Daily Clips: April 6th, 2016
The gig economy is powered by old people: Here at Skunk Works we are fascinated with the promise and the perils of the gig economy. If you don’t know our opinions on the matter, you should listen to our podcast episode on the subject — it gives a great overview.
Today, Bloomberg View highlighted a recent study by Lawrence F. Katz and Alan Krueger which finds, among other things, that the growth of the gig economy is actually “being driven not so much by struggling millennials lining up gigs online as by 60-year-olds working as independent contractors.”
What’s unclear, they say, “is whether they’re doing this because they’re semi-retired and value freedom and flexibility, or because they’ve been downsized out of a full-time, full-benefit job and have to settle for contract work.”
Two schools of economic thinking have for many years been engaged in a debate about the potential effects of automation on jobs, employment and human activity: Will new technology spawn mass unemployment, as the robots take jobs away from humans? Or will the jobs robots take over release or unveil—or even create—demand for new human jobs?
When the poor move, do they move up?
…the federal government still does very little to incentivize racially and economically integrated neighborhoods—chiefly because of the political peril involved, but also because scholars and housing experts have failed to resolve whether promoting integrated neighborhoods would even be desirable or beneficial. A wave of new research, however, is helping to settle the experts’ debate, and may pave the way to fulfilling the Fair Housing Act’s original promise.
Tweet of the day:
78% support. Among business owners. For secure scheduling. According to a Republican pollster. https://t.co/Wz8PxNJp08
— Working Washington (@workingwa) April 6, 2016
