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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]

The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the labor market and given rise to the Great Resignation. Drawing on a mixed methods panel study of 199 precarious and gig-based workers, we analyze how a changing conception of free time during the Covid-19 pandemic led low-wage service workers to seek more fulfilling careers. Whereas most workers initially perceived free time in terms of opportunity costs, they later reconceived this time as enabling an investment in personal growth, moving from "spending time" making money to "investing time" in themselves. This shift in temporal experience is expressed through the adoption of a "work passion" logic and "pandemic epiphanies" that motivated respondents to seek self-affirming and potentially more lucrative work opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, welfare cuts and market deregulation have made jobs increasingly precarious and workers have been made responsible for their own safety. In this context, technological developments have recently paved the way for the gig economy, in which tasks and services are distributed on digital platforms. Drawing on interviews with 32 Uber and Lyft drivers in New York City and Boston, we document how the intersecting forces of precarity, responsibilization and organizational innovation spawn the need for 'defensive labour', that is, emotional and cognitive self-protective practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitalization, combined with the proliferation of online review and payment systems, has been integral to the creation of the sharing economy. While the sharing economy has opened industries to additional workers, it also shift risks to users and leads to a hybridization of previously pure economic concepts such as markets and circuits of commerce. Due to this risk shift, how do sharing economy users, specifically Airbnb hosts, protect themselves from the risks inherent in a marketplace that is both formal and informal, and regularly crosses the boundaries between legal and illegal? Using qualitative interviews with 23 Airbnb hosts in New York City, I argue that Airbnb's shifting of risk to workers leads to a hybridized form of institutional work as hosts create a social circuitry in order to protect themselves. This research contributes to the larger literature on digitalized and informal markets and circuits, risk, and societal impact of digitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]