Perspectives on the "Sharing/Gig Economy"

According to Steven Hill’s new book Raw Deal: How the “Uber Economy” and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers (St. Martin’s Press), the US workforce is undergoing an alarming transformation. Increasing numbers of workers are being turned into contractors, freelancers, temps and “just-in-time” part-timers. Add to that the steamroller of automation and robots obsolescing millions of jobs, and the jobs picture starts looking grim. Now an insidious mash-up of Silicon Valley technology and Wall Street greed has produced the latest economic fraud: the so-called “sharing economy,” with companies like Uber, Airbnb and TaskRabbit providing ever-smaller jobs (“gigs” and “micro-gigs”) and wages, while the companies profit handsomely in the “share the crumbs” economy.

Steven Hill challenges the hype celebrating this new economy. He shows why the vision of Silicon Valley leaders and their Ayn Rand libertarianism is a dead end. Hill proposes pragmatic policy solutions to transform the US economy and its safety net, launching a new kind of deal to restore power to US workers.

Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event.

If you're a member of the press, please RSVP to news@epi.org.  

Participants:

Steven Hill  @StevenHill1776 
Senior Fellow in the Economic Growth Program at New America
Author, Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers 

Lawrence Mishel  @EconomicPolicy
President, Economic Policy Institute