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Poverty, Inequality, and Distribution

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 3, 2025 12:30 PM - 2:15 PM (PST)

The Marker Union Square San Francisco, Archer
Hosted By: Union for Radical Political Economics
  • Chair: Doğuhan Sündal, California State University-San Bernardino

Platform Capital, Workers, and Profit: Digital Labor Platforms

Ali Alper Alemdar
,
St. Francis College

Abstract

This study examines the profitability of digital labor platforms through the lens of platform capital, which is constituted by platform technology and platform workers. The paper explores the dynamics between platforms’ ability to utilize technology and platform workers to expand platform capital and profits. Platform workers generate both revenue and data, which enables digital labor platforms to improve their ability to optimize operations and create new digital products. The study argues that platform worker numbers are crucial to profitability, enabling higher fees, more potent network effects, and higher data accumulation, essential for expanding platform capital and achieving profitability. The paper further argues that increasing the level of number platform workers intensifies the competition between platform workers, which allows digital labor platforms to charge higher commission rates from them. The paper examines eight digital labor platforms as representatives of geographically tethered and cloudwork digital labor platforms. Profitability and profit dynamics, including cost structures, are presented in the paper.

Revisiting Class Dynamics: Mobility, Inequality, and Social Polarization in the U.S.

Doğuhan Sündal
,
California State University-San Bernardino

Abstract

Empirical and theoretical work on class polarization uses proxy variables such as educational attainment or level of income to depict class status which do not necessarily reflect conflict between agents. Bowles (2004) proposes an analytical framework where using observed measures, a consistent definition of social class is obtained which reflects agents' access to leisure through each other's labor. Using this approach and panel data from PSID, this study analyzes social polarization indices, class mobility, and its relationship to inequality in the US.

Regional Differences of the Inequality of Opportunity and Income Mobility in Korea

Joonil Kim
,
Mokwon University

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the regional differences of the inequality of opportunity and income mobility in Korea and to develop empirical approaches to its causes. In particular, we focus on social experimental research design and big data, which have recently been emphasized in social sciences, to identify regional factors affecting the income mobility and explore empirical methods suitable for the data availability in Korea.
It is well known that Korea's birth rate is the lowest in the world. Income inequality, spatial segregation, and income mobility interact with each other and threaten the future of the society. Also, the severe competition in the metropolitan area leads to low inter-generational income mobility, which results in the parents’ choice to reduce the number of children in order to focus human capital investment on their children with limited resources. This study is expected to provide various policy implications by identifying how regional inequality of opportunity is related to various regional characteristics such as income inequality or spatial segregation, etc.

Potential Impact of Employment on Time and Income Poverty in the U.S.

Thomas Masterson
,
Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Abstract

The official poverty rate for the United States in 2022 was 11.5 percent, meaning nearly 38 million people were poor. The rate using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) was even higher, at 12.4 percent. While SPM is an improvement over the official measure in a number of ways, it still implicitly assumes the presence of a full-time unpaid worker in the household doing the work of social reproduction. The Levy Institute of Time and Income Poverty (LIMTIP) accounts for the amount of time that households at or near the poverty threshold need to reproduce themselves. We produce estimates of the LIMTIP for the US for the period from 2005 to 2022. We find that poverty is both more extensive and deeper than the official or SPM measures tell us. Is an increase in employment the solution to poverty in the US? We examine the impact that employment might have on poor households by assigning non-employed adults in time-adjusted income poor households the jobs that they are likeliest to get in the current labor market. We then assess the impact of that employment on time and income poverty. We find that the increase in time deficits induced by increased time spent on paid employment significantly attenuates the income poverty-reducing effects of increased earnings.
JEL Classifications
  • D3 - Distribution
  • I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty