[NJFAC] workday grows with AI

As AI's power grows, so does our workday Wei Jiang Junyoung Park Rachel Xiao Shen Zhang/ 28 Mar 2025

Technological progress is typically expected to lighten the burden of work. But as artificial intelligence has been integrated into workplaces, early evidence suggests a paradox: instead of reducing workloads, many AI-equipped employees are busier than ever. This column examines the relationship between AI exposure, the length of the workday, time allocation, and worker satisfaction. Though AI-driven automation and delegation allow workers to complete the same tasks more efficiently, the authors find that employees in AI-exposed occupations are working longer hours and spending less time on socialisation and leisure.

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Two key mechanisms help explain this result. First, AI raises worker productivity, creating incentives for longer hours. When AI complements human labour rather than replacing it, the process makes each hour of work more valuable. This effect is strongest in jobs where AI helps employees perform tasks more efficiently, such as finance, research, and technical fields. Employers may expect more output; workers, incentivised by productivity-linked pay, may extend their hours. AI-exposed occupations have indeed seen wage increases, suggesting that firms are sharing some productivity gains. However, higher wages have not translated into more leisure time. Instead, workers appear to be substituting additional earnings for longer hours, a pattern consistent with the economic principle that when work becomes more rewarding, people may choose to do more of it.

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The second mechanism is AI-driven performance monitoring. Digital surveillance tools have expanded, particularly in remote and hybrid work environments. AI enables real-time tracking of employee effort, leading to longer working hours. Our study examines the COVID-19 period as a natural experiment, when AI-driven monitoring surged due to remote work. Jobs that were more 'remote-feasible' at the onset of COVID-19 experienced dramatic improvement in remote work monitoring during the next two years.  Occupations with high exposure to AI surveillance technologies – such as customer service representatives, stockers and order fillers, dispatchers, and truck drivers – experienced longer work hours post COVID even after workers returned to the office. This effect was absent among the self-employed, confirming that it is not simply the nature of AI-exposed jobs but the principal-agent dynamics of employment that drive longer work hours. Monitoring increases employer oversight and tightens performance expectations, often at the cost of work-life balance. Some AI-intensive roles saw the introduction of automated performance scores, leading employees to work harder to avoid falling behind peers in algorithm-driven assessments.

jz: AI use has other problems. For example, a doctor reports on AI write-up of patient visit notes:

"From his e-mail: The visits are now being recorded and about 10 minutes later – the AI generated visit notes appear in the chart. On almost 2/3 of the charts that are being processed, there are major errors, making stuff up, incorrect statements, etc. Unfortunately – as you can see it is wickedly able to render all this in correct "doctorese" – the code and syntax we all use and can instantly tell it was written by a truly trained MD.

I have noted to my dismay that most of my colleagues do not even look at these – they simply sign off on them."

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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[NJFAC] Worker-Owned News Outlets Are Changing Media Industry

How Worker-Owned News Outlets Are Changing the Media Industry

By Damon Orion Local Peace Economy Project

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Rather than relying on corporate funding, outlets like 404 Media and Defector earn revenue from paid reader subscriptions. Many employee-owned media companies also take little or no money from advertisers. For instance, in 2023, Morning Brew reported that Defector got 95 percent of its revenue from subscribers during its first year [2020], and "outside of a few small, DTC brands, the company was focusing on other areas of the business rather than advertising; a year later, Defector said it had 'largely stopped' running ads on its site and in its newsletters."

In 2025, Brett White, the editor-in-chief of the employee-owned entertainment news outlet Pop Heist, told Poynter he was "very adamant against on-site advertising." He added, "Just as much as corporate interests and the Google algorithm notification of everything has ruined pop culture journalism, I think ads have as well."

Besides helping journalists avoid pressure from advertisers and corporate overseers, employee ownership can boost job security. According to a 2022 study published by IZA World of Labor, worker-owned companies "have more stability, higher survival rates, and fewer layoffs in recessions."....

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
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[NJFAC] No tax on tips will harm more workers than it helps--EPI

No tax on tips will harm more workers than it helps
Proposals in Congress and now 20 states could encourage harmful employer practices and lead to tip requests in virtually every consumer transactionWhen President Trump proposed exempting tipped income from taxation during his 2024 presidential campaign, many viewed it as a politically expedient gimmick to win support among tipped service workers. Unfortunately, then-Vice President Harris soon followed suit, and since the election, a federal "no tax on tips" bill has been reintroduced and lawmakers in at least 20 states have proposed similar bills (see map below).

Now that lawmakers in a multitude of states have supported the idea, it's worth unpacking just how incredibly foolish and dangerous these proposals are. In summary, exempting tips from taxes would:

1. help very few workers and undermine pay increases for many more;
2. expand the use of tipped work—a system rife with discrimination and worker abuse— potentially leading to consumers being asked to tip on virtually every purchase; and
3. deplete state and federal budgets and create new avenues of tax avoidance, especially for high earners.....

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
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[NJFAC] 73% of employees surveyed struggled to afford anything beyond basic living expenses

New research reveals financial stress is hurting the morale, motivation, and productivity of U.S. workers.

A recent survey by Resume Now reveals that financial stress has reached a breaking point for American workers, with 73% of employees struggling to afford anything beyond their basic living expenses. 

The 2025 Wage Reality Report reveals a growing dissatisfaction with salaries, rising living costs, and the toll these challenges are taking on workplace morale. Based on responses from 1,065 U.S. workers surveyed in December 2024, the report sheds light on the widening gap between wages and the cost of modern living.

So, what are the real impacts of this financial stress on workers' lives, and how are they coping with the challenges of rising costs and stagnant wages?

Key Findings

• 12% often cannot afford basic living expenses, and 24% struggle to cover essentials.
• Only 6% are able to save for the future.
• One-third of workers say their salary has not kept up with inflation.
• 55% think their salary is lower than it should be.
• 29% have moved to lower-cost areas or housing to navigate financial strain.
• 3 in 10 have taken on debt to cover living expenses.
• Only 4% of workers feel truly valued in their role.

 link from nakedcapitalism.com

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
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[NJFAC] Dean Baker on the importance of low unemployment

Full Employment: One Last Time for the Road

"....There is no better way to give large benefits to tens of millions of people, especially groups facing discrimination in the labor market like Black workers and people with criminal records.....

In the Biden years, many pundits argued that unemployment doesn't matter much because a one percentage point drop in the unemployment rate just means another 1.6 million people have jobs. That doesn't seem like a very big deal in a workforce of 160 million.

But this reasoning is badly confused. Full employment matters not just because it reduces the number of people who are unable to find jobs, but also because it improves the bargaining position of tens of millions of workers. The point is simple, but huge.

In a normal month 5-6 million people lose or leave their job, with the vast majority looking for new ones. That translates into 60-70 million people over the course of the year coming into direct contact with the state of the labor market. For these people it matters enormously if there is a strong labor market near full employment or a sagging labor market where people struggle to find jobs.

In a strong labor market these workers will be able to move to better jobs that pay more and offer better working conditions. It's not an accident that we saw a record level of workplace satisfaction in 2023 after we had record rates of job switches the prior year.

The ability to leave for a better job also leaves workers better positioned to get pay raises at their current job, if they decide not to leave. This is especially true for workers at the lower end of the wage distribution. They have far more bargaining power than in a weak labor market.....

The Black-White wage gap was also reduced during this period. The 13 percent gap in 2023  is the lowest level on record....."

ps In the article, Baker calls it "low" unemployment, a far better description than full employment, at a time when the lows of 3.4 to 4.0% unemployment mean that in December 2024, for example, when the official rate was 4.1%, 6.9 million people were unemployed and another 9.9 million were involuntarily part-time or wanting a job but not looking for a variety of reasons, including discouragement, or lack of childcare or transportation. And these numbers do not indicate the economic distress of the wider circle which includes their families. jz

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June Zaccone
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[NJFAC] Working Without Health Insurance

Chronic Condition: Working Without Health Insurance

Jan 10, 2025 By Emma Curchin, John Schmitt, CEPR

...."...even after the full implementation of the ACA, more than 27 million US residents still remain without health insurance.¹ As we document here, almost 16 million of the uninsured are workers in full-time jobs, part-time jobs, or unemployed and actively seeking work. Over 10 million of these uninsured workers hold year-round, full-time jobs.

Workers between the ages of 18 and 64 have long been less likely than the average US resident to have health insurance (see Figure 1). Many workers fall through the holes in the patchwork of health insurance coverage, which includes employer-provided plans, individually purchased coverage through state-level health exchanges, and Medicaid (which is especially important for low-income workers). The vast majority of workers are ineligible for key government health insurance programs that provide higher rates of coverage for other populations. Workers under the age of 65, for example, are not eligible for the Medicare program, which provides nearly universal coverage for the US population 65 and older. Workers are also generally too old to qualify for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which, together with Medicaid, produces uninsured rates for children that are about half those of adult workers.² Finally, a sizable share of the workforce lives in households with incomes that push them above the thresholds where they would qualify for Medicaid and other forms of need-based coverage.....

As the data show, some groups of workers are much more likely than others to be uninsured. Workers who experience any spell of unemployment during the course of a year are the most likely to be without insurance (18.7 percent), followed by part-time or part-year workers (14.4 percent). But even a large share of full-time, full-year workers (10.5 percent) go without any health insurance coverage from any source during the course of the year.....

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June Zaccone
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[NJFAC] "salting" the workplace

"What Is Salting, the Organizing Tactic Spicing Up the Labor Movement?" [Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue]. "The resurgence of the American labor movement is being led in no small part by a cohort of young, diverse, fired-up workers around the country. Union density remains embarrassingly low overall, but last month the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, released some genuinely inspiring numbers that suggest the perceived upswing in union activity is more than just a vibe. During the 2024 fiscal year, which ended in September, the number of union petitions filed jumped 27% compared with 2023 — and was more than double what the agency received in 2021. Why does this matter? Basically, filing these petitions is a concrete sign that more people are trying to unionize their workplaces… This new generation of organizers is embracing all sorts of strategies, including one of the oldest tactics in the pro-union handbook: salting. Salting is an organizing tactic in which a person gets a job at a specific workplace with the goal of unionizing their coworkers. This kind of shop-floor organizing has a long history within the labor movement, and was once so common it was thoroughly unremarkable; if you were a young worker with socialist or progressive ideas in, say, the early 1900s, it was the most normal thing in the world to start talking to your coworkers about unionizing as soon as you'd learned their names." • It's great that Teen Vogue has a labor beat, but why only Teen Vogue? quote from nakedcapitalism.com

June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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