Changing Work, Changing Workers

NARRATOR: The new industrial revolution is here.

Automation, digital technology, and globalization are disrupting work with unprecedented speed.

These changes were amplified when some 40 million Americans lost their jobs in 2020 during the pandemic.

SINEAD BOVELL: I feel like COVID-19 has accelerated us into the future of work.

NARRATOR: And for about 60 million more, "work from home" became the new normal.

DOUGLAS NEMECEK: What we probably would have spent years trying to transform to a work-at-home culture happened almost overnight.

DEREK THOMPSON: A lot of people are talking now about remote work as being the future of white collar work.

NARRATOR: Will this work-from-home trend forever redefine where and how people do their jobs?

TIM HWANG: Part of the struggle that a lot of people are having right now is that their house doesn't have any built-in place to work.

NARRATOR: In this era of so much uncertainty, how will work-- and workers themselves-- be transformed?

♪ ♪ MAN: The American dream is very much at risk.

WOMAN: Americans can't work any harder.

MAN: Robots are coming to take my job.

MAN: It's not even the future-- it's the now.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: In Saint Augustine, Florida, senior account executive Ixiim Flores worked her way up the corporate ladder and traveled the globe.

When COVID-19 hit, her travel, and her identity as an accomplished executive in the financial tech world, were grounded.

- Perfect.

I'm Ixiim Flores.

I 'm a senior account executive for a fintech company.

Come on.

(kissing noises) Let's go outside.

(voiceover): Prior to COVID, I was traveling three weeks out of the month.

So I'd go see my client, or I'd go to headquarters, or I'd go to one of our other large offices and work with my teams out there.

(light switch flicks) Alexa, turn on corner lamp.

(voiceover): I was, you know, one of those road warriors.

I had a suitcase that was always ready.

♪ ♪ Part of my goals for 2020 had been to get to these other markets in Asia and in Latin America and in Europe.

It was quite exciting.

And then, COVID.

So, as with most companies, travel was put on pause.

That was a bit of a blow to my professional ego.

Being out and about had always been part of my professional identity.

If I'm not traveling to a meeting and speaking to these clients and up doing this or doing that or leading this project, then what am I doing now?

You know, who am I now?

It was a pretty interesting adjustment.

NEMECEK: Anybody who has their identity connected to their work is going to potentially feel some disconnection or loss of that identity when they're no longer doing that work in the same way in the same office, with the same groups of people, working from home versus traveling.

KAI-FU LEE: I think too large a percentage of people in this society define themselves by the work that they do.

When you introduce yourself to someone, usually the profession is the first thing you talk about.

We've kind of created a society where people depend on having their work, to feel that they have a strong reason to exist and a reason to live.

NARRATOR: But after a year of working from home due to the pandemic, Ixiim Flores realized she was putting in longer hours.

FLORES: I see the emails come in.

My husband and I will be in the middle of dinner, and I'll say, "Okay, after dinner, I have to go upstairs and handle a couple more emails."

And he just looks at me.

And I say, "But it's Asia, so, you know, they're on a different time zone."

All right, back up to work.

(voiceover): You know, I make the excuses, but they can be really easy to just continue going on throughout your day and never have a hard stop.

♪ ♪ MARTHA ROSS: The shift to working from home has really blurred the line between time you spend working and time you spend doing other things.

Your computer is always there.

It can be hard to really create a shift or a transition between your working day and your non-working day.

♪ ♪ ENRICO MORETTI: One of the most striking features of working from home is the fact that the work day has increased an average of 44 to 45 minutes, and in part the reason is that workers are now spending some of the time that they were spending commuting to work, they're spending working for their employer.

FLORES: I firmly believe that as a society, our culture in America is centered on work, and work to the detriment of other things.

I saw that when I was in Mexico.

You know, when I lived there, it wasn't the primary focus of anybody's conversation.

It was just part of your life.

Here, it is your life.

NARRATOR: American workism-- logging long hours with little time off-- accelerated when the pandemic sent many white-collar employees home.

THOMPSON: I think there's good and bad about this.

The good about workism is that I think it inspires people to make amazing things.

At the same time, I think the problem with workism is that our desks were not meant to be our altars.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Each year, Americans work longer and take fewer vacation days than others in the developed world.

♪ ♪ JANET GLOVER-KERKVLIET: Because we are kind of in this "work ourselves to death" type of culture, is the work-life balance going to be harder to maintain?

Where you're just waking up in the morning, doing your morning commute of a flight of stairs, and then you're just going to your desk and you're just working all day and going to bed.

That's something I worry about more.

NARRATOR: But while some are working too much, a record number of women are leaving the workforce in what some economists call a "she-cession."

During the pandemic, women disproportionately left the labor force because of childcare challenges, low wages, health concerns, or job loss.

♪ ♪ ROSS: The pandemic has made unavoidable things that were already obvious if you paid attention.

One of them is that we have no policies that are sufficient to support women in their roles as workers, and mothers, and caregivers.

LAURA TYSON: Many women have had to leave the labor force, even if their job continued to exist, to take care of family responsibilities.

NARRATOR: As all workers continue to be rocked by the upheavals, corporate America grapples with the future-- from selling or redesigning large office campuses, to embracing what a majority of employees say they want: a hybrid model-- working from home and the office.

THOMPSON: You're not going to have the end of the office.

You're going to have the emergence of the everywhere office.

Three days in the office and two days at home.

They're calling that now the 3-2-2 formula.

ROSS: How important is it that we are all in the same place at the same time in order to get the job done?

We have proven that you can work remotely.

I sent over some information that held the answers to questions that you guys posed.

Did you get that?

(voiceover): Most likely I will end up working from home in the long term, because I can and as long as I have a place to go where I can interact with other people on my team or my client, I'll be okay.

♪ ♪ NEMECEK: We're going to move back to a new work in the future, after the pandemic.

We don't know what that will look like, but it's likely to be different.

MORETTI: I think that in the long run, this way of working-- remotely, far away from our coworkers, far away from our clients, far away from the people that we depend on-- I think this way will probably prove unproductive and we'll probably go back to a more balanced arrangement.

HWANG: I do think that the pendulum will sort of swing back and forth.

I don't want to count the office out, but I think its time might not be in the next decade or so.

People will be like "Actually, I really like this working from home thing."

But at some point, I think they're going to be like, "It's terrible!"

And I think offices will inevitably come back.

♪ ♪ MAN: Here, my love.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

(glasses clinking) FLORES: Finding work-life balance, it's about, you know, making the time for it and making it a priority.

My hope is that this has forever shifted the work environment-- that employees are not just numbers on a spreadsheet, that employees are humans with families, with emotions, with stressors.

I am extremely fortunate that the company I work for has been excellent at being very aware of the additional stress that all of us as employees were under in light of the pandemic.

They have instructed us that it's okay to put your phone down.

Take a pause.

I do think we could learn a lot from the digital nomads about how to adapt and to work anywhere, you know, around the world.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Even before the pandemic, nearly eight million Americans were already digital nomads.

The tech revolution had allowed them to leave the office behind.

Many are entrepreneurial millennials, piecing together freelance gigs anywhere in the world, as long as there's wifi.

When you live here, you don't take these too often, but they're some of the most convenient ways to get around the city.

NARRATOR: Erick Prince has logged thousands of miles working and traveling as a digital nomad.

After a decade in the military, he didn't want the corporate life.

He chose to work abroad, providing digital marketing and social media consulting services to many multinational corporations and hotel chains.

ERICK PRINCE: Hey guys, what's going on and welcome back to the channel.

NARRATOR: On his YouTube channel, the Minority Nomad, he offers tips for others interested in this new way of making a living.

Let me know what you think, what you need from me, and I'll help you any way that I can.

So as usual, leave the world better than you found it.

I'll see you in the next video.

(door squeaking) A digital nomad is somebody who uses technology to do their job remotely.

It's closer to a remote worker.

♪ ♪ So the world of work is changing, there's no doubt about that, and digital nomads have always been leading the way in this conversation.

Companies are now coming to us to ask and learn.

We're now the global experts on remote work.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Some 400 miles to the north is Mike Holp, a newer and younger digital nomad.

He's working in Chiang Mai, Thailand, one of the world's top digital nomad destinations with its low cost of living, wide range of co-working spaces, and easy access to high-speed wifi.

♪ ♪ MIKE HOLP (on phone): Yes, my name's Mike, I sent you a message online about AirBnB.

(voiceover): I've been working for Airbnb remotely as an independent contractor for about two years now.

I was a part of their referral program.

So I was essentially signing up new hosts and then getting paid a commission for every new host who signed up.

♪ ♪ One of the really, really great things about being a digital nomad is that I don't have a boss, I can set my own hours.

I have the flexibility.

Location independence is also very important for me.

The views from up here are breathtaking.

♪ ♪ How much?

No, you-- oh.

(inaudible) I don't even know what this is!

TYSON: Those digital nomads were ahead of the curve.

They were using the opportunities created by a digital world to create a flexible work place for them.

♪ ♪ SHERRY LINKON: The upside of the digital nomad life is the opportunity to keep seeing new places and trying new things.

(camera clicking) Part of what draws people is the idea of not being tied down and not being committed to any one thing.

♪ ♪ (beeping) PRINCE: We're going to see an explosion of remote workers after this virus is done.

Because companies are going to finally understand the power of allowing people to work remotely.

NARRATOR: Erick Prince has embraced his identity as a remote worker, and spent years building up a global client base.

PRINCE: Can I sit on a beach for the rest of my life and work from a laptop?

I can.

Absolutely.

But that came with almost a decade of work.

So when we have a conversation about being a digital nomad or a remote worker and having a work-life balance, it's not even a close comparison.

Beautiful!

The difference is, in the U.S., in that system, you have no true freedom.

But in this world, I have all the freedom I create for myself.

♪ ♪ The reality is remote work is not even the future, it's the now.

There's going to be an explosion of digital nomads in the next five to six years.

You're going to find people who are in their 50s and their 60s who also want to work from Jamaica, from Thailand, from Romania, who don't want to stay at home.

People will always find a way to work remotely because it's an extremely high quality of life for those who choose it.

Hey everyone, just now leaving Draper's startup house in Chiang Mai.

(voiceover): Millennials are more interested in experiences over possessions.

(greeting in world language) That could include a mortgage, a new car, a boat, even relationships.

Experiences are way more valuable than possessions.

♪ ♪ GLOVER-KERKVLIET: I think this is going to become more of the norm and I'm hoping that that will help us break some of these generational stereotypes that we have.

Not every millennial is "failure to launch," you know, not all of them are like sleeping on their parent's couches waiting for their purpose and their passion to hit them.

Many of them are out there killing it.

(motorcycle engine revving) ALICE MERTON: ♪ I've got no roots ♪ ♪ But my home was never on the ground ♪ ♪ I've got no roots ♪ ♪ I've got no roots... ♪ RIHANNA: ♪ Shine bright like a diamond ♪ ♪ ♪ CAMERON-JAMES WILSON: It's nice, isn't it?

RIHANNA: ♪ Shine bright like a diamond ♪ It's nice and tranquil.

NARRATOR: Technologically savvy millennials are also disrupting the glamorous world of fashion.

(camera clicking) Great!

I think we definitely have enough there.

(chuckles) ALEXSANDRAH GONDORA: Thank you.

- Thank you, thank you, Alex.

♪ ♪ WILSON: Hey, how's it going?

TOMMY: I've got the pose down, I'm just trying to match the, the lighting we've got here.

- Okay.

NARRATOR: This generation, already comfortable with avatars and gaming-- is bringing automation, artificial intelligence, and digital models into ad campaigns, magazine spreads, even fashion runways.

- Yeah, so a little bit more from above.

- Yeah.

WILSON: I wanted to create the world's first digital modeling agency where all the models on the book were digital, which we founded in 2018.

Dad, if you could just turn up the light to full brightness, just like that.

MAN: All the way up?

- That's great.

(camera beeping) Gorgeous.

(camera clicking) NARRATOR: By collaborating with real life models, Cameron-James Wilson creates digital avatars that move more gracefully.

WILSON: Okay, I think just a few more.

(voiceover): For us, using real models is extremely helpful because it allows us to make sure that our images are extremely realistic.

NARRATOR: Today, model Alexsandrah Gondora provides movements and characteristics while she herself remains behind the scenes.

The real star and fashion muse is the digital supermodel Shudu.

♪ ♪ WILSON: So, I created Shudu, and she took off instantly.

I posted her and straight away she went viral.

Everybody wanted to know: who is she?

So when we do a photo shoot with Shudu, we work with real models.

And during that time, we photograph them just as you normally would.

We then take those images, load them onto a computer, and we start to recreate the image in 3D.

We'll then add Shudu in, and Shudu will kind of move into the pose that the model has.

We'll move her kind of head into the same position and just kind of blend the two together.

- Wow!

- Yeah, it's my little filming section and office-y bits as well.

GONDORA: That is so mad.

Oh my gosh, wow.

(voiceover): At the very beginning, when I saw a picture of Shudu, I actually thought it was a real person.

(laughing): I didn't know she was a digital.

It's absolutely amazing, and it's out of this world.

BOVELL: I would say that my job as a model is definitely threatened by artificial intelligence and by technology at large.

I don't know if we will ever fully replace the need for a human model, but I can certainly see the demand shifting.

(indistinct chatter) GONDORA: As an actual model, I wouldn't say I am intimidated or scared or frightened by Shudu, and I don't think anybody else should.

So I guess I am a model of the 21st century.

I am myself a real model and I'm also Shudu.

So I get to be the best of both, a human model and an avatar.

♪ ♪ For me, personally, I feel like I'm happy as a Black woman, that the first worldwide digital model is another Black woman, and it's Shudu, and she has represented us very, very, very well.

She's literally known all around the globe.

♪ ♪ BOVELL: There are many pros of using a digital model.

They of course don't get sick or they don't get tired.

They can be in multiple places at one time.

And in many ways, it is really cool to watch the industry innovate and change and adapt to the future.

But, of course, as a model myself, I'm sitting here thinking, "That's my job as well."

♪ ♪ I do think artificial intelligence is going to have a dramatic impact on the modeling industry.

Photo shoots, in many ways, will be conducted using artificial intelligence.

And we won't see many people or many human models the way we see them today.

♪ ♪ Do I feel like automation is kind of a ticking time bomb hanging over the modeling industry?

I feel like COVID-19 has certainly accelerated us into the future of work.

♪ ♪ What we saw with the pandemic in the modeling world is that it really did halt our jobs.

Some people can go and check into work on their laptop, but for a fashion model, we couldn't do that.

(camera beeping) NARRATOR: If new technology may one day replace fashion models, what does this mean for the intrinsic value-- and identity-- of those who make up this industry?

RIHANNA: ♪ Shine bright like a diamond ♪ ♪ Shine bright like a diamond ♪ BOVELL: I think the future of work is going to involve so much change.

As far as my livelihood goes, I think I'm not going to be as dependent on modeling as a form of income.

I think it is time to start repositioning.

And I would advise all models to start thinking about that.

And it's not that they have to do that individually or specifically.

Everybody has to start preparing for the digital future.

RIHANNA: ♪ Shine bright like a diamond ♪ ♪ ♪ LUCAS KRUMP: All right, guys.

Let's just take a minute to get grounded and get present.

NARRATOR: But preparing for the digital future is easier said than done.

From supermodels to gig workers, the disruptions are real.

As industries transform, many grapple with profound questions about their work and professional identities.

Having so much of our world and our routine just completely changed, and how that impacts my ability to sort of show up in all the areas of my life.

ANDRE MARSEILLE: For many people, work is a source of dignity.

It's what they pride themselves on.

Your sense of self-esteem, self-worth, self-image, all those things come into play when you have a career and when you have a job.

And when you don't have that, people tend to lose their sense of identity.

For some, it's really hard to try to figure out a way to put that back together.

KRUMP: Male identity, I think, is really under siege.

We don't know who we're supposed to be and how to be who we're supposed to be.

How does your work play into your identity?

I'm in a state of reinvention-- age-wise, career-wise-- and that's sort of terrifying.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ KRUMP: Evryman started in 2016.

Our focus is on understanding men, is on learning about how we care for men, learning about what men need.

Work, money, relationships-- things that are generally occurring for men, and so we facilitate groups around all of those sort of individual issues on a daily basis.

Check in with your emotional body.

How do you feel?

Feeling... Isolated.

Sad.

KRUMP: When COVID hit, it was a pattern disrupt.

All of a sudden, all of those issues that we've all been experiencing now came to the surface.

When we all went home, we could no longer hide from those feelings.

Work very, very quickly becomes our identity.

I set up my whole life so I could work from home, hang out with my kids, you know, go on every field trip.

Uh... You know, me and my wife spent a lot of time together, right?

I was this family guy.

And then I'm separated.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: For some men, the pandemic escalated the identity crisis brought on by the ongoing revolution in work.

TYSON: Men could not respond well to the lack of the kinds of opportunities that had created their livelihood.

And their, the path they saw their parents follow, their father follow, sometimes their grandfather follow; that just was not open to them anymore.

So this is a serious, a serious issue.

♪ ♪ GLOVER-KERKVLIET: Dr. Marseille, do you want everybody to sort of introduce themselves and what they do real quick?

You know, just a... MARSEILLE: That would be great.

NARRATOR: For many, work is the bedrock of life and identity, and for Virginia Bell, an I.T.

consultant in healthcare, organizations like the Baltimore Job Hunters Support Group are a lifeline when work disappears.

VIRGINIA BELL: My name is Virginia Bell.

I've been with Baltimore Job Hunters for over a year now.

And I joined just before the pandemic.

GLOVER-KERKVLIET: Our program is the Baltimore Job Hunters Support Group, and within that we are running an outplacement program called Teamworks.

MARSEILLE: Should we start recording it then?

Yeah, let's record it, what the heck.

Okay, so record, please ask the host...

I'm the host, right?

You're the host.

Yep.

Oh, I'm muted?

Excuse me!

WOMAN: Oh yeah, definitely.

Okay, there we are.

(laughs) GLOVER-KERKVLIET: It's 100% virtual, and what we do is we try to treat the whole person who is unemployed.

My focus when I was working, was on work.

And now that I haven't been working for over a year and a half, a lot more of my spirituality, my body and health, and the relationships, has really increased.

GLOVER-KERKVLIET: We've had people in the group with doctorate degrees stocking at Target, working at Walmart.

We've had people who have had to take those positions in order to have some money coming in.

Oftentimes, when you meet new people, the first thing is "How are you doing, my name is blah, blah, blah," the second question is often what?

MAN: What do you do?

- "And what do you do?"

Right.

What do you do?

GLOVER-KERKVLIET: If you've not been in this situation, it's really hard to understand it.

You know, you're looking at your friend or your spouse, and they're not working but they have years of experience.

They have the degrees.

That is a hit to your self-esteem, your psychological health, and it's... it's very difficult.

MARSEILLE: I wonder how participants in your program deal with extended unemployment, which leads to a feeling of hopelessness.

How do you deal with that?

That's a hard one, that's really a hard one.

Um...

I have people who have applied to 500, 600, 700 jobs.

How much can... how much rejection can a person take?

Because, you know, again, as humans we're hardwired not to want rejection because that isolates you and if you get isolated from the group that means death, you know?

- Yeah.

- So it really takes a major toll on people.

So much of life happens at work.

We meet most of our friends at work.

A lot of our social human interactions are happening at work.

But when you're not in a traditional setting in your office, you are missing a large part of how we as Americans experience other people.

NARRATOR: Andre Marseille checks in with Virginia Bell, a client of the Baltimore Job Hunters Support Group.

MARSEILLE: How many resumes have you sent out since you've been part of the program?

VIRGINIA BELL: I would count about 150.

MARSEILLE: Wow, 150!

And of those 150, how many either call backs or interviews have you gotten as a result?

- Two.

- Two?

BELL: Yes.

MARSEILLE (voiceover): One of the things that COVID has revealed is that wanting to work and feeling that dignity of working, having the pride in that, and just not having the opportunity to do so and the frustration that comes as a result of that.

NARRATOR: Many feel adrift without steady and meaningful employment.

DEREK THOMPSON: They've essentially sought from work the very things that people have historically sought from organized religion.

It's meaning, it's transcendence, it's a sense of community, it's a sense of identity, and it's a kind of spiritual faith that the thing that will outlast you is your product, is your work.

NARRATOR: Workers aren't alone in searching for meaning and identity.

Some communities like Yuma, Arizona, are confronting their own identity crisis.

This rural border city is infamous for having one of the nation's highest unemployment rates-- a staggering 16%.

With this troubling reputation, local officials launched a rebranding campaign to rehabilitate Yuma's image and re-imagine its future.

ROSS: When you look at places that are struggling economically, some of them are like Yuma-- they are dominated by industries that don't pay a whole lot, like agriculture.

They're disconnected from the drivers of economic growth now, which tend to focus on innovation and the knowledge economy, and they suffer for that.

♪ ♪ DOUGLAS NICHOLLS: If you get off the road, you experience our community, you understand our economy, you understand our social structure, and how we play internationally.

All those things are great quality of life issues that really brings the uniqueness to our community.

And that's the identity we're focusing on.

We're not trying to be anyone else's.

BYRON AUGUSTE: To make a city like Yuma attractive, the first thing you can do is make it attractive for the people who already live there.

If you can create environments in Yuma where young people in Yuma think it's an exciting place to be, I think you're going to be at least 80 percent of the way there to making a place that somebody from outside of Yuma is going to say, "Wow, that's great, I'd love to be a part of that."

♪ ♪ MADELINE MELICHAR: Something that we really value is the community that is Yuma, and that's why we're here.

That's why we're choosing to pilot our company in Yuma.

♪ ♪ Our hope is to really serve the community, so providing jobs for people who want to be involved in agriculture technology.

EVAN WESTMAN: Yuma does produce a huge amount of the agriculture in the United States.

It produces over 90% of the nation's leafy greens.

Yet most people wouldn't be able to point it out on a map.

♪ ♪ MELICHAR: Good morning.

WESTMAN: Good morning.

NARRATOR: Evan Westman and Madeline Melichar prepared for this presentation for over a year.

They hope one of Yuma's top growers-- and employers-- will be impressed.

JON JESSEN: We grow the medjool date, which is a delicacy and very expensive because it takes a lot of hand labor to grow the dates, and it takes many years for the date trees to reach production stage.

♪ ♪ WESTMAN: Yeah, well, the wiring is still... incorrect.

MELICHAR: So let me move it back... NARRATOR: Local growers reached out to the University of Arizona's engineering and business programs to recruit students willing to help modernize Yuma's date industry.

(machine whirring) WESTMAN: There it goes.

NARRATOR: Westman and Melichar took up the challenge and formed a tech startup after graduating.

WESTMAN: So currently, date palms are manually pollinated, which means that they have to be climbed up to eight times a season for pollination alone.

We've actually designed a proprietary dispenser, and that's going to dispense the pollen at a chosen rate.

NARRATOR: Could their invention help deliver higher-paying jobs, and attract a new work force?

MELICHAR: You want to take a step back here, we'll allow Evan some space?

JESSEN: Yes.

(drone whirring) ♪ ♪ (drone whirring, buzzing) ♪ ♪ MELICHAR: What's your thoughts on drones?

I know it's kind of like a new technology coming in.

JESSEN: In the future, that's going to be the biggest part of what the drones can do, they can survey a field quickly.

- Yeah.

JESSEN: And get critical readings into the office.

MELICHAR: Yep, that's exactly what it is.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Yuma's stakeholders are working with the mayor and business leaders to bring in new industries and opportunities.

GLADYS BROWN: To say that we want one type of company?

Absolutely not-- I think that we put everything on the table as leaders in all the different organizations and we say, "Where does it make sense for them to be located at?

"And how can we, as a community, offer the most competitive package that we can deliver on?"

NICHOLLS: Our focus is creating kind of the mid-size industry footprint here.

You know, you bring in a company that has 300 to 400 people, that want to have a strong presence in a great community, just want to live in our community and not just here for the dollar.

MORETTI: When we think about local economic development, it's not just about jobs and earnings, but it's also about other aspects of a community life.

The improvement in local amenities, improvement in cultural institutions, whether museums or other forms of cultural entertainment that make a community lively and particularly attractive.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Are these ingredients enough to repair Yuma's image?

And can new industries and young entrepreneurs contribute to a brighter future?

♪ ♪ MELICHAR: I think something that's ironic that's come out of this pandemic is the call to the younger generations to solve the problems so we don't get back into the situation that we're currently in.

Being a part of a startup so young is answering that call.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Stockton, California, was another community struggling with a battered identity.

In 2012, with a staggering 20% unemployment rate, city officials filed for bankruptcy.

"Forbes" magazine ranked Stockton America's "most miserable city" and the nation's "worst city for finding a job."

♪ ♪ Local leaders knew bold action was needed.

In February of 2019, Stockton's youngest-ever mayor launched an innovative experiment attracting nationwide attention.

♪ ♪ NORAH O'DONNELL: Mayor Tubbs is addressing his town's poverty with an innovative and controversial program to give some Stockton residents $500 a month to fight economic hardship.

I know your city has struggled for years with income inequality and poverty.

Why universal basic income?

The idea is that-- especially in California-- one in two Californians can't afford one $400 emergency.

People are working harder and harder, only to fall further and further behind.

(voiceover): For me, basic income comes rooted in a history of civil rights and something that folks like Dr. King have advocated for.

But also it's an idea that's as old almost as this country.

So we selected families from throughout the city and the only criterion were that they had to live in a census track that the average income for that census track was at or below the city's median.

We didn't have all the money to help all 320,000 people, but could we help a representative sample and see if it works?

NARRATOR: The privately funded program-- called SEED-- selected 125 families living in lower income neighborhoods with an average salary of $46,000 or below.

Each recipient was given $500 a month-- no strings attached-- for 18 months.

When the pandemic hit, the program was extended for six more months.

TUBBS: Oftentimes when people think about basic income, they think of folks like Andrew Yang, who campaigned on it.

STEPHEN COLBERT: How does the Freedom Dividend work?

ANDREW YANG: Well, the Freedom Dividend-- if you could imagine a country where everyone is getting $1,000 a month as a right of citizenship, it would make our families stronger and healthier, would create millions of jobs in our communities.

♪ ♪ (indistinct chatter) NARRATOR: While controversial, many tech titans envision universal basic income as an innovative response to what they see as looming job loss.

OREN CASS: A lot of leaders in Silicon Valley-- especially engineers-- decided that there's a problem in this country that people don't have enough money, and they have solved it, which is send people more money.

We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure that everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.

I think, ultimately, we will have to have some kind of universal basic income.

♪ ♪ NATALIE FOSTER: A guaranteed income, or a universal basic income is the idea that everyone has an income floor through which no one can fall.

♪ ♪ We decided to invest in Mayor Michael Tubbs because it was a way to take, you know, the big idea of a guaranteed income and make it a reality.

TUBBS: You can't get to the top of the pyramid if you have no bottom.

So let's give you the resources to provide the bottom, and then you get to the top, that's up to you.

But at least we know we gave you the bottom so that you had a fighting chance, you had a real opportunity to get to that self-actualization we want to see.

- My turn.

- One grain.

- Uh-uh, Angel, your mom... - That was my turn.

NARRATOR: When Tomas Vargas Jr. saw an ad for the universal basic income program, he thought it was too good to be true, but he applied anyway.

I got something in the mail.

And then I filled it out, and I was still kind of like iffy, still laughing about it, showed my wife it, "Oh, this could be a scam real quick but, all right, let's see what's up," went down there and everything was official, we've been doing it ever since.

I was doing side jobs, mechanic work or I was doing landscaping.

And I was paycheck to paycheck.

And I didn't want to take that risk of trying to go for another job, because if I didn't get the other job, I would have been out; out on the streets, basically.

You guys see the homeless crisis.

I would have been one of those people.

Without it, I wouldn't be the person that I am right now.

Without it, I wouldn't have what I have.

It was just that little bit of just knowing somebody had my back.

FOSTER: Basic needs are being covered by the $500 a month.

That was before the pandemic hit.

After the pandemic, unfortunately the $500 a month with no strings attached has become a lifeline for so many families.

With a guaranteed income, he was able to stop his side hustle and spend time with his children.

The truth is, Americans can't work any harder.

Millions of people have second and third jobs just to make ends meet.

♪ ♪ CASS: I think it's really important to recognize that the COVID relief hasn't been anything like a U.B.I.

COVID is an incredibly unique situation where we actually don't want people working.

It's a public health problem first and an economic problem second.

And so whereas in a typical economic downturn, the question is, "How quickly can you get people back to work?"

During COVID, the question really has been, "What do we do for people who can't work?"

And so giving people money in that context is very different then giving them money in just a business as usual context.

FOSTER: So many people are concerned that if we create an income floor, everyone will stop working.

Studies show that is not true.

Studies show that people continue to work, but they have breathing room in their lives.

NARRATOR: In fact, Stockton's U.B.I.

recipients found full-time work more than twice as frequently as the control group who didn't receive the cash.

Are payments, then, a solution to the predicted disruptions in the future of work?

Some are doubtful.

CASS: But there's a way in which a U.B.I.

is sort of a get out of jail free card.

It's an excuse to not have to think about all the problems we really have in this country and say, "Well, how big a check do I have to write?

"Just tell me who to pay what so that I don't have to think about it or worry about it."

TUBBS: I remember calling my mayor friends and saying, "Look, I'm starting this network, "Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.

"It's the time, it's COVID-19, our folks need cash.

"It's responsive to the demands on the streets.

And I was shocked with how many mayors signed up so early.

♪ ♪ The government stimulus, the $1,200 one-time check was such a lifeline.

Not only just for the recipients, but more importantly for the non-recipients-- 315,000 other people who are in very similar economic circumstances.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Both U.B.I.

recipients and Stockton residents not participating in the program received pandemic-related government stimulus funds.

If we had passed an income floor back when Dr. King was talking about this idea in the late '60s, we would be in a very different place today as a nation.

♪ ♪ FOSTER: We need to create economic resiliency for families.

So that no matter what happens, you know that you could put food on the table and pay your rent at the end of the month.

CASS: The alternative is to look at this problem and say, "Well, we need economic reform.

"We need the economy to generate more "of the kinds of jobs we want, "and we need to be able to prepare people to take those jobs."

And I think it's important to recognize that for a lot of people, I think they're well-meaning in their U.B.I.

proposals-- yeah, you could help people by sending them checks-- but you wouldn't really address a lot of the problems we have.

NARRATOR: But Vargas was able to use the money to bring stability to his life and his family.

(giggles) So now I got full-time work, more pay, more hours, benefits, everything.

I was able to boost up my credit score.

I was able to get another vehicle.

I was able to sit there and spend more time with my kids.

- I'll stay there.

- It's my turn.

NARRATOR: For Mayor Tubbs, the universal basic income pilot was a game-changer.

Stockton became known as an innovator, no longer a city on the edge of despair.

TUBBS: It's really humbling for Stockton to be the first city in this country's history to test a basic income because oftentimes Stockton, we've been seen as ground zero for problems.

Like, you come to Stockton if you want to see how things are terrible.

And now people are looking at Stockton like, "Hey, how do we be like Stockton?

How can we do what Stockton did?"

As we look towards the future, it's going to be people like the folks who live in my community who actually are going to have a lot of the solutions to the problems we're facing.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: In 2018, "Future of Work" profiled an RVer when he worked a seasonal gig at an Amazon fulfillment center in Kentucky.

Chris Francis lost his white-collar career in the Great Recession of 2008, and he's been piecing together a livelihood ever since.

He's part of a growing movement of nomadic workers.

They live in their RVs full-time and travel the country going from job to job.

Today, Francis is in Oregon.

CHRIS FRANCIS: Okay, so we got two nights, with the discounted rate, it'll be $94.50.

And let me get my reader here... (voiceover): I'm park hosting at Grande Hot Springs RV Resort in La Grande, Oregon, doing duties all the way from checking people in, making reservations, all the way to working maintenance.

Press and pull.

- It should start.

CHRIS FRANCIS (voiceover): Lawnmowing... picking up trash, making sure things are clean, making sure the guests are okay-- gotta enjoy talking to people 'cause you talk to people a lot, every day.

These paw prints are where we have trash bags and a trash can for the dogs.

NARRATOR: This is not how Chris Francis envisioned his later years.

FRANCIS: The American dream, I think, has morphed.

The American dream used to be, you'd go to work for companies or you'd go to work for yourself, you got this house, you got the chance to go on vacations, you retired.

But people are realizing that dream, that changed a long time ago.

We see that with people coming through all of the time because they're traveling in RVs, or they're living in an RV but yet they're doing work wherever.

Y'all enjoy your stay.

- Yeah, we will!

♪ ♪ AUGUSTE: I think it's fair to say the American dream has been fading.

If you look at the numbers, someone who is 30-years-old in the United States in 1970 had a 91% chance of earning more than their parents did at that same age.

But roll the tape forward to 2010, an American who is 30-years-old had only a 50-50 chance of earning more than their parents.

So the American dream had become a coin flip.

I think it's pretty clear that the first generation of Americans to live materially worse than their parents is the generation that is today in their 20s and today even in their early 30s.

So we really have a serious problem at the macro level and the American dream as commonly understood is very much at risk.

CHRIS FRANCIS: Hi, Shelly.

- Hi... TERESA GHILARDUCCI: A lot of the future of work is very much connected to the future of retirement income.

We are seeing people increasingly having to work longer to supplement a crushed pension or a declining Social Security, because Medicare is taking up more and more of our Social Security check.

Part of the dream of work is the dream of retiring from work.

As every country gets richer, the idea that we can have time off from our work becomes part of what a society wants.

And what we are seeing, most definitely, is a reversal of that entitlement.

NARRATOR: Many older Americans fear a future with low wages, inadequate savings, little chance of retirement, and a lot more work.

♪ ♪ GLOVER-KERKVLIET: A lot of these folks were expecting that they were living the American dream, that we are part of a meritocracy where if you work really hard and you do all the right things and you make all the right decisions, and then you retire, you get to garden and be with grandchildren.

And if that didn't happen, you must have done something wrong.

GHILARDUCCI: That just plainly means that many middle class, older workers now, will be poor or near poor adults.

♪ ♪ CHRIS FRANCIS: The word career has changed.

My new career is doing various stuff.

What's needed to be done today?

What can I learn today?

What kind of charges me up a little bit, it's always being able to do something that you're familiar with but at the same time having that opportunity to learn something new.

MIKE RYSAVY: Well, Chris is great.

I mean, he's had a long, professional career, and has a broad skill set.

We're not talking about grandma and grandpa that don't know how to use a computer.

They've used a computer their entire life.

They know how to use the internet, they know how to use GPS, they're very sophisticated, and that is a great employee.

NARRATOR: But with seasonal and unpredictable jobs, some older workers like Chris Francis gave up their homes and downsized to cope with so much uncertainty.

CHRIS FRANCIS: The downsizing is the tough part.

We had a 2,800-square-foot house, we downsized to a 2,100-square-foot house to a now 400-square-foot RV.

Now we've got a house on wheels that we carry with us.

And you don't get to carry as much stuff with you.

JODI FRANCIS: People are finding that they don't need the brick and mortar and the hassles, frankly, that come with having a house.

And I think you're going to see more and more of that happening.

It's also less expensive, frankly.

(dice rattling) CHRIS FRANCIS: Okay, Jade, your turn.

JODI FRANCIS: Your turn, Jade.

CHRIS FRANCIS: Jodi and I have four kids together.

We've got two boys, two girls.

Jade's mom is Kelly and she's the oldest of the two girls.

JODI FRANCIS: She was young when she had Jade, which is why he lived with us.

Our daughter, she's a very good mom, but if she had to pay for child care, she would not be able to survive.

Jade has seen half of the states in his 11 years of life.

So he's been traveling in cars and RVs since he was five weeks old.

We've got to pack up the RV and get ready to move it and get it set up for the winter.

♪ ♪ JODI FRANCIS: And I'll open the Argentina file while you do that.

CHRIS FRANCIS: My wife works for a big international company and she works from home.

As long as we've got internet capability, she's able to get connected to her associates wherever they're at on the globe.

JODI FRANCIS: It's in the global market analysis folder.

We don't want me working the rest of my life.

And so we want, within ten years, for me to be free.

And so we're working towards that a little at a time.

CHRIS FRANCIS: Okay, is it my turn?

And I can do that?

And I can do that?

JADE FRANCIS: Where did I put my my cards?

CHRIS FRANCIS: Does that mean I win?

JODI FRANCIS: That means you won-- Papa won a game.

CHRIS FRANCIS: Yay.

JADE: You're cheating!

CHRIS FRANCIS (chuckles): You're the one that dealt them!

(laughter) ("Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve playing) CHRIS FRANCIS: The American dream is different for everyone out there.

For us, it's having some freedoms.

It's relationships is what makes us all connect with each other.

TIM HWANG: There's a chance now when everything is unsettled to really reset and deal with some of the long-standing problems in the economy and the long-standing problems in the way that we've thought about work.

But it's very easy for us to let that opportunity pass by.

And so I hope the future of work is one in which we seize that opportunity and really build a better future.

SINGER: ♪ 'Cause it's a bitter sweet symphony that's life ♪ (song continues) ♪ Tryna makes ends meet ♪ ♪ You're a slave to money then you die ♪ ♪ I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down ♪ (song continues) (song fades) ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Since the making of this documentary, digital nomad Erick Prince is still Thailand-based and his business is booming in spite of the pandemic.

♪ ♪ Florida resident Ixiim Flores continues to work from home.

Her multinational company plans to reopen their offices in late 2021.

♪ ♪ After sending out more than 100 resumes, Virginia Bell finally landed a job as a research analyst for a healthcare agency.

♪ ♪ Recent grads Evan Westman and Madeline Melichar seek investors for their drone pollination company in Yuma.

And Sinead Bovell still models when she can.

She's launched a tech start-up to help Gen Zers and millennials prepare for the disrupted future of work.

♪ ♪ For more about "Future of Work," PBS.org/futureofwork.

To order "Future of Work" on DVD, visit ShopPBS or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

This series is also available on Amazon Prime Video.

♪ ♪