Will Work Be Redefined in 2022 by Unions and Guaranteed Income?

In the Atlanta neighborhood where Martin Luther King Jr. grew up, 37% of Black children live in poverty today. Nearly half of Black households there are living on less than $25,000 a year. In 2022, the neighborhood will take part in “one of the largest guaranteed income experiments in the U.S., and the largest to ever specifically focus on Black women.” The program, called In Her Hands, is hosted on Give Directly, a platform that helps people give directly to people living in poverty. They will enroll 650 Black women into two groups. One will get $850 a month for two years, the other will receive an upfront payment of $4,300, followed by recurring $700 monthly payments. The point is to test which method works better, as well as the model itself.

A few minutes after finding this story, I read another about how popular DC bookstore Politics and Prose announced they would unionize, just a month after the first U.S. Starbucks location voted to do the same. Together, these stories may signal a wider shift toward equity and employee empowerment after a year of upheaval and disarray between businesses and their workers, resulting in widespread worker shortages and the great resignation. While it's still early, one potential megatrend I'm watching is the steady reevaluation of work itself.