SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
gig economy
Hope Is Not a Villain—But This Kind of Hope Is
We need a movement ready to restore America to the path of becoming the country we've dreamed of being for centuries. Not the fantasy of individual escape, but the reality of collective power.
Jul 04, 2025
I dropped out of high school. Got my GED. Worked as a general contractor in East Tennessee. Built things with my hands. Fixed busted systems. Lived paycheck to paycheck. That was my life, and for most of it, hope meant something real. Hope that a decent day's work would pay the bills. That a roof over your head and a future for your kids wasn't too much to ask.
But somewhere along the way, hope got hijacked.
Now hope looks like scratching off lottery tickets. Buying crypto hoping to get rich quick. Praying your side hustle turns into the next big thing. We don't hope to fix the system anymore.
We hope to escape it. And that kind of hope will kill us.
You see it everywhere. People identify with billionaires instead of their neighbors. They defend the rich because maybe someday they'll be rich too. They talk about taxes like they're one lucky break away from needing a tax shelter. The Hunger Games tried to warn us, and instead we started dressing like the Capitol.
I don't want to kill hope. I want to reclaim it.
Look at the numbers. The average person has a better chance of getting struck by lightning than becoming a billionaire. The odds of winning the lottery? About 1 in 292 million. Meanwhile, the odds of having medical debt? Nearly 1 in 3 Americans. The odds of being laid off or priced out or wiped out by rent? Closer to 1 in 2.
So why do we still believe? Because facing the truth is harder. The truth that the game is rigged. That the rungs of the ladder we were promised have been sawed off; the American Dream got replaced by American Denial.
Hope used to mean something different. It used to mean collective progress. Solidarity. We marched for better wages. We fought for civil rights. We built schools and unions and co-ops. We didn't dream of becoming the landlord. We fought to make rent fair for everyone. But now even our dreams are privatized. We traded shared ambition for selfish aspiration. And we're losing the plot.
I grew up hearing stories from my grandfather, who was one of 13 kids in a sharecropping family. One generation later, he owned 40 acres, grew tobacco, raised cattle, had houses to rent out to his kids. That wasn't just personal grit. That happened because America was actually building things back then. The TVA brought electricity to our region. The interstate highways connected us to the world. There were pathways to a better life that didn't require winning the lottery.
The pathways to prosperity were dismantled. I know because I watched it happen. My woodworking company made furniture components for Lazy Boy, Berkline, Universal, and Vaughn Furniture before NAFTA and CAFTA gutted us. It wasn't just my business. Our whole region got hollowed out while corporate America chased cheap labor overseas.
The pathways to prosperity were dismantled... Our whole region got hollowed out while corporate America chased cheap labor overseas.
The knowledge walked out the door with the last shift supervisor. Towns that had built middle-class prosperity around making things became ghost towns. Skills that took generations to develop got thrown away because some MBA in New York decided labor was cheaper in Mexico. We went from a country that made things to a country that made money off money. From building wealth to extracting it.
Now what do we have? The gig economy. Work three jobs and still can't afford rent. Get told to hustle harder while billionaires build rocket ships. We're supposed to be grateful for the privilege of driving for Uber while the guy who owns Uber buys his fourth mansion.
The whole system is designed to keep us hoping for individual escape instead of collective change. Keep buying those scratch-offs. Keep believing that if you just work hard enough, grind long enough, maybe you'll hit it big. Meanwhile, the people who rigged the game are laughing all the way to the bank.
They want us to think like temporary embarrassed millionaires instead of permanent working people. They want us to defend their tax cuts because someday we might need them too. They want us to vote against our own interests because we've been sold a dream that we're all just one good idea away from joining the club.
The whole system is designed to keep us hoping for individual escape instead of collective change.
But here's what they don't want us to figure out—we're stronger together than any of us could ever be alone. The TVA didn't happen because one guy got lucky. The interstate highways didn't get built because somebody won the lottery. Social Security didn't happen because workers hoped to get rich. These things happened because people organized, fought, and built something together.
I don't want to kill hope. I want to reclaim it. I want a hope that says we can fix this country, not just get rich enough to escape its problems. I want a hope that builds instead of bets. That organizes instead of idolizes. That sees neighbors instead of competitors.
These things happened because people organized, fought, and built something together.
I want hope that understands we don't need to wait for permission from billionaires to make things better. We don't need to hope they'll trickle some wealth down to us. We can build our own wealth by building things that matter. We can create our own prosperity by investing in each other.
What we need is a movement that's ready to do the big things, the hard things. A movement that understands you have to impeach Supreme Court justices who violate constitutional norms or are corrupt. That you have to take a DOGE-like approach to removing revolving door lobbyists from corrupted institutions like the FDA and the SEC. That you have to go hard against the very people who will stand in your way—the same people we're going to see standing in the way of Zohran Mamdani in New York if he's elected mayor. And too often those folks have a D by their name.
We need a movement ready to restore America to the path of becoming the country we've dreamed of being for centuries. Not the fantasy of individual escape, but the reality of collective power. Not lottery tickets and crypto dreams, but the hard work of building something that actually serves the people who live here.
That's the kind of hope worth having. That's the kind of hope that actually works. And that's the kind of hope that scares the hell out of the people running things now.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Workers Built the Platform Economy, But They’re Not Seeing Its Rewards
By classifying workers as contractors, platform companies avoid paying core employment obligations while retaining tight control over how the work is done.
May 29, 2025
Alejandro G. thought that driving full-time for Uber in Houston offered freedom—flexible hours, quick cash, and time to care for his young son. But that promise faded fast.
“There are hours when I make $20,” he told me. “And there are hours when I make $2.” As his pay dropped, he pawned his computer and camera, began rationing the insulin he takes to manage his diabetes—putting his health at risk—and started driving seven days a week, often late into the night, just to break even.
Alejandro, whose real name is withheld for his privacy, is one of millions of workers powering a billion-dollar labor model built on legal loopholes. Companies like Uber insist they are tech platforms, not employers, and that their workers are independent contractors. This sleight of hand allows them to sidestep minimum wage laws, paid sick leave, and other workplace protections, while shifting the financial risks and responsibilities of employment onto the workers. It also lets them avoid employer taxes, draining funds from public coffers.
If gig workers were properly classified, public companies would have to disclose pay data, showing just how far below the median these workers earn, and how high executive compensation soars above them.
A new Human Rights Watch report looks at seven major platform companies operating in the U.S.—Amazon Flex, DoorDash, Favor, Instacart, Lyft, Shipt, and Uber—and finds that their labor model violates international human rights standards. These companies promise flexibility and opportunity, but the reality for many workers is far more precarious. In a survey of 127 platform workers in Texas, we found that after subtracting expenses and benefits, the median hourly pay was just $5.12, including tips. This is nearly 30% below the federal minimum wage, and about 70% below a living wage in Texas.
Seventy-five percent of workers we surveyed said they had struggled to pay for housing in the past year. Thirty-five percent said they couldn’t cover a $400 emergency expense. Over a third had been in a work-related car accident. Many said they sold possessions, relied on food stamps, or borrowed from family and friends to get by. Their labor keeps the system running—but the system isn’t built to work for them.
By classifying workers as contractors, platform companies avoid paying core employment obligations while retaining tight control over how the work is done. The platforms often use algorithms and automated systems to assign jobs, set pay rates, monitor performance, and deactivate workers without warning. In our survey, 65 workers said they feared being cut off from a platform, and 40 had already experienced it. Nearly half were later cleared of wrongdoing.
Companies use incentives that feel like rewards but function more like traps. Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash dangle “quests,” “challenges,” and “surges” to push workers to stay on a shift for longer or hit quotas. These schemes lure workers into chasing bonuses that rarely reflect the true cost of the work. One Uber driver in Houston said, “They are like puppet masters. They psychologically manipulate you.”
Access to higher-paying gigs is also conditioned on behavior. Platforms use customer ratings and performance scores to shape who gets the best jobs. One Shipt worker in Michigan said her pay plummeted immediately after she received two four-star reviews, down from her usual five. Ratings are hard to challenge, and recovering from a low score can take weeks. Workers feel forced to accept every job and appease every customer, reinforcing a system that rewards compliance over fairness.
These aren’t the conditions of self-employment. They’re the conditions of control.
This labor model also drains public resources. In Texas alone, Human Rights Watch estimates that misclassification of platform workers in ride share, food delivery, and in-home services cost the state over $111 million in unemployment insurance contributions between 2020 and 2022. These are public funds that could have strengthened social protection or public services. Instead, they’re absorbed into corporate profits—a quiet transfer of public wealth into private hands.
In 2024, Uber reported $43.9 billion in revenue and nearly $10 billion in net income, calling the fourth quarter its “strongest ever.” DoorDash pulled in $10.72 billion, up 24% from the previous year. Combined, their market valuation exceeds $250 billion.
But workers are pushing back, and policymakers are starting to listen. From June 2 to 13, the 113th session of the International Labour Conference—the United Nations-backed forum where global labor standards are negotiated—will convene to debate a binding treaty on decent work in the platform economy. The message is clear: Workers are demanding rules that protect their rights.
The U.S. can start by updating employment classification standards and adopting clear criteria to determine whether a platform worker is truly independent. We also need greater transparency. If gig workers were properly classified, public companies would have to disclose pay data, showing just how far below the median these workers earn, and how high executive compensation soars above them.
This isn’t about rejecting technology. It’s about making sure new forms of work don’t replicate old forms of exploitation or create new ones, by hiding them behind an app.
Alejandro doesn’t need an algorithm to tell him when to work harder. He has a right to a wage he can live on, protections he can count on, and a system that doesn’t punish him for getting sick, injured, or speaking up.
He and millions like him built the platform economy. It’s time they shared more than the burden.
Keep ReadingShow Less
New Report Sheds Light on the Pitfalls of AI-Powered 'Gig Nursing'
"These apps are a symptom of broken healthcare infrastructure that is now victim to corporate takeovers. Failing to act on both fronts poses risks to our healthcare system and the workers who power it," wrote one of the researchers.
Dec 17, 2024
While gig work is fairly common in a number of sectors in the American economy, a brief released Tuesday by the progressive-leaning think tank the Roosevelt Institute details how the gig model now has its tentacles in the healthcare industry, and argues it is creating new hazards for workers and patients.
The brief, authored by Groundwork Collaborative fellow Katie Wells and King's College London lecturer Funda Ustek Spilda, sounds the alarm over "on-demand nursing firms" such as CareRev, Clipboard Health, ShiftKey, ShiftMed, and others which have gained traction by promising hospitals more control and nurses and nursing assistants more flexibility.
Practically speaking, these "new Uber-style apps use algorithmic scheduling, staffing, and management technologies—software often touted by companies as cutting-edge 'AI,' or artificial intelligence—to connect understaffed medical facilities with nearby nurses and nursing assistants looking for work," according to the brief.
The authors, whose research was largely based on interviews with 29 gig nurses, argued that these apps "encourage nurses to work for less pay," do not offer nurses clarity when it comes to scheduling and amount or type of work, are not sufficiently concerned with worker safety, and "can threaten patient well-being by placing nurses in unfamiliar clinical environments with no onboarding or facility training."
These platforms are also using the same tactics as the ride-hailing service Uber when it comes to lobbying state legislatures in order to shield themselves from labor regulations, according to the authors, who noted that larger hospital systems in the country have included gig nurses in their operations since 2016.
The researchers argued that while the rates on a platform like ShiftKey can be higher for nurses and nurses assistants, nursing on-demand platforms can create a race to the bottom for wages: "The nurses and nursing assistants who use these apps must pay fees to bid on shifts, and they win those bids by offering to work for lower hourly rates than their fellow workers."
When the nursing on-demand firms classify the workers as self-employed, nurses and nursing assistants are also exposed to higher risk because they are "excluded from the protections of local, state, and federal law on minimum wage, overtime pay, workers' compensation, retirement benefits, employment-based health insurance, and paid sick days."
Workers are also rated based on facility feedback and determinations made by the algorithm, and can be penalized if they cancel a shift because they are sick or have a conflict, per the report.
"In at least one case, a nursing assistant went into work at a hospital while sick with Covid-19 because she could not figure out how to cancel a shift without lowering her rating," according to the authors.
By way of background, the authors of the brief also argue that the often-invoked "nursing shortage" is actually misleading term. In fact, there is no shortage of available nurses and nursing assistants, but rather a "growing number of nurses and nursing assistants who refuse to accept chronically understaffed, underpaid, unsafe, and high-stress workplaces," according to the brief, which cites outside research.
In fact, many of the workers interviewed said they would continue working for nursing on demand services because broadly speaking they like the work. According to the brief, interviewees said "over and over again how important flexible schedules are to their lives, especially their own caregiving, be it for children, spouses, or elders"—though the authors of the study wrote that this does not mean the concerns expressed by the workers are not worth paying attention to.
The rise of gig nursing is taking place on the backdrop of increasing corporate ownership over the healthcare industry writ large, including the rise of private equity ownership of medical facilities and medical staffing agencies.
"Policymakers need to be proactive and step in to regulate these platforms and provide proper labor protections for all nurses, gig and non-gig alike," said Wells in a Tuesday statement. "But these apps are a symptom of broken healthcare infrastructure that is now victim to corporate takeovers. Failing to act on both fronts poses risks to our healthcare system and the workers who power it."
Wells also told The Guardian that the gig companies don't release data and the industry is unregulated, meaning the true extent to which the U.S. healthcare system is leaning on gig nurses is unknown—but she said it is clearly a growing trend.
These on-demand nursing apps can also have a negative impact on patients, according to sources the authors spoke with. One nurse recounted that "there have been times when I've been unable to access patient records or find supply closets."
"Other workers report that the lack of management and resources can result in major safety lapses for patients, such as gig nurses not being able to get updated information on patient medications or instructions about whether patients need help with feeding," the authors wrote.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular