If you're an hourly employee in most parts of the country, there's a good chance you don't know when you're working next week. The boss can call you in at the last minute during busy shifts or send you home early when business is slow. If you show up and there's not much to do, he doesn't have to pay you. To get a full 40 hours, you might need to pick up consecutive closing and opening shifts, even if that means only a few hours of rest in between.
Every year, millions of American workers enter a gray zone between unemployment and a traditional, stable 9-to-5 job. Wingham Rowan calls them “irregular workers.” In a recent report for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Rowan defined irregulars as those who work outside the home with no contractual expectation of regular hours or income. “This is still an under-the-radar issue,” he says. “It's not reflected in the official data, but indicator after indicator says [more] people are beginning to work irregularly.”
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