What Happens to People When Work Disappears
By Farah Stockman 2021
The fear of being replaced, of no longer being needed, is an anxiety that has only grown with time. Millions of Americans are coming of age in places where a majority of the jobs that exist are expected to be outsourced, offshored, or automated in the coming decades. Even the harried fast-food worker at the drive-through window cannot sleep easy at night without fear of being replaced by a robot. this is the final insult of menial, poorly paid work: the CEO will eventually find a way to get rid of it- of you- altogether.
Work matters.
For better or for worse, work provides an essential context of our lives: it contributes to our perceptions of ourselves and our expectations for our children. More often than we may acknowledge, it determines our place in society’s hierarchy. It formulates who we are, who we meet, who we marry, and who cries at our graves after we die.
The loss of well-paid blue-collar employment has upended the political order, bolstering the appeal of a presidential candidate who promised, in rally after rally, to bring back American jobs. Many edicated people felt sure that nothing could be done about the irresistible forces that sent those jobs abroad. They dismissed Donald Trump as a con artist who peddled false hope. They forgot that even false hope is a form of hope, perhaps the most ubiquitous kind.
and they forgot what jobs mean to people. Work gives us a reason to get out of bed, a place to be, and a source of self-worth. Without work, all too often, depression sets in, all the more so when unemployment becomes the norm rather than the exception.
