Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKF Daily with Meet
Speaker 1: your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know, there is right now a movement of sorts
Speaker 1: that is taking place, and I use the word movement
Speaker 1: because I really do pray that it isn't just a moment.
Speaker 1: And what I'm referring to for this episode is the
Speaker 1: movement around workers' rights, the recognition that I think workers
Speaker 1: across industries, across the country are realizing about their day
Speaker 1: to day productivity not aligning with the return that they're
Speaker 1: getting for their blood, sweat and tears on the job. Sure,
Speaker 1: there are more jobs that are more laborious than others,
Speaker 1: ones that during the pandemic were deemed as essential, which
Speaker 1: just meant that other more privileged, more resourced people got
Speaker 1: to stay at home. But as time is faded from
Speaker 1: that quarantine moment, it seems as if we have forgotten
Speaker 1: about workers once again. And I say that believing that
Speaker 1: we all have good intentions right of tipping service workers,
Speaker 1: of treating people with kindness and empathy. But there is
Speaker 1: a detachment that takes place right and there's a chasm
Speaker 1: that I think that is being built between the haves
Speaker 1: and the have nots in this country, and there are
Speaker 1: multiple levels. And I get into a conversation today with
Speaker 1: Alexandria Revenel, who is a professor at UNC and author
Speaker 1: of the book Side Hustle Safety Net, and you know,
Speaker 1: in our conversation, Alexandria talks about this idea that we
Speaker 1: have that is an old narrative in our mind about
Speaker 1: the service worker around if you take you back in
Speaker 1: your particular state or city, around the fight for fifteen
Speaker 1: right to raise the minimum wage. And there's always been
Speaker 1: this idea that why does the minimum wage need to
Speaker 1: be raised because the peace people that are working in
Speaker 1: low wage jobs are largely high schoolers, right that live
Speaker 1: at home with their families, and these are their summer
Speaker 1: jobs or holiday jobs. The reality is that is not
Speaker 1: the case, right, that a lot of low wage workers
Speaker 1: has families, need health insurance, need time off to be
Speaker 1: able to go to the doctors, to care for themselves,
Speaker 1: to care for others. But the way in the stories,
Speaker 1: the way that we've thought about this and the stories
Speaker 1: that the media has upheld with regard to low wage
Speaker 1: workers needs to be disrupted, you know, And I think
Speaker 1: about how grateful we were right to those delivery people
Speaker 1: so that we could stay inside as they brought us
Speaker 1: our packages and our food and allowed us to continue functioning.
Speaker 1: Why they were literally on the front lines of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I think about all of the workers who are unable
Speaker 1: right to do their work from home remotely, and I
Speaker 1: think that during that time and now is many people
Speaker 1: are still working from home, myself included. You know, whether
Speaker 1: or not that's full time, part or part of the week,
Speaker 1: are able to be at home. There are millions of
Speaker 1: people whose jobs require them to be in person, and frankly,
Speaker 1: in our larger ecosystem, we need them to be in person.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that then those people are worth
Speaker 1: less and shouldn't be paid and provided with the opportunities
Speaker 1: to live full, whole, complete lives. So right now we're
Speaker 1: witness saying what I hope is a movement, a worker's
Speaker 1: movement that has seen CEOs and shareholders receive extraordinary kickbacks,
Speaker 1: build extraordinary wealth in the last several years. Why they
Speaker 1: haven't seen their wages increase at all. And Alexandria, in
Speaker 1: her book and in this conversation gets into the bit
Speaker 1: of reprieve right that the Cares Act and other policies
Speaker 1: that were put forward during the height of COVID that
Speaker 1: gave people breathing room, that showed us the actual function
Speaker 1: of government is to be able to use our tax
Speaker 1: dollars to actually help each other and ourselves, not just
Speaker 1: put bills into defense. We get into a conversation about
Speaker 1: opening up around basic income and what that could potentially
Speaker 1: look like. What we thought was this far off, you know,
Speaker 1: leftist idea could actually transform how society functions. So coming
Speaker 1: up next my conversation with Alexandria Revenel, author of Side
Speaker 1: Hustle Safety Net. Folks, I am very excited to welcome
Speaker 1: to OKF Daily for the very first time. UNC professor
Speaker 1: and author of the book Side Hustle Safety Net, How
Speaker 1: Vulnerable Workers Survive Precarious Times. Alexandria Ravenel, Let's start off
Speaker 1: with you know, every time that I talk with people
Speaker 1: who focus on labor and focus on workers, I go
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of the pandemic, Alexandria, and I
Speaker 1: know that your book goes back way, you know, further
Speaker 1: than that, you know, into the beginning of like of workers'
Speaker 1: rights and these things. But I go back to the
Speaker 1: beginning of the pandemic, when we were all applauding essential workers,
Speaker 1: the delivery people that were dropping off our sixty five
Speaker 1: Amazon packages a day, the delivery folks that were dropping
Speaker 1: off our food so that we could stay home, those
Speaker 1: of us that were privileged enough to do so. I
Speaker 1: think it was the only time when I believe that
Speaker 1: we were cognizant of those people who were putting their
Speaker 1: lives on the line so that the rest of us
Speaker 1: could be healthy, somewhat at peace at home, right, Alexandria.
Speaker 1: That lasted for a about a hot five minutes.
Speaker 2: Yes, it did, and then we went right back into
Speaker 2: ignoring those workers and not tipping them or tip baiting them,
Speaker 2: and to the companies continuing to exploit these workers.
Speaker 1: You know. And the other day, I live in New York, right,
Speaker 1: and there is legislation that is being pushed right now
Speaker 1: to make the e bikes that all of the delivery
Speaker 1: and people who don't know in New York City, our
Speaker 1: delivery drivers do not drive cars. So when it is winter,
Speaker 1: when it is you know, twenty degrees outside, they are
Speaker 1: on bicycles or e bikes. And there's a legislation being
Speaker 1: pushed right now to make those free because again they're
Speaker 1: the ones paying for these bicycles so that they can
Speaker 1: work right, and to make them safe because they also explode,
Speaker 1: just killed and have killed people. So I say all
Speaker 1: of this to kind of lay the context that like,
Speaker 1: I don't understand how people who work can be anti worker,
Speaker 1: and I just want to, you know, for you to
Speaker 1: walk us through this kind of side hustle that we
Speaker 1: have believed. I guess over the last several years that well,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just extra money that these that
Speaker 1: the drivers, the delivery folks that this that that are doing,
Speaker 1: and so they don't really need protections because they got
Speaker 1: protections in their quote unquote real jobs. So talk to
Speaker 1: us about the lie of the side hustle gig economy
Speaker 1: and what your book lays out for us.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Well, first of all, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for having me. I'm so excited to get a chance
Speaker 2: to talk about this. So, you know, in the US,
Speaker 2: we are in a little bit of denial about who
Speaker 2: our workers are and what their experiences are actually. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, for years people have been like, oh, well
Speaker 2: you don't need to pay the wage workers very much
Speaker 2: because it's high school students. But in reality, we know
Speaker 2: that about a third of minimum wage workers actually are
Speaker 2: adults with families. Right, Like, this is not just the
Speaker 2: days of that just being a high schooler's job that
Speaker 2: is done. And especially when it comes to these gig workers,
Speaker 2: you know, I blame put some of the blame on
Speaker 2: these platforms. For years, they've talked about, oh, the flexibility,
Speaker 2: make your be your own boss, make your own salary,
Speaker 2: and people have really bit into that, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a side hustle, it's something else. But they don't
Speaker 2: realize is a lot of times on these platforms, the
Speaker 2: only way you can make any money is if you
Speaker 2: actually devote all of your time to doing this. You know,
Speaker 2: most of those delivery workers, whether they are on these
Speaker 2: e bikes in New York or they're in cars and
Speaker 2: their places, they spend a lot of their time sitting
Speaker 2: around waiting for gigs. I'm in New York, I walk
Speaker 2: through the parks and I see these collections of they're
Speaker 2: generally young men sitting there waiting or rides and.
Speaker 3: Hopefully they're grabbing some food.
Speaker 2: And you can see when the dinner or lunch rush starts,
Speaker 2: they all, you know, their phones start pinging and they
Speaker 2: are off on these e bikes and they are really
Speaker 2: exposed to the elements. You know, the ones that are
Speaker 2: on e bikes you often see like the pouches around
Speaker 2: the handlebars and like garbage bags to try and protect
Speaker 2: their hands as they're out and about, and they're not
Speaker 2: always wearing helmets, and you know, it's the bikes are
Speaker 2: getting stolen, and oftentimes even those bikes, they are paying
Speaker 2: to rent them, or they've paid for them out of
Speaker 2: their own pocket.
Speaker 3: And it's just more and more money coming.
Speaker 2: Right out of out of their earnings, which they're already
Speaker 2: getting sort of you know, hand overhand, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's it's so interesting because I think that you know,
Speaker 1: when we had our attention focused right, and that was
Speaker 1: you know, for lack of a better term, the beauty
Speaker 1: of the pandemic for those of us again that were
Speaker 1: privileged enough to slow down and to be indoors, is
Speaker 1: to kind of see this larger ecosystem Alexandria that we
Speaker 1: exist inside of that we don't really pay attention to.
Speaker 1: That in order for us to be able to live
Speaker 1: and survive, we need other people. We need other people
Speaker 1: that are able to do the jobs that either we
Speaker 1: don't have the time to do or frankly don't want
Speaker 1: to do, but have the resources to pay those people
Speaker 1: out right. We never think, though, when I, for instance,
Speaker 1: them going into the nail salon to go and get
Speaker 1: my nails done every week, whether or not the tip
Speaker 1: that I'm providing is actually going to that person, right
Speaker 1: or a portion a larger portion is coming out of
Speaker 1: their pocket. Anytime I'm in new cities and I'm getting
Speaker 1: an uber or a lyft, I ask them about what
Speaker 1: portion of the ride that they're actually taking home? Is
Speaker 1: this the only job that you have? How long are
Speaker 1: you out? How many rides do you get? What does
Speaker 1: an average day bring in? Not because as I'm nosy,
Speaker 1: I mean partly that, but because I genuinely am interested
Speaker 1: in how people survive in really expensive cities right without
Speaker 1: any safety net at all? And so what do you
Speaker 1: find one to be the biggest lie about the side
Speaker 1: hustle that you want a myth that you want to bust.
Speaker 1: But also why, Alexandria, is there such a damn disconnect
Speaker 1: between and a growing disconnect right between the haves and
Speaker 1: the have nots, and the have more and the have
Speaker 1: you know, beyond more right, Like, there is just this
Speaker 1: growing disconnect and I want to understand how you understand
Speaker 1: it through your research.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for asking that. So I think the biggest
Speaker 2: myth is this idea of flexibility that you have to
Speaker 2: give up security, income security, job security in order to
Speaker 2: have flexibility. You know, people who work for Corporate America,
Speaker 2: they can go to the dentists in the middle of
Speaker 2: the day, they can work early, they can work like
Speaker 2: especially now, where you know they might spend half of
Speaker 2: their week working remotely. We have flexibility. Companies make a
Speaker 2: conscious decision to deny flexibility to their worst paid workers,
Speaker 2: to their lowest status workers. And so you have these
Speaker 2: gig platforms that come in and say, hey, we will
Speaker 2: give you flexibility, but you're not gonna have any workplace protections.
Speaker 2: You're not going to have a secure income. You're not
Speaker 2: going to know how much you're getting made, how much
Speaker 2: you're going to get paid, because even if you think
Speaker 2: that the platforms are taking a certain percentage, sometimes they're
Speaker 2: changing the percentage and they don't want to tell you that.
Speaker 2: And so you see these workers that are like, well,
Speaker 2: I can't get a sufficient number of hours. My paycheck
Speaker 2: is stagnating, expenses are going up, Inflation is high, gas
Speaker 2: prices are skyrocketing, and so they turn to these side
Speaker 2: hustles because they view it as something they can sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, put in here and there. But the reality
Speaker 2: is that that work's not always available when you want it.
Speaker 2: Let's say you want to do food delivery during so
Speaker 2: called mother's hours, right, kids are in school nine two
Speaker 2: nine until three, But in reality, there an't gonna be
Speaker 2: whole lot of deliveries during those hours. And so even
Speaker 2: when workers kind of have it's just like a back
Speaker 2: of mind safety net that they can turn to gigwork,
Speaker 2: it really isn't. And in terms of your question about inequality,
Speaker 2: you know, I think I think we've seen a couple
Speaker 2: of different things here. We've seen that the companies that
Speaker 2: have W two workers are paying them more to be competitive,
Speaker 2: They're giving them additional benefits, and we're seeing that this
Speaker 2: sort of second tier of workers, at least in view
Speaker 2: of the company's eyes, they're kind of that reserve labor
Speaker 2: force in sociology terms, right.
Speaker 3: They are there to kind.
Speaker 2: Of bear the burden and to have their work sort
Speaker 2: of subsidized. The wages of these typically middle class and
Speaker 2: upper middle class professional workers, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting because I think that when you
Speaker 1: piece together the fact that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: looking for these quote unquote side hustles, but not as
Speaker 1: not in a way where it was to turn your
Speaker 1: passion into your profession, right, because again I think that
Speaker 1: this is another big misnomer, right, like, oh, I'm doing
Speaker 1: this to turn my passion into my profession. Well, where
Speaker 1: in reality, people are having to get two and three
Speaker 1: jobs so that they can have ends meet, So they
Speaker 1: have the one job that they may not like, but
Speaker 1: that's the one that gives them health care, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't give them flexibility or enough hours to be able
Speaker 1: to make ends meet, pay rent, pay a mortgage, right,
Speaker 1: more likely rent than a mortgage at this at this place.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder when we're looking at this and
Speaker 1: even like you would highlighted before the fight for fifteen
Speaker 1: that happened in major cities, even my own parents, who
Speaker 1: live in the suburbs of New York were and who
Speaker 1: are arguably progressive, said to me, well, my mother is,
Speaker 1: but he said to me, you know, why do people
Speaker 1: need fifteen dollars an hour? When I was working as
Speaker 1: a kid, I was making X, Y and Z, and
Speaker 1: I said, because the lie which you aired out. But
Speaker 1: I kind of want to go digging deep into this
Speaker 1: because there's a narrative change that also needs to happen
Speaker 1: around how we think about workers and who is working.
Speaker 1: Is this idea that it is just kids that need
Speaker 1: a summer job, just you know, young people that are
Speaker 1: starting wow, when in fact I just saw recently that
Speaker 1: there are a third of New Yorkers that are paying
Speaker 1: fifty percent of their earnings to rent.
Speaker 2: Yes, New Yorkers are famously rent poor.
Speaker 3: They spend way too much of their money, way too
Speaker 3: much of.
Speaker 2: Their income on rent because housing prices here are so expensive.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, you do see these people that are
Speaker 2: working multiple jobs.
Speaker 3: I call it poly.
Speaker 2: Employment, this idea of working, yes, polly employment inspired by
Speaker 2: one of my respondents who was polyamorous, and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: have you got that many lovers and you got that
Speaker 2: many jobs?
Speaker 3: That's an interesting combination.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so you have these workers that have this
Speaker 2: poly employment, and this poly employment sometimes we hear it
Speaker 2: referred to as like hyphenated workers. It can mean lots
Speaker 2: of different things. You might be a creative freelancer, who
Speaker 2: has six different freelance clients. Well, guess what when you
Speaker 2: try to go for unemployment or you try to go
Speaker 2: for an apartment, having that many different sources of income
Speaker 2: actually complicates.
Speaker 3: Things a lot.
Speaker 2: Well, you lost one client, so do you still do
Speaker 2: you get unemployment? No, you probably don't because you're still
Speaker 2: quote working.
Speaker 3: We also see that.
Speaker 2: This poly employment really complicates things in terms of when
Speaker 2: people are making their money. So you have six different employers,
Speaker 2: you might end up getting, you know, paid on Tuesday
Speaker 2: this week, and maybe next week you're paid on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: or maybe they figure, well you're freelance, right, we don't
Speaker 2: have to pay you on time. That's the whole point
Speaker 2: behind the like freelance isn't free campaign from the freelancers Union.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, it's really tough.
Speaker 2: And you know, even let's just take a moment back.
Speaker 2: Even if let's say all these minim wage workers were
Speaker 2: high schoolers, what makes us think that it's okay to
Speaker 2: exploit high schoolers? Right? Like? Why these are not these
Speaker 2: are not easy jobs? Right, You're not sitting behind a desk,
Speaker 2: you're flipping burgers, you're in a hot restaurant, you're working
Speaker 2: doing all these different jobs, Like, let's pay people for
Speaker 2: how important that job is. Let's pay them based on
Speaker 2: what that job is worth and not sit They're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I mean it reminds me of kind of what we
Speaker 2: used to say about like women's wages back in the
Speaker 2: eighteen hundred, yeah, early nineteenth right, Like right, you don't
Speaker 2: need the money.
Speaker 1: Because they have husbands, right, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: No, you know what people ought to be paid for
Speaker 2: what they're doing, and their race, their sex, their age
Speaker 2: should not factor into how much they're getting paid.
Speaker 1: Why do you think, Alexandria, that we are experiencing right
Speaker 1: now this strike movement right where it is, It is
Speaker 1: happening across industries, just as right before I signed on
Speaker 1: to here, UAW is expanding or strike by five thousand,
Speaker 1: you know, by five thousand more workers. They've been kind
Speaker 1: of doing this trickling, right of shutting down different different cities,
Speaker 1: different plants at different times. But we've seen it everywhere
Speaker 1: from auto workers to writers to actors. We've seen it
Speaker 1: with teachers, we've seen it in the healthcare industry, all
Speaker 1: in the in the past few years, right, and when
Speaker 1: I say few, I mean like the past three So
Speaker 1: what like, what do you believe as somebody that has
Speaker 1: been studying this is sparking it, and like is is
Speaker 1: this Is it a movement or is it a moment?
Speaker 3: That's a good question.
Speaker 2: So people aren't stupid, right, Like we had the pandemic,
Speaker 2: and two things happen. One, people realize like you could
Speaker 2: get you could get knocked out by a virus, right,
Speaker 2: you could die from this, you could end up with
Speaker 2: long COVID, you could simply just end up really sick.
Speaker 2: And the other thing that happens is we have this
Speaker 2: Cares Act. We give people unemployed, We give them some
Speaker 2: of the most generous unemployment in the world. During the
Speaker 2: Cares Act, right, seventy six percent of recipients of unemployment
Speaker 2: between April and July twenty twenty are making more on
Speaker 2: unemployment that they have been making while working. And they're
Speaker 2: making that money. They're receiving that money without having to
Speaker 2: go and endanger themselves, without having to leave home, withouting
Speaker 2: to pay for dry cleaning work, lunches, et cet relevant
Speaker 2: to commute the.
Speaker 3: Whole nine yards.
Speaker 2: People use that time to rest, to reflect, to reset.
Speaker 2: You know my books I'd Hustle Safety and it is
Speaker 2: based on one hundred and ninety nine respondents. So we
Speaker 2: interviewed multiple times throughout the pandemic, and over and over again,
Speaker 2: people said, you know what, I got, this Cares Act money.
Speaker 2: And I decided, I'm going to spend time really thinking
Speaker 2: about what i want to do when this pandemic. I
Speaker 2: want to think about my career. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: work with people I don't want to work with. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna take on projects that I want to take on.
Speaker 2: And yeah, if people had small children, they had to
Speaker 2: teach at home and run everything. That was very stressful.
Speaker 2: But when this money came in, it let people sort
Speaker 2: of get a glimpse of what life could be, get
Speaker 2: a glimpse of that, like, you know, upper middle class
Speaker 2: professional life where the money is coming in every week
Speaker 2: and the bills are good and you can work remote,
Speaker 2: and like, I think it gave people just enough of
Speaker 2: a taste. And then we go back into this like
Speaker 2: oh back you know, business as usual, and people are like,
Speaker 2: oh no, no, no, no no. I chased the promise land.
Speaker 2: I want the promise Land. And you know, as you
Speaker 2: brought up yourself right, we were recognizing workers in New York.
Speaker 3: We were clapping every night, at seven pm.
Speaker 2: And I think that people realize, wait, we can come together,
Speaker 2: and if we can come together and we'ren't happy with work,
Speaker 2: the answer is a strike. The answer is union organizing.
Speaker 2: The answer is labor taking on some of the the
Speaker 2: biggest approval ratings that we have seen in decades.
Speaker 1: You know what I think too, also happened during that
Speaker 1: time again for those that were privileged enough to have
Speaker 1: some rest and reflection, is also this idea that we
Speaker 1: watched how wealthy people became uber wealthy, right, like there
Speaker 1: was it. There is such a And you tell me
Speaker 1: because I grew up during the time of you know,
Speaker 1: lifestyles of the rich and famous, of remembering seeing that,
Speaker 1: you know, come across the television screen in my grandparents' home.
Speaker 1: I you know, there have always been rich people, right,
Speaker 1: There's always been people that have had more than everybody else.
Speaker 1: What do you think though, that it is about this
Speaker 1: current cycle of wealth that is producing this type of
Speaker 1: pushback in anger that is different from other points in
Speaker 1: our history.
Speaker 2: So, you know, one of the things we did with
Speaker 2: interviewing these one hundred and ninety nine workers, we interviewed
Speaker 2: them very early in the pandemic, beginning in April twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: we have this paper. Some of us are in yachts
Speaker 2: and some of us are in Dinghy's. And what happened,
Speaker 2: especially in the New York area, is that, you know,
Speaker 2: all the low age workers were stuck in New York, right,
Speaker 2: It's like Hurricane Katrina all over again. You don't have
Speaker 2: a car, you don't have a beach house, you don't
Speaker 2: have anywhere to go to. And all the wealthier people,
Speaker 2: all the you know, the owners of those restaurants, all
Speaker 2: of Wall Street, they all fleeted their second homes. And
Speaker 2: so many of my respondents were like, I'm abandoned, Like
Speaker 2: they literally just left, and we're like, yeah, catch it later.
Speaker 2: I hope you'd make it through this. And so I
Speaker 2: think for a lot of people, it was this strong
Speaker 2: realization that you know, for most workers, we really are
Speaker 2: just kind of cogs in the machine, like there is
Speaker 2: isn't there's no one really looking out for you.
Speaker 3: And I think that.
Speaker 2: Sense of sort of being abandoned during you know, in
Speaker 2: the early days of the pandemic, it was like something
Speaker 2: out of a horror movie, right, Like the streets are empty,
Speaker 2: people are scared, you're just hearing sirens and so I
Speaker 2: think for a lot of people that was really kind
Speaker 2: of energizing in a sense of like we need.
Speaker 3: To fight back. I think it is. I think what
Speaker 3: we are.
Speaker 2: Seeing now is going to lead, I hope, to just
Speaker 2: major change going forward.
Speaker 1: I think that we are living in, and you're writing
Speaker 1: on and reporting on a really interesting time. I don't
Speaker 1: know where we will be five and ten and fifteen
Speaker 1: years from now in terms of whether or not we're
Speaker 1: able to glean at that point with some distance, whether
Speaker 1: or not this really is a movement or if it
Speaker 1: is a fleeting moment. But what I do recognize is
Speaker 1: that how wealthy people have become has created this lack
Speaker 1: of empathy and this detachment from humanity in a way
Speaker 1: that again I have not seen before in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: And I think that just the imagery that you created
Speaker 1: just now of here are the uber wealthy that fled
Speaker 1: right that literally were able to go to their country homes,
Speaker 1: go to their Hampton homes, go to wherever else because
Speaker 1: the outdoors were safe and they had real estate in
Speaker 1: those outdoors. But for everyone else who were in studio
Speaker 1: apartments with multiple people, that were fine when we were
Speaker 1: all going to work in school at different times, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you felt the constriction, you felt the strain,
Speaker 1: and I think it just became ever like a parent,
Speaker 1: and that kind of that imagery I think has stayed
Speaker 1: with us, you know now years later. So final thoughts
Speaker 1: for you on what you hope folks will will take
Speaker 1: from your book side Hostle safety Net.
Speaker 2: So one of the things I'm hoping people take is
Speaker 2: this idea that you know, we gave people money during
Speaker 2: the pandemic and people were able to use that money
Speaker 2: for positive things. Right. We often have this idea of like, oh,
Speaker 2: the scariest sentence is like I'm from the government, I'm
Speaker 2: here to help. But it actually turns out that government
Speaker 2: money can be a game changer, especially for workers who
Speaker 2: are struggling. So workers were able to open businesses, they
Speaker 2: were able to return to school, Some of them left
Speaker 2: gig work far far behind and ended up becoming things
Speaker 2: like communityhabilitation specialists helping individuals with disabilities to transition into
Speaker 2: being independent in society on their own. And so you know,
Speaker 2: this was this was a really positive thing, and I
Speaker 2: think that, if anything, it really kind of gives a
Speaker 2: lot of credence towards various programs for basic income, for
Speaker 2: guaranteed income. Because if these are the things that people
Speaker 2: can accomplish during a hopefully once in a generation pandemic,
Speaker 2: how many more incredible things could people accomplish if it
Speaker 2: was safe to go and congregate with people, if you
Speaker 2: you know, didn't weren't under orders or suggestions to stay
Speaker 2: at home or to stay out of, you know, places
Speaker 2: where you were collecting with other people. So I think
Speaker 2: that there's there's a really strong case to be made
Speaker 2: here for a lot of sort of government support for
Speaker 2: everyone in order to sort of equalize the playing field
Speaker 2: and allow people to move forward in their careers and
Speaker 2: then their lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that it would be great to
Speaker 1: not you know, punish people for being in poverty, and
Speaker 1: to not punish people for being workers, the very people
Speaker 1: that make our country move. So Alexandria, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for making the time to join wokef folks. The
Speaker 1: book is side Hustle, Safety Net, How vulnerable workers survive
Speaker 1: precarious times. It is out, pick it up, discuss it
Speaker 1: because that is how we turn these moments into movements.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you, thank you. That is it for me today,
Speaker 1: Dear friends on woke. Af as always power to the
Speaker 1: people and to all the people.
Speaker 2: Power.
Speaker 1: Get woke and stay woke as fuck.