Worker Power and How COVID Has Changed It

UnfairNation

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The decline of worker power over the last four decades has been fundamental and transformational according to my guest Anna Stansbury, a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University. She argues that the long-term decline in worker power may have been caused by a number of related trends, including a decline in labor unions and ruthless cost-cutting and management by corporations.

Anna's hypothesis is laid out in a fascinating paper which she co-authored with Larry Summers entitled The Declining Worker Power Hypothesis. On this episode, Anna talks with me about her findings as well as other broader macroeconomic trends effecting workers during the pandemic, including how increasing the minimum wage may have unintended consequences for lower-income communities and why even wealthier wage earners are affected by deepening economic inequality.

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• Link to Anna and Larry Summers' paper: (link: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/stansbury/files/2020.6.30_stansbury_summers_the_declining_worker_power_hypothesis.pdf)

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