Side Hustle Safety Net: How Vulnerable Workers Survive Precarious Times

by Alexandrea J. Ravenelle Narrated by Rachel Perry

Overview

The first major study of how the pandemic affected gig workers-a sociological exploration that reads like a novel.



This is the story of what the most vulnerable wage earners-gig workers, restaurant staff, early-career creatives, and minimum-wage laborers-do when the economy suddenly collapses. In Side Hustle Safety Net, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle builds on interviews with nearly two hundred gig-based and precarious workers, conducted during the height of the pandemic, to uncover the unique challenges they faced in unprecedented times.



This book looks at both the officially unemployed and the "forgotten jobless"-a digital-era demographic that turned to side hustles-and reveals how they fared. CARES Act assistance allowed some to change careers, start businesses, perhaps transform their lives. However, gig workers and those involved in "polyemployment" found themselves at the mercy of outdated unemployment systems, vulnerable to scams, and attempting dubious survival strategies. Ultimately, Side Hustle Safety Net argues that the rise of the gig economy, partnered with underemployment and economic instability, has increased worker precarity with disastrous consequences.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

"Eye-opening. . . . A startling examination of the patchy response to pandemic-era unemployment."

Publishers Weekly

"A lively, fascinating panorama of the neo-Dickensian labor regime so many workers endure."

Social Forces

"The book…is full of rich qualitative data that Ravenelle works into a cohesive narrative time and again and leaves the reader excited to hear about the results of the ongoing (as of the time of writing) third phase of the study."
 

CHOICE

"Highly recommended."

Convergence

"Side Hustle Safety Net provides rich case studies and thought-provoking analyses of precarious workers during the pandemic, guiding readers to observe the trend of poly-employment and drawing attention to the deficiencies in the social safety net."
 

Exertions

"The author’s concept of the “side hustle safety net” is a timely and important one that illuminates the strategizing that precarious workers must undertake in the face of pervasive societal and individualized risks."

Kirkus Reviews

2023-08-23
A vivid, disheartening portrait of unemployment during the pandemic.

Ravenelle, a professor of sociology and author of Hustle and Gig, begins by looking at two key categories: the “Officially Unemployed” and the “Forgotten Jobless.” This key distinction determined whether someone who found themselves out of work during the pandemic could apply for unemployment insurance or not. One chapter includes a brief history of unemployment insurance in America and the ways it has been weakened by “decades of neoliberal, antiwelfare ideology.” In addition to “causing more quarantining than polio, killing more Americans than HIV/AIDS, and resulting in more sudden unemployment than the Great Depression,” writes the author, the pandemic "divided people into essential and nonessential, demanding or on-demand, vaccinated or unvaccinated." In an eye-opening text based on an in-depth study with more than 200 workers, Ravenelle examines exactly how people made it through 2020 and 2021 and, specifically, “what happens to the most precarious workers— the gig workers and laid-off restaurant staff, the early-career creatives, and the minimum-wage employees—when the economy collapses, and how they fare in the pursuit of an economic recovery." Many ended up doing “side hustles” such as food delivery, dog walking, driving for a car service, or pickups for shopping apps. Ravenelle analyzes why those who didn’t apply for unemployment chose not to, for reasons ranging from not knowing they were eligible, to believing it was wrong to take money for not working. The author sympathetically portrays people who “faced weeks and months of living on the edge," clearly believing that America could do better by its unemployed. She closes by proposing a number of fixes to ensure how our outdated economic and employment systems could be made more efficient and effective for the overextended workers of today and tomorrow.

A startling examination of the patchy response to pandemic-era unemployment.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159445346
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/21/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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