The Uncertain Hour

Integration Generation (bonus episode from “Unlocking the Gates”)

In a new collaboration between Marketplace and APM Studios called “Unlocking the Gates,” host Lee Hawkins investigates how a secret nighttime business deal unlocked the g

The $80 Million Acre (from “How We Survive”)

This week, we’re dropping into your feeds to tell you about another podcast we make here at Marketplace that we think Uncertain Hour listeners will like. It’s called “How

Chapter 6: The Welfare to Temp Work Pipeline

Since the 1990s, most cash welfare recipients have been required to get a job or do mandated “work activities” to receive their monthly check. These requirements are inte

Chapter 5: Profits and Perverse Incentives

Antoine Dukes is a natural born salesman. And when he started working for a for-profit welfare company, he figured it was a good way to put his skills to work helping nee

Chapter 4: The Battle of Newburgh

In 1961, city officials in Newburgh, New York, declared war on their poorest residents by proclaiming, without evidence, that the city was overrun by welfare cheats. It w

Chapter 3: Race and rumor

In the 1950s, a rumor that people were moving to Newburgh, NY to live off welfare riled up the city. When city leaders essentially declare war on welfare — and the people

Chapter 2: The compliance machine

A single mother of two in Chicago was working and taking classes to become an addiction counselor when her life fell apart. The father of her youngest child assaulted her

Chapter 1: The dream

When a struggling mother of two in Milwaukee hits hard times, she turns to a local welfare office for help — a welfare office outsourced to a private, for-profit company.

Season 6: The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex

There is a growing chorus of politicians who argue that there’s a simple solution to help all kinds of problems, including poverty, labor shortages and government deficit

25 years after welfare reform, let’s revisit “the magic bureaucrat”

It’s been 25 years since our country upended its welfare system – and so we’re looking back at our very first episode. We spent that first season of “The Uncertain Hour”

My boss is an app

The gig-app workforce has arrived at our doorstep. But Silicon Valley’s innovations in hiring are only the latest round of this long-running battle over what employment m

Inside baseball

In minor league baseball, professional athletes train, suit up and play for wages that would be illegal in most sectors. Players live in crowded apartments, sleep on air

Big Boss, Little Boss

After Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, he took both companies to court — the subcontractor he worked for and its client, Koch Foods. The “little boss” and the “big bos

To catch a chicken

When chicken catcher Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, virtually overnight, he started doing the same job for a new boss — only without the pay, protections and benefit

The liquid workforce

Over a quarter of the world’s largest employers don’t just make or sell products — they also rent out workers. Let’s talk about how we got here. For even more of “The Un

“To suffer or permit to work”

This week we’re finally going to tell you what happened to Jerry Vazquez — and how his story relates to the 1930s case of a hotel chambermaid. Jerry and some of his fello

Who’s the boss?

Jerry Vazquez was in the cleaning business now, and his clients liked him. They’d leave him notes, some with smiley faces drawn in. But, he says, he was barely getting by

Congratulations! You’re an entrepreneur now

Jerry Vazquez always dreamed of working for himself. So when he saw a notice in the PennySaver advertising janitorial franchises, he decided to go all in. Pretty soon aft

‘The Uncertain Hour’ is back!

Employment as we know it is changing. The kinds of jobs where one person works for one employer for years — with health insurance, sick days, paid vacation and a retireme

Answering your “History of Now” questions

We’ve spent the past five weeks trying to make sense of this moment, where the inequalities of our society have been suddenly set in high relief. In that time, you all ha