What is Precarity?

Have you ever or do you currently live paycheck to paycheck? Have you ever worried about job security? Do you work 40 hours a week or more and still can’t afford rent? Have you ever had to make a difficult decision like choosing between paying for child care for your kids or going back to school to get a degree? These are just some of the everyday struggles that a social existence defined by precarity brings. Precarious work is the new norm as more and more people in the United States enter work in the gig economy, taking temporary or one-off jobs that pay little and offer no job security. Precarious work is also becoming normalized in salaried jobs like teaching, where teachers are left in positions of uncertainty and insecurity year after year as conservative governments gut the power of labor unions to collectively bargain and organize.

According to a 2017 Federal Reserve Household Economic Survey, nearly 40% of adults in the U.S. say they cannot cover a $400 emergency expense.

And according to the Centers for Disease Control, women in 2018 are having fewer children than at any point since 1987 — 1.76 over their lifetimes, down from 2.1 in 2007. However, the number of children they report wanting to have (around 2.2) has remained more or less the same for two decades. A 2018 New York Times poll attributes this phenomenon to economic insecurity due to things like rising student debt and unaffordable child care and housing.

Precarity is racialized, too, as the U.S. economy writ-large boasts about a low federal unemployment rate while failing to acknowledge that Black Americans in major cities across the country are, according to a 2019 Brookings Institute report, “experiencing unemployment at Great Recession-era levels.” And as public sector job opportunities continue to shrink in comparison to the private sector, Black people who have historically thrived through public sector employment since Reconstruction are disproportionately impacted.

This kind of uncertainty and instability is affecting health care access, too. A study from the University of Michigan traced “insurance churn” and found that of those Michigan residents surveyed in 2014 who had employer-sponsored health coverage, only 72% of them had the same plan 12 months later. This means that even those with the luxury of a job that provides health insurance are not secure in their coverage. Instability persists.

These are signs of precarious times, no doubt.

Precarity is that condition of uncertainty and insecurity that threatens violence, exclusion, and/or poverty. And precarity is politically-induced. By that I mean that conditions of life that make it more difficult are the result of political decisions, despite the fact that we are made to believe that such struggle is a natural and inevitable part of life.

Yet, it hasn’t always been this way. In the postwar decades from the end of World War II through the Civil Rights Movement and into the early 1970s, the United States saw economic growth, active unions striking to demand higher wages, and increased investment in government programs. To prevent the postwar economic stagnation that many feared, the Truman Administration raised the minimum wage, offered price supports for farmers, strengthened public housing, and more.

And under the banner of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” and thanks to the pressure of social movements, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act and public health insurance in the form of Medicare and Medicaid, among other social programs. Yet, in the decades following, government intervention for social welfare has grown weaker and government increasingly functioned to stimulate economic competition rather than strengthen the social safety net. Enter: neoliberalism.

What's Neoliberalism got to do with it?

In the 1970s, corporate elite mobilized to exert control and increase their wealth. This resulted in changes in government, too, as this powerful group lobbied for the expansion of the Chamber of Commerce and an increased investment in business-minded think tanks that promoted neoliberal ideas. In short, this resulted in a kind of philosophical shift around the role of government. 

Conservative policy makers picked up neoliberalism to justify disinvestment in social programs in favor of government intervention for the sake of maximizing free market competition, a perspective on governance that serves the interests of the wealthy and private corporations. This ideological shift meant that the social safety net was compromised and people were left to look to the “free market” for the answers to problems that government programs once addressed.

Economic freedom is prioritized over all other freedoms.

Basically, in neoliberal discourse, the free market economy is seen as a panacea, of sorts, to all kinds of social problems. It assumes that the freedom to compete in the market economy is the basis for all other freedoms. In this framework, individuals are left to struggle to “earn” through competition in the free market the level of stability and prosperity that government programs once enabled.

The idea of “human capital” emerges as a way to measure “value” of humans against economic criteria.

This is evident in all the ways people are incentivized to increase their personal value, whether through investing in education or professional development, accruing various certifications, or engaging in “self care” for the purpose of increasing productivity. So, stability is sacrificed as people are reduced to competitors in the free market who, in the absence of robust social supports, are left to constantly find ways to reinvent themselves and become more competitive in the ever-changing market. See entry on human capital here.

It is important to understand that neoliberalism is a “rascal concept,” meaning that it is often deployed in a sloppy and totalizing manner that obscures the multiple intersecting discourses and realities that produce a certain phenomenon. So, neoliberalism is not the only factor leading to conditions of precarity like the ones mentioned above. In fact, neoliberalism latches onto existing discourses, preying on them and exploiting them to further its individualistic, economic logic of domination.

That said, neoliberalism works in, through, and with systems like racism and capitalism.

Let’s look again at the example mentioned above on racialized precarity. Wealth is a key indicator of financial security and of one’s capacity to prepare for and survive life’s unexpected crises like a trip to the emergency room or job loss. The racial wealth gap between white and Black Americans is stark, and the New York Times reported that for every $100 in white family wealth, Black families hold just $5.04. Relatedly, the Economic Policy Institute found that more than one in four Black households have zero or negative net worth, compared to less than one in ten white families without wealth. These statistics display how precarity and financial insecurity have racial contours, as Black Americans experience significant barriers to building wealth which is a key safeguard against financial insecurity.

How do Concepts of Responsibility and Individualization under Neoliberalism make Precarity Possible?

Neoliberalism helps us understand how the individuals made to feel responsible for their precarious condition. Under neoliberalism, the individual is positioned as the sole proprietor of their life and the social safety net is progressively weakened. As such, responsibilities that were once distributed among the state, the collective, and the individual become increasingly the responsibility of only the individual. Expectations don’t change, but life becomes harder as government redefines its own role from a provider of social services and support to a free-market-manager, thus leaving people to shoulder burdens alone in a context that rewards competition and individual success.

Neoliberal discourses is also impacting participation in civic life. Participation in civic institutions is declining alongside Americans’ trust of government and of one another. This tendency toward individualism, aided by neoliberal discourses, increases fragmentation and diminishes trust in collective processes and notions of the collective good.

We see these concepts at work in widespread calls for entrepreneurship, in discourses that praise the hardworking innovator and the self-care aficionado, and in increasing demands for professional development so workers can improve their skill-set to remain competitive and relevant in the ever-changing job market. This trope of personal responsibility has the effect of concealing the political motivations for allowing and inducing precarity (more on that in the next section).

Under neoliberal logic, wellbeing and security are linked to how hard one works to earn the supports that make a good life possible. So that means that people struggling in precarity often feel responsible for their condition and believe they are not living up to the American Dream, a feeling of perceived “failure” that can induce a lot of shame.

This phenomenon of personal responsibility produces real pressures to perform, compete, and provide, which can have significant consequences for health and wellbeing, provoking despair, isolation, and substance abuse among those struggling most against the elusive image of the American Dream.This coupling can have dire consequences, as evidenced by the fact that middle-aged white men have the highest suicide rate in the United States. Looking at this statistic in relation to neoliberalism, it becomes clear just how seriously the pressures to perform, compete, and provide in a context of weakening public support and job security weigh on the individual, even on those who are the most privileged among us and who are held up as the archetypal image of the American Dream.

Relatedly, opioid addiction and abuse has been linked to conditions of economic and social disadvantage and has been called a “disease of despair,” a dire outcome of life in precarity. Poverty and substance abuse are also mutually reinforcing, as job opportunities in poorer communities often revolve around service, manufacturing, and military service industries, all of which have heightened risk for job-related injuries and chronic pain.

So, not only are working- and middle-class people struggling in precarity, but they are also made to believe they’re personally responsible for their condition, a combination that has significant health and quality-of-life outcomes. This personal deficit perspective that neoliberalism enforces makes it difficult to believe that another world, a liberated world, is possible.

How and Why does Precarity Persist?

The concept of neoliberalism gets weaponized by elites as a legitimating discourse to shift the state away from its social responsibilities, such as providing a robust safety net. The lures of choice and autonomy - concepts that serve the interests of private sector profiteers - are crafted as exciting tools for freedom but are in fact used to excuse and justify the state’s lack of holistic supports for all people. By subscribing to market concepts like choice, optimization, risk, and entrepreneurship, we humans are made to believe that not only are we fully responsible for our successes, but also that we are fully responsible for our perceived failures.

"It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." - Ronald Reagan

This shift in responsibility from the state to the individual, aided by neoliberal discourse, allows precarity to aggravate and persist, as individuals are so preoccupied with shaping their lives and improving their chances for success that the larger elitist machine that enables this state of affairs is mostly obscured, thereby neutralizing political opposition. Also, precarity creates a supply of labor that is insecure and unpredictable; low-paying; excluded from social, welfare, or employment rights; and not covered by collective bargaining or union representation. This disposable, temporary, mobile, and politically weak labor diffuses the ability for a collective working-class mobilization and creates the space for exploitation by the elite class in the service of unrestrained capital accumulation.

The decline of manufacturing in the U.S., the weakening of labor unions, and the widening wealth gap are all examples of precarity at work. The decline of U.S. manufacturing is significant because the manufacturing sector used to pay steady, secure middle-income salaries. Even today, workers in manufacturing earn an average of nine percent more per week than workers in other sectors of the economy. But many of these jobs are being automated or replaced by service sector jobs that offer less security and fewer benefits.

And as more states adopt right-to-work legislation that allows workers to opt out of paying union dues while still receiving the benefits of union representation, unions’ ability to advocate for better wages and working conditions is undermined. As such, wages and benefits in right-to-work states are poorer than it non-right-to-work states.

In addition to jeopardizing job security and weakening labor unions, a society of precarity where individuals are made to feel responsible for their condition also aggravates existing wealth and income inequalities and concentrates benefits in the hands of elites. This is evidenced in the increasing wealth gap and the stagnancy of wages: productivity has dramatically risen since the 1970s while the hourly wage of the worker has remained basically the same.

So, in short, the wealthy class has a lot to gain from producing and exploiting the precarity of the masses.

This means that the gains from increasing productivity are lining the pockets of the wealthy owning class while wage laborers are left suffering and feeling personally responsible for their condition.

What's Education got to do with it?

Unfortunately, teachers are not exempt from neoliberal assault. In fact, 

teachers face precarity by way of:

Teacher burnout: Increasing job demands + low pay

• Nearly one in every five teachers has to work a second job to make ends meet, public school teachers are making less money than they did 10 years ago, adjusting for inflation, and their cost of health insurance is rising. According to a 2017 American Federation of Teachers survey, cuts to education funding, standardized testing pressures, and poor supports for teachers lead to ⅔ of teachers usually feeling stressed out, which is twice as high compared to workers in other professions.

• Further, teacher pay has been stagnant for decades, even in the face of increasing demands for teachers to “do it all” (data managers, counselors, community liaisons, innovators, etc.). We can look at this phenomenon in the context of neoliberalism, particularly as it concerns the condition of precarity that neoliberalism induces. 

• Standardized tests and strict accountability frameworks have added an additional layer of shame and blame as teachers feel the pressure of full responsibility for getting students to perform well on standardized tests which often fail to capture the learning and growth that happens each day in classrooms. 

• And even more, teachers are disproportionately blamed for societal ills, for “failing” to educate America’s children. 

• So, we can see here that teachers are made to feel responsible for improving life outcomes for young people through education, and they are expected to do so in conditions that are unsupportive and low-paying.

This shame and blame on teachers has the effect of obscuring the societally-produced conditions like poverty and a persistent legacy of slavery that inform a child’s performance in the classroom. And the responsibility teachers are expected to assume also makes it difficult to engage in a collective questioning of how the public education system functions, who it was created to serve and protect, and whose interests it continues to maintain.

Union disempowerment & weakening bargaining power

Since the 1970s, unions have been losing traction. This is a combination of a few things: 1.) decline in manufacturing jobs, a sector with historically higher union membership; 2.) rise in contract-based jobs and jobs in traditionally non-unionized sectors like restaurants and hospitality; and 3.) “right to work” legislation in over half of U.S. states that stipulate that workers in unionized workplaces do not have to pay into the union. The assault on collective bargaining as seen through popular right-to-work legislation - enabled through the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act which was backed by the business community - weakens the ability of unions to organize and grow membership. The compromised bargaining power of unions is relevant because unions have historically worked to bolster job security and working conditions by negotiating job contracts and advocating for fair wages and just working conditions.

Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court undermined public sector unions by ruling that government workers who don’t join unions cannot be required to pay for the benefit of collective bargaining. This puts public sector unions at risk of losing tens of millions of members, undermining the potential power to organize for and win fair wages and secure job contracts.

What can Educators do?

Organize! Advocate! Join a union! There is power in coming together, as we saw in the exciting labor victories of 2018, even in the face of union disempowerment. Incarcerated people organized a nationwide prison strike, Microsoft workers wrote an open letter to the company demanding it end its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), McDonald’s workers went on strike against sexual harassment, and teachers in charter schools and public schools went on strike to win things like higher pay and smaller class sizes. In the context of education, specifically, teachers’ unions still have the organizational capacity (however compromised it has become) and historical legacy that poses a direct threat to neoliberal “free market” educational reforms.

Teachers won big in right-to-work states like Oklahoma and West Virginia where they were advocating for increased pay and smaller class sizes, despite undermined union protections in those states. And unions like the Chicago Teachers Union are practicing a brand of social movement unionism that broadens demands to include not just improved classroom and pay conditions for teachers, but that advocates for social justice values that serve a coalition of workers and communities. There are also teacher activist groups (TAGs) emerging all across the country that are advocating for educational justice. Find out if there is a group near you and help raise awareness, build relationships, and make a real change in your community.

So...plug into your teacher’s union and raise awareness through advocacy!

Where can Educators Find more Resources?

Learn more about the two biggest teachers’ unions in the country, and join today!

National Education Association

American Federation of Teachers

Join a Teacher Activist Group (TAG)

Find one near you!

Check out some tips for teachers on organizing for a strike.

Why the education sector is such an important point of leverage and possibility for the labor movement.

Teach students about the importance and power of labor organizing (Grades 6-8, 9-12)

• Labor Matters

• Looking at Labor

• Mexican American Labor in the US

• Understanding Labor Injustice Through Music

Teach students about the importance and power of labor organizing (Grades 3-5)

• United We Stand

• Who are the Activists in My Community?

• StoryCorps: Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike

• Art and Community Activism