Whenever disaster strikes, there’s almost always two waves of pain: First, There’s the immediate human cost, which deserves top priority. Then there’s the financial cost. Lost jobs, credit card “maxing,” unpaid bills, lost homes. Unfortunately, America has a fine-tuned way of keeping score in the credit world: Credit reports. And [Keep reading]
The gig economy is complicated and it’s about to get a lot more complicated. Gig workers are helped by the enormous coronavirus relief bill that’s expected to be signed into law soon, but like all things gig economy, the law is likely to raise more questions than it answers. Self-employed [Keep reading]
Every crisis births heroes, but the coronavirus pandemic will open our eyes to a new kind of heroism. Check that: Heroism that had become dangerously invisible to most of us in recent years. Many workers with unglamorous jobs are rising to occasion in the age of coronavirus — Target employees, [Keep reading]
If you’re like me, you’re wondering how the coronavirus bailout bill has gone from $1 trillion to $2 trillion to $6 trillion within a few days. It would be impossible to make a $5 trillion extra shopping list that fast. Fortunately, I am a regular reader of Matt Stoller, and [Keep reading]
When an old friend called recently and invited me to write a feature story about a different kind of technology school in the Bronx called “Per Scholas,” I had an immediate gut reaction. “I know that name…” Or, at least my father did. My father taught computer science at [Keep reading]
There many moving parts right now as Congress weighs legislation designed to help the economy during the coronavirus crisis. Small businesses — many in freefall, already closing and laying off all their staff — can’t wait for Congress to get its act together, and they don’t have to. The Small [Keep reading]
Today was the first day of home schooling for millions of American families. We should all feel incredibly lucky that we live in a time where that’s even possible. Imagine a world, not long ago, where sending students home for two months would have meant complete disconnection from school. Still, [Keep reading]
We’re all staring down the unknown the best we can right now, and it’s not easy for anyone. Over at our So, Bob podcast, which generally focuses on the unintended consequences of technology, we’re telling stories about how tech is helping people cope. We’re all going to have to deal [Keep reading]
A plane crashes and all but one of the 137 passengers die. What does the one survivor do? He writes a best-selling book called How to Survive a Plane Crash. The one word you don’t see in the manuscript? Luck. That’s survivor bias. You’re about to learn a lot more [Keep reading]
Since the 1973 oil embargo, and the nearly concurrent coining of the term “gridlock,” Americans have mused about telecommuting as the solution to many modern ills. When high-speed Internet began making its way into homes in the late 1990s, telecommuting seemed on the verge of a breakout. Why waste time [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan