead of regular jobs because they wanted the flexibility and stuff afforded by that. Or something.
Basically, my point is that jobs haven't carried security or contracts for decades. Most states have At-Will employment legislation which means that workers don't have any protections. Unions started being gutted before I was born and the concept of Labor Day being a day where the workers march in the street wearing their union badges and colors is lost to posterity.
With the exception of some professions like teaching, I can't think of a single job encountered in normal life where contracts are even a part of the conversation. Unless you're doing a gig economy sort of thing like acting where contracts are the norm but only because of strong guilds and unions.
"The Informal Economy", if you're talking about day laborers and such, has been around forever, and always will be. But I don't even know what a "formal economy" would be in today's workplace. And it's been that way for as long as I've been a working adult.
posted by hippybear at 10:30 AM on January 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
Basically, my point is that jobs haven't carried security or contracts for decades. Most states have At-Will employment legislation which means that workers don't have any protections. Unions started being gutted before I was born and the concept of Labor Day being a day where the workers march in the street wearing their union badges and colors is lost to posterity.
With the exception of some professions like teaching, I can't think of a single job encountered in normal life where contracts are even a part of the conversation. Unless you're doing a gig economy sort of thing like acting where contracts are the norm but only because of strong guilds and unions.
"The Informal Economy", if you're talking about day laborers and such, has been around forever, and always will be. But I don't even know what a "formal economy" would be in today's workplace. And it's been that way for as long as I've been a working adult.
posted by hippybear at 10:30 AM on January 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
There's a difference between contemporary responses to a failing economic ecosystem - gig economy, precarious employment, underemployment, et al - and understanding the fundamentals of the informal economy itself. It existed way before the current day, and the author traces its history back to slave ownership and segregation, creating an economic divide.
You'll note that the documentary linked in the middle of the FPP follows 4 different representative actors within the informal economy, and each of them pursues a classic informal economy avenue for income generation, seen in informal economies across the world.
"The Informal Economy" follows four California workers facing structural discrimination but fighting to change policy and improve upward mobility for their communities. We follow the lives of a street vendor in Boyle Heights, a truck driver in Long Beach, a farm-working family in Coachella and an organizer in Oakland fighting for jobs for formerly incarcerated people.
Taken together, this is an excellent synopsis of the American informal economy, and really, the first study that I've seen that considers it as an ecosystem in its own right. You get lots of wired articles on gig or bloomberg op eds on scraping by in Palo Alto, but nobody has actually mentioned the existence of America's informal sector, nor concisely introduced it until now.
posted by infini at 10:35 AM on January 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
You'll note that the documentary linked in the middle of the FPP follows 4 different representative actors within the informal economy, and each of them pursues a classic informal economy avenue for income generation, seen in informal economies across the world.
"The Informal Economy" follows four California workers facing structural discrimination but fighting to change policy and improve upward mobility for their communities. We follow the lives of a street vendor in Boyle Heights, a truck driver in Long Beach, a farm-working family in Coachella and an organizer in Oakland fighting for jobs for formerly incarcerated people.
Taken together, this is an excellent synopsis of the American informal economy, and really, the first study that I've seen that considers it as an ecosystem in its own right. You get lots of wired articles on gig or bloomberg op eds on scraping by in Palo Alto, but nobody has actually mentioned the existence of America's informal sector, nor concisely introduced it until now.
posted by infini at 10:35 AM on January 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
But I don't even know what a "formal economy" would be in today's workplace. And it's been that way for as long as I've been a working adult.
I was being interviewed by a thinktank out of NYC doing a 'future of work' report for Rockefeller Foundation, and they started off by saying "informal economy in Africa means lack of decent jobs protections safety nets yada yada must be changed yada yada save the African et cetera" and I asked her just how decent, safe, protected her "at will" job in America was...
posted by infini at 10:38 AM on January 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
I was being interviewed by a thinktank out of NYC doing a 'future of work' report for Rockefeller Foundation, and they started off by saying "informal economy in Africa means lack of decent jobs protections safety nets yada yada must be changed yada yada save the African et cetera" and I asked her just how decent, safe, protected her "at will" job in America was...
posted by infini at 10:38 AM on January 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
Like, I basically don't know anyone within my basic social group who has a job that would be considered "formal". And many of them are professionals in good standing. The only people I know who have contract-protected formal jobs are associated with education somehow.
posted by hippybear at 10:52 AM on January 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 10:52 AM on January 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
There is a difference between what people in the occupational research world call "standard employment" and non-standard. You don't have to have a union or a formal contract, but standard employment usually means you're paid on a regular basis, you earn at least minimum wage, your earnings are reported to the government, payroll taxes have been paid, you qualify for employment insurance, etc.
Most people, even now, do have these kinds of jobs, including anyone working at Walmart or McDonalds. They may have other precarity - like not knowing how many hours they'll be working or when, or they could be fired at will - but they aren't in an informal economy, and they aren't in the same position as the (truly or falsely) self-employed. Just not having to withhold your own income tax is a real blessing.
posted by jb at 11:05 AM on January 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
Most people, even now, do have these kinds of jobs, including anyone working at Walmart or McDonalds. They may have other precarity - like not knowing how many hours they'll be working or when, or they could be fired at will - but they aren't in an informal economy, and they aren't in the same position as the (truly or falsely) self-employed. Just not having to withhold your own income tax is a real blessing.
posted by jb at 11:05 AM on January 25, 2019 [4 favorites]
Right, I'll accept that.
But so, what is there in these essays that is new? Like, I skimmed all four, and didn't notice any ideas which leapt out at me as being something I didn't read 30 years ago about my own cohort group.
Even if you only apply these thoughts to the truly informal economy (about which, according to the "standard employment" model you mention, temp workers would be standardly employed if they are working through a temp agency), it's not new or news.
Or is the point just to bring up these ideas today as opposed to last year or 5 years ago or 10 years ago?
I don't dispute the importance of knowing about this part of our economy. I just don't see this as new news. At least not to me, and I don't even study economics or employment.
And by saying that, I'm not disparaging this post, as it will undoubtedly bring new minds into knowing about this. But it seems more like a round-up of old information than any new developments.
I keep hoping for new, positive developments about the general schema of employment situations in the US. I don't see anything changing, though.
posted by hippybear at 12:04 PM on January 25, 2019
But so, what is there in these essays that is new? Like, I skimmed all four, and didn't notice any ideas which leapt out at me as being something I didn't read 30 years ago about my own cohort group.
Even if you only apply these thoughts to the truly informal economy (about which, according to the "standard employment" model you mention, temp workers would be standardly employed if they are working through a temp agency), it's not new or news.
Or is the point just to bring up these ideas today as opposed to last year or 5 years ago or 10 years ago?
I don't dispute the importance of knowing about this part of our economy. I just don't see this as new news. At least not to me, and I don't even study economics or employment.
And by saying that, I'm not disparaging this post, as it will undoubtedly bring new minds into knowing about this. But it seems more like a round-up of old information than any new developments.
I keep hoping for new, positive developments about the general schema of employment situations in the US. I don't see anything changing, though.
posted by hippybear at 12:04 PM on January 25, 2019
It's complicated - and the exact numbers depend on definitions. (I didn't define standard work clearly - I don't know if there is an agreement on it - but temporary work wouldn't be included in most definitions).
But while there are many categories - involuntary part-time, contingent labour (temporary, gig-work, etc), fully informal - these non-standard forms of employment are not new, but had been reduced in the mid-20th century and are now on the increase over the last few decades.
So it's not new, but it's changing - and it's getting worse and won't get better without some radical shifts among powerful people.
posted by jb at 12:12 PM on January 25, 2019
But while there are many categories - involuntary part-time, contingent labour (temporary, gig-work, etc), fully informal - these non-standard forms of employment are not new, but had been reduced in the mid-20th century and are now on the increase over the last few decades.
So it's not new, but it's changing - and it's getting worse and won't get better without some radical shifts among powerful people.
posted by jb at 12:12 PM on January 25, 2019
Its also beginning to converge in characteristics and resemblance with the informal economy prevalent in the developing world - countries like India or Nigeria have more than 80% of their employable populace active in the informal sector.
posted by infini at 12:35 PM on January 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by infini at 12:35 PM on January 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
So it's not new, but it's changing - and it's getting worse and won't get better without some radical shifts among powerful people.
The robots are coming for our jobs.
It won't get better.
posted by hippybear at 3:50 PM on January 25, 2019
The robots are coming for our jobs.
It won't get better.
posted by hippybear at 3:50 PM on January 25, 2019
In fact, robots doing jobs will be much more prevalent in the US before they ever get to India or Nigeria.
First world problems will become the same as the rest of the world.
I'm so glad I don't have kids. I just need to survive for a few more decades before checking out. I don't need to worry about what happens after I'm gone.
posted by hippybear at 3:52 PM on January 25, 2019
First world problems will become the same as the rest of the world.
I'm so glad I don't have kids. I just need to survive for a few more decades before checking out. I don't need to worry about what happens after I'm gone.
posted by hippybear at 3:52 PM on January 25, 2019
And by saying that, I'm not disparaging this post, as it will undoubtedly bring new minds into knowing about this. But it seems more like a round-up of old information than any new developments.
I think that what you say about the post here is also the point of the documentary as well. The informal economy is not new. True. But that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people who haven't noticed or gotten informed details about or can't really put a human face to the victims of societal issues. Sexual assault in Hollywood and Washington DC aren't new, but they have become news to many people in the age of #MeToo. Same with, say, police violence against black men. The point of a round-up can be just to keep things in the conversation long enough for more people to see it/hear about it.
Speaking as someone who is demographically connected to middle- and -upper middle class people (my close friends from high school/college include engineers, pharmacists, managers, lab technicians, lawyers) but who is a supervisor in a workplace much of whose workforce is precariat-adjacent - there's a lot I never knew, and a lot I still don't know, even though I have known what things like "informal economy" and "precariat" are in a Wikipedia-level way for fifteen years now. And even after seven years there I still think of hard work + education = well-paid career + house + retirement as "normal." Because that's still the world I operate in socially, grew up in, etc.
I don't say this in judgement. I regularly find myself rolling my eyes in threads where someone is earnestly explaining something I think of as basic or "of course, we all know that" and I have to mentally remind myself that I didn't know that once and the reason I do now is because someone was talking about it when I strolled past.
The robots are coming for our jobs.
Talk about something people really have been saying forever. My grandfather was ten years younger than I am now when that conversation took place.
posted by AdamCSnider at 4:06 PM on January 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think that what you say about the post here is also the point of the documentary as well. The informal economy is not new. True. But that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people who haven't noticed or gotten informed details about or can't really put a human face to the victims of societal issues. Sexual assault in Hollywood and Washington DC aren't new, but they have become news to many people in the age of #MeToo. Same with, say, police violence against black men. The point of a round-up can be just to keep things in the conversation long enough for more people to see it/hear about it.
Speaking as someone who is demographically connected to middle- and -upper middle class people (my close friends from high school/college include engineers, pharmacists, managers, lab technicians, lawyers) but who is a supervisor in a workplace much of whose workforce is precariat-adjacent - there's a lot I never knew, and a lot I still don't know, even though I have known what things like "informal economy" and "precariat" are in a Wikipedia-level way for fifteen years now. And even after seven years there I still think of hard work + education = well-paid career + house + retirement as "normal." Because that's still the world I operate in socially, grew up in, etc.
I don't say this in judgement. I regularly find myself rolling my eyes in threads where someone is earnestly explaining something I think of as basic or "of course, we all know that" and I have to mentally remind myself that I didn't know that once and the reason I do now is because someone was talking about it when I strolled past.
The robots are coming for our jobs.
Talk about something people really have been saying forever. My grandfather was ten years younger than I am now when that conversation took place.
posted by AdamCSnider at 4:06 PM on January 25, 2019 [2 favorites]
hippybear, your concerns are being shared
No natural force created this intense unfairness. The gulf between the super-rich and the rest of us did not gape wide open overnight. Rather, it has been decades in the widening and it was done deliberately.
and
The Hidden Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite
imply that the answers are not forthcoming, the uncertainty and inequality will not only continue but will be jettisoned
Activisim will not be enough to reverse this, redesign of systems and structures from the people's side of the table is required. But labor and unions have been gutted.
posted by infini at 12:13 AM on January 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
No natural force created this intense unfairness. The gulf between the super-rich and the rest of us did not gape wide open overnight. Rather, it has been decades in the widening and it was done deliberately.
and
The Hidden Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite
imply that the answers are not forthcoming, the uncertainty and inequality will not only continue but will be jettisoned
Activisim will not be enough to reverse this, redesign of systems and structures from the people's side of the table is required. But labor and unions have been gutted.
posted by infini at 12:13 AM on January 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
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posted by crazy with stars at 9:55 AM on January 25, 2019