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The $80 Million Acre (from “How We Survive”)
Nov 14, 2023 33 min

The $80 Million Acre (from “How We Survive”)

This week, we’re dropping into your feeds to tell you about another podcast we make here at Marketplace that we think Uncertain Hour listeners will like. It’s called “How We Survive.” And it’s abou...

Chapter 6: The Welfare to Temp Work Pipeline
Apr 26, 2023 55 min

Chapter 6: The Welfare to Temp Work Pipeline

Since the 1990s, most cash welfare recipients have been required to get a job or do mandated “work activities” to receive their monthly check. These requirements are intended to help parents who ar...

Chapter 5: Profits and Perverse Incentives
Apr 19, 2023 49 min

Chapter 5: Profits and Perverse Incentives

Antoine Dukes is a natural born salesman. And when he started working for a for-profit welfare company, he figured it was a good way to put his skills to work helping needy Americans find jobs that...

Chapter 4: The Battle of Newburgh
Apr 12, 2023 35 min

Chapter 4: The Battle of Newburgh

In 1961, city officials in Newburgh, New York, declared war on their poorest residents by proclaiming, without evidence, that the city was overrun by welfare cheats. It was a moment in history when...

Chapter 3: Race and rumor
Apr 05, 2023 36 min

Chapter 3: Race and rumor

In the 1950s, a rumor that people were moving to Newburgh, NY to live off welfare riled up the city. When city leaders essentially declare war on welfare — and the people who get it — things tumble...

Chapter 2: The compliance machine
Mar 29, 2023 54 min

Chapter 2: The compliance machine

A single mother of two in Chicago was working and taking classes to become an addiction counselor when her life fell apart. The father of her youngest child assaulted her so badly it put her in the...

Chapter 1: The dream
Mar 22, 2023 44 min

Chapter 1: The dream

When a struggling mother of two in Milwaukee hits hard times, she turns to a local welfare office for help — a welfare office outsourced to a private, for-profit company. Inside, staff preach the p...

Season 6: The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex
Mar 15, 2023 4 min

Season 6: The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex

There is a growing chorus of politicians who argue that there’s a simple solution to help all kinds of problems, including poverty, labor shortages and government deficits: putting more work requir...

My boss is an app
Mar 24, 2021 46 min

My boss is an app

The gig-app workforce has arrived at our doorstep. But Silicon Valley’s innovations in hiring are only the latest round of this long-running battle over what employment means in the American econom...

Inside baseball
Mar 17, 2021 44 min

Inside baseball

In minor league baseball, professional athletes train, suit up and play for wages that would be illegal in most sectors. Players live in crowded apartments, sleep on air mattresses, work side jobs ...

Big Boss, Little Boss
Mar 10, 2021 33 min

Big Boss, Little Boss

After Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, he took both companies to court — the subcontractor he worked for and its client, Koch Foods. The “little boss” and the “big boss.” His case hinged in part...

To catch a chicken
Mar 03, 2021 36 min

To catch a chicken

When chicken catcher Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, virtually overnight, he started doing the same job for a new boss — only without the pay, protections and benefits he’d come to rely on. Thi...

The liquid workforce
Feb 24, 2021 38 min

The liquid workforce

Over a quarter of the world’s largest employers don’t just make or sell products — they also rent out workers. Let’s talk about how we got here.For even more of “The Uncertain Hour,” subscribe to o...

“To suffer or permit to work”
Feb 17, 2021 47 min

“To suffer or permit to work”

This week we’re finally going to tell you what happened to Jerry Vazquez — and how his story relates to the 1930s case of a hotel chambermaid. Jerry and some of his fellow Jan-Pro franchisees decid...

Who’s the boss?
Feb 10, 2021 44 min

Who’s the boss?

Jerry Vazquez was in the cleaning business now, and his clients liked him. They’d leave him notes, some with smiley faces drawn in. But, he says, he was barely getting by on the rates negotiated by...

Congratulations! You’re an entrepreneur now
Feb 03, 2021 41 min

Congratulations! You’re an entrepreneur now

Jerry Vazquez always dreamed of working for himself. So when he saw a notice in the PennySaver advertising janitorial franchises, he decided to go all in. Pretty soon after, he was in debt to the c...

‘The Uncertain Hour’ is back!
Jan 27, 2021 4 min

‘The Uncertain Hour’ is back!

Employment as we know it is changing. The kinds of jobs where one person works for one employer for years — with health insurance, sick days, paid vacation and a retirement fund — are getting harde...

Answering your “History of Now” questions
Jun 17, 2020 28 min

Answering your “History of Now” questions

We’ve spent the past five weeks trying to make sense of this moment, where the inequalities of our society have been suddenly set in high relief. In that time, you all have written in with a bunch ...