Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Story highlights David Wheeler: Silicon Valley doesn’t create jobs; it’s wiping out middle-class jobs Young college graduates are struggling with lack of jobs, yet many still idolize Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is tossing millennials aside like yesterday’s laptop. The commonly held belief is that with hard work and a good education, a young person in…
This statistic provides a pretty compelling snapshot of the severity of our income gap: In 2014, Wall Street’s bonus pool was roughly double the combined earnings of all Americans working full-time jobs at minimum wage. That sobering tidbit came from a new Institute for Policy Studies report by Sarah Anderson, who looked at new figures from the…
We don’t normally think of unpaid work as relevant to the economy. Housework – the cycle of cooking, cleaning, wiping, soothing, ironing that forms the daily life of so many women around the world (and yes, the emergence of the New Man notwithstanding, it is still women who do the vast bulk of unpaid work)…
(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) Last week was the first ever National Adjunct Walkout Day, a grassroots protest to push for fair pay and better working conditions. Protests and teach-ins took place on as many as 100 campuses nationwide, prompting at least one university to create a task force to address labor concerns. It’s little wonder that a national movement has sprung up…
Last month I turned in my badge and my iPad at CFO.com, after a year plus slightly less than 6 months. A few days earlier, my then-girlfriend had been downsized from her company in a consolidation. So I’ve been spending some time thinking about the economics of work. The last decade has seen the rise…
Timing is everything. And for Joe Moser the timing was bad. He graduated from the University of Iowa’s law school in 2011, one of the worst years to graduate from law school ever. He worked as a bartender in St. Louis, Missouri, while applying for jobs. It took about a year for him to land…
The mental effects of long-term unemployment could make you less confident on the job hunt. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Long periods of unemployment drain our bank accounts and weaken the economy. New research suggests extended joblessness could also dampen our personalities. And that can make it harder to find more work. A study published this month in…
A Starbucks barista’s job is more than just serving coffee. She also needs to be polite, even friendly, to the customers. If she does her job correctly, then maybe the customer will walk away feeling like the barista was actually happy to serve him—that it was not only her job, but a genuine pleasure. In…
Photo The Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., has had a flurry of union activity the past year. This week, workers seeking an alternative to the U.A.W. succeeded in having their group officially recognized by the German automaker. Credit Erik Schelzig/Associated Press Like many Americans, I’ve been wary of labor unions. Full-time union stagehands at Carnegie…
Remember how workers were supposed to retire and open up higher positions and jobs for young people to move in to? That’s not happening because retirement is basically dead! Instead we’ll get grayternships, where older workers who would normally have retired now will get transformed in to bankers who I AM SURE will do trustworthy…