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Little is known about how portrayals of American unity (i.e. "we're all in this together") have been received by essential workers on the front lines of the COVID risk divide, and how the pandemic may have contributed to perceptions of class inequality among lower-income workers. In this paper, we draw upon 192 in-depth interviews with precarious and gig-based workers in New York City. We find that during the height of the first wave of the pandemic, precarious workers often expressed frustration over class-based inequalities and antagonism toward elites. Many respondents expressed significant skepticism toward messages that the pandemic has brought Americans together. Instead, workers identified two distinct, class-based realities in New York: elite Americans are able to socially-distance in "mansions," or on "yachts," while precarious workers struggled to weather the storm in "dinghies." Likewise, workers felt "abandoned" by wealthy owners and managers, who fled the city to socially-distanced homes in beach communities and surrounding suburbs. Our findings suggest that low-wage, high-risk workers articulate complex conceptualizations of inequality and convey grievances toward elites during the pandemic. This study contributes to broader literature on perceived inequality, the rise of noxious work, and the social consequences of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the topographical and socio-cultural developments during the Golden Age in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, three Beat Generation epicenters, which determined the deconstruction of traditional norms. Modifications at both city and society levels were represented by the emergence of countercultures, such as the Beat. The visibility received by urban problems, due to the increase in social demonstrations and activism, fostered the formation of a unified front that demanded equality and encouraged social and political movements, such as the Civil Rights and the Second Wave Feminism. The socio-political challenges which the American society was confronted with from the 1950s to the 1970s in these three cities, also reveal a few problems regarding the status of the Beats as well as of minorities in metropolises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]