The Uncertain Hour

Marketplace

Each season, we explain the weird, complicated and often unequal American economy — and why some people get ahead and some get left behind. Host Krissy Clark dives into obscure policies and forgotten histories to explain why America is like it is.

The latest season examines the “welfare-to-work industrial complex” and the multi-million dollar companies running today’s for-profit welfare centers.

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Our Editor's Take

The Uncertain Hour is a documentary podcast about the economy. Host Krissy Clark says the topics that cause the most debate are often the least understood. She's an award-winning reporter and senior correspondent for Marketplace. The host clarifies governmental strategies that affect, yet confuse, many Americans. These include federal regulations, drug approval policies, and unemployment. Welfare is a recurring subject here.

When Clark asked people how they felt about welfare, they gave confident answers. But when she asked them what welfare was, they couldn't explain it, including the people on welfare. The Uncertain Hour podcast analyzes the historical origins and modern efficacy of programs like these.

Clark interviews welfare reformer Larry Townsend. He promotes putting welfare recipients to work. He says educating them wastes time. Townsend's license plate frame reads, "Life works if you work." He wrote slogans like, "Success stands on your backbone, not your wishbone." The Uncertain Hour assesses whether his theories work. Podcast listeners hear where welfare money goes in their state. Only one-fifth of low-income families receive it. The other recipients are surprising.

The Uncertain Hour investigates government regulations. President Carter denounced a 12-year regulatory fight about the percentage of peanuts in peanut butter. Homemaker Ruth Desmond prompted that fight. A self-described "alerter," she demanded transparency for consumers. Desmond fought against nitrates in baby food and sawdust and chalk in bread. She decried carcinogens in cranberries and chloroform in children's toothpaste. She rode on her husband's hospital gurney to prevent him from getting anesthesia.

Desmond dedicated herself to everyone's safety. She and Clark share that commitment. Clark discusses pharmaceutical companies that contributed to the oxycodone epidemic. OxyContin's original label claimed its delayed absorption might reduce abuse liability. Who wrote that? Were they required to prove it? There were 80,411 opioid-involved overdose deaths in 2021. Opioid addiction affects millions.

As cocreator of this podcast, Clark is friendly yet relentless. She asks Townsend to explain his controversial comments about menopause and welfare. He gets flustered. She doesn't. Clark is an educated ally for listeners. Her reflective research explains current economic uncertainties.

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The Uncertain Hour dives into red tape

The Uncertain Hour dives into red tape

Join us this season as we go down the strange rabbit holes of history to find the origins of one of the most important but least understood battles in our economy today. We’ll bring you tales of peanut butter, “unelected bureaucrats,” the federal register, and a youth jazz orchestra. It’s all to make sense of that unassuming buzzword that shapes every moment of our lives: federal regulations.

Season 6

Season 6: The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex

Season 6: The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex

There is a growing chorus of politicians who argue that there’s a simple solution to help all kinds of problems, including poverty, labor shortages and government deficits: putting more work requirements into government welfare programs. Some are calling it Welfare Reform 2.0. But as politicians push these programs in the name of ending “welfare dependency,” behind the scenes there’s something else going on. A group of multimillion-dollar corporations have built their businesses on these welfare-to-work policies. And critics say they have cultivated their own cycle of dependency on the federal government. So where did this idea of requiring labor in exchange for government aid come from? And does it actually help people climb out of poverty? Turns out the answers is surprising — and troubling. “The Uncertain Hour” is back with season six, a deep dive into the welfare-to-work industrial complex and the multimillion-dollar companies running for-profit welfare centers.

Chapter 1: The dream

Chapter 1: The dream

When a struggling mother of two in Milwaukee hits hard times, she turns to a local welfare office for help — a welfare office outsourced to a private, for-profit company. Inside, staff preach the power of work, place people into unpaid “work experience” and enforce work requirements for welfare recipients, all in the name of teaching self-sufficiency. But who’s set to benefit most? That struggling mother or the for-profit company she turned to? Host Krissy Clark takes listeners into the world of for-profit welfare companies to examine America’s welfare-to-work system, work requirements and the multimillion-dollar industry that’s grown up around it.

Chapter 2: The compliance machine

Chapter 2: The compliance machine

A single mother of two in Chicago was working and taking classes to become an addiction counselor when her life fell apart. The father of her youngest child assaulted her so badly it put her in the hospital. Worried for her safety and the safety of her children, she fled to Milwaukee and signed up for welfare, hoping it would live up to the promise of providing employment and self-sufficiency. Instead, she ended up in a Kafkaesque maze of “work activities” that didn’t lead to a real job or independence. When her life hits another crisis, things really start to fall apart. Host Krissy Clark examines the roots of this cookie-cutter regime and discovers that a fundamental part of the problem lies in how the federal welfare reform bill measures success– in a way that has little to do with whether the program is helping participants gain family-sustaining employment. Give today to help cover the costs of this rigorous reporting. Every donation makes a difference! https://support.marketplace.org/uncertain-sn

Chapter 3: Race and rumor

Chapter 3: Race and rumor

In the 1950s, a rumor that people were moving to Newburgh, NY to live off welfare riled up the city. When city leaders essentially declare war on welfare — and the people who get it — things tumble out of control. Plus, how national suspicions grew about people getting welfare right as more black people started gaining more access to welfare benefits. Host Krissy Clark and producer Peter Balonon-Rosen go back in history to tell a surprising origin story of part of our welfare system — and take a magnifying glass to how our country determines who deserves help and who doesn’t. Give today to help cover the costs of this rigorous reporting. Every donation makes a difference! https://support.marketplace.org/uncertain-sn

Chapter 4: The Battle of Newburgh

Chapter 4: The Battle of Newburgh

In 1961, city officials in Newburgh, New York, declared war on their poorest residents by proclaiming, without evidence, that the city was overrun by welfare cheats. It was a moment in history when the belief that certain people need to be forced to work gained influence in our country’s system to help poor people. Officials led by City Manager Joseph Mitchell launched a campaign of harsh crackdowns on welfare recipients that included surprise police interrogations, rigid eligibility restrictions and forcing able-bodied men to work to receive a welfare check. But were these new rules designed to reduce welfare fraud or to target members of the city’s Black community? After a national controversy erupted over Newburgh’s welfare rules, the city found itself at the center of a fight over welfare policy that’s still playing out today. Producer Peter Balonon-Rosen takes us back to Newburgh to tell the story of its war on welfare and how race became central in a battle over welfare policy. Give today to help cover the costs of this rigorous reporting. Every donation makes a difference! https://support.marketplace.org/uncertain-sn

Chapter 5: Profits and Perverse Incentives

Chapter 5: Profits and Perverse Incentives

Antoine Dukes is a natural born salesman. And when he started working for a for-profit welfare company, he figured it was a good way to put his skills to work helping needy Americans find jobs that would get them back on their feet. But when he tried to avoid sending people to minimum wage jobs, something happened that made him realize that these welfare companies are rewarded with taxpayer dollars for getting welfare recipients into just about any job, even if the job would not support their family and would leave them still needing government help to make ends meet. In this episode, host Krissy Cark sheds light on this opaque business model — and has a frank conversation with the founder of America Works, one of the first for-profit welfare-to-work companies in the country. Give today to help cover the costs of this rigorous reporting. Every donation makes a difference! https://support.marketplace.org/uncertain-sn

Chapter 6: The Welfare to Temp Work Pipeline

Chapter 6: The Welfare to Temp Work Pipeline

Since the 1990s, most cash welfare recipients have been required to get a job or do mandated “work activities” to receive their monthly check. These requirements are intended to help parents who are struggling financially into jobs that will help keep them out of poverty and off government benefits. But is the work requirement system meeting either of those goals? According to our analysis of data from Wisconsin, an average of nearly 70% of employed welfare participants worked at temp companies. These companies put people to work in other companies, trying to fill temporary jobs where the work is often grueling and the pay low. Welfare-to-work has been so good for temp agencies that some of them actively lobby for more work requirements for government benefits through campaign contributions and white papers. “It gives us a pool of more people we can help,” said the CEO of one temp company whose franchises have ranked among the top 10 employers of Wisconsin welfare participants. “A person loses self-esteem when they don’t go back to work. Whether it’s voluntary or involuntary work is very important for their psyche.” On this episode, host Krissy Clark looks at the cozy relationship between for-profit welfare companies and temp companies desperate to put people to work in some of the country’s most precarious jobs. Plus, a frank discussion with an architect of our modern welfare-to-work system, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson. For a deeper dive into the numbers about how private welfare contractors make money and some other eye-popping data, check out the work of our colleagues at APM Research Lab. Give today to help cover the costs of this rigorous reporting. Every donation makes a difference!

Season 5

‘The Uncertain Hour’ is back!

‘The Uncertain Hour’ is back!

Employment as we know it is changing. The kinds of jobs where one person works for one employer for years — with health insurance, sick days, paid vacation and a retirement fund — are getting harder to find. Throughout the economy, companies have pivoted to outsourced, subcontracted, freelance, temporary or gig workers. Many of those jobs don’t have benefits; some of them don’t even pay minimum wage. And while it’s accelerated during recent recessions, the trend has been decades in the making. This season, “The Uncertain Hour” is looking at this thing we used to call employment: what happened to it, why it happened and what a workforce made up of “nonemployees” means for our future. The new season starts Wednesday, Feb. 3. Here’s a preview.

Congratulations! You’re an entrepreneur now

Congratulations! You’re an entrepreneur now

Jerry Vazquez always dreamed of working for himself. So when he saw a notice in the PennySaver advertising janitorial franchises, he decided to go all in. Pretty soon after, he was in debt to the company and earning less than minimum wage doing a really dirty job. He’d wanted his own business — and on paper, he did — but it felt like something entirely different. Correction (Feb. 4, 2021): A previous version of this podcast description misspelled Jerry Vazquez’s name. The text has been corrected.

Who’s the boss?

Who’s the boss?

Jerry Vazquez was in the cleaning business now, and his clients liked him. They’d leave him notes, some with smiley faces drawn in. But, he says, he was barely getting by on the rates negotiated by Jan-Pro. He started feeling like had little control over a business that he owned. As Jerry would soon find out, some of Jan-Pro’s other franchisees felt similarly — they were stuck. So Jerry decided it was time to fight back. For even more of “The Uncertain Hour,” subscribe to our newsletter! Each week we’ll bring you a note from host Krissy Clark and explain some terms that have come up in our reporting. This week’s word is “franchise.”

“To suffer or permit to work”

“To suffer or permit to work”

This week we’re finally going to tell you what happened to Jerry Vazquez — and how his story relates to the 1930s case of a hotel chambermaid. Jerry and some of his fellow Jan-Pro franchisees decided to sue the company, saying they’d been misclassified as independent contractors when they should have been employees (and entitled to minimum wage, over time, and other protections). But the argument over what defines an employee has a long and strange legal history. So, we’ll dive in and explore the origins of the federal minimum wage, why lawmakers wrote the law as broadly as they did, whom it applied to and whom it excluded. And we’ll tell you about this odd but powerful phrase, “to suffer or permit to work,” that’s at the heart of lawsuits like Jerry’s. For even more of “The Uncertain Hour,” subscribe to our newsletter! Each week we’ll bring you a note from host Krissy Clark and explain some terms that have come up in our reporting. This week we’re looking at “misclassification.”

The liquid workforce

The liquid workforce

Over a quarter of the world’s largest employers don’t just make or sell products — they also rent out workers. Let’s talk about how we got here. For even more of “The Uncertain Hour,” subscribe to our newsletter! Each week we’ll bring you a note from host Krissy Clark and explain some terms that have come up in our reporting. This week we’re looking at “core competence.”

To catch a chicken

To catch a chicken

When chicken catcher Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, virtually overnight, he started doing the same job for a new boss — only without the pay, protections and benefits he’d come to rely on. This episode looks at the subcontracting system that makes worker pay and safety someone else’s responsibility. For even more of “The Uncertain Hour,” subscribe to our newsletter! Each week we’ll bring you a note from host Krissy Clark and explain some terms that have come up in our reporting. This week we’re looking at “piece rate.”

Big Boss, Little Boss

Big Boss, Little Boss

After Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, he took both companies to court — the subcontractor he worked for and its client, Koch Foods. The “little boss” and the “big boss.” His case hinged in part on those familiar six words, “to suffer or permit to work,” and this week we’ll revisit their origins. The story begins at the scene of a deadly fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where one witness would go on to devote her life’s work to prevent such tragedies from happening again. A century later, the law she helped craft, the Fair Labor Standards Act, served as the legal basis for Jimmy’s case — and others. For even more of “The Uncertain Hour,” subscribe to our newsletter! Each week we’ll bring you a note from host Krissy Clark and explain some terms that have come up in our reporting. This week we’re looking at “sweating system.”

Inside baseball

Inside baseball

In minor league baseball, professional athletes train, suit up and play for wages that would be illegal in most sectors. Players live in crowded apartments, sleep on air mattresses, work side jobs and scrape by. This week, a story about life in the minor leagues and how the baseball industry convinced Congress to rewrite federal law — and carve an entire workforce out of minimum wage and overtime requirements. For even more of “The Uncertain Hour,” subscribe to our newsletter! Each week we’ll bring you a note from host Krissy Clark and explain some terms that have come up in our reporting. This week we’re looking at the Save America’s Pastime Act.

My boss is an app

My boss is an app

The gig-app workforce has arrived at our doorstep. But Silicon Valley’s innovations in hiring are only the latest round of this long-running battle over what employment means in the American economy. This concludes our fifth season of “The Uncertain Hour.” To be the first to hear about our next season, subscribe to our mailing list.

25 years after welfare reform, let’s revisit “the magic bureaucrat”

25 years after welfare reform, let’s revisit “the magic bureaucrat”

It’s been 25 years since our country upended its welfare system – and so we’re looking back at our very first episode. We spent that first season of “The Uncertain Hour” reflecting deeply on what welfare had become. Each of those episodes can still help us understand what’s happened to one of our nation’s oldest safety net programs, on this anniversary of its so-called “reform.” In this reprise episode, we tell the story of the “Magic Bureaucrat” — the former director of a suburban county welfare office who helped launched the welfare reform movement 25 years ago, with the aid of a self-produced pop album. Check out the whole first season to learn more — from the story of a woman who exposed the racism built into the welfare system from its early days, to an investigation of some of the very surprising ways states have spent federal welfare funds in the last 25 years. Money has gone to marriage counseling workshops, college scholarships for middle-class families and religious “crisis pregnancy centers” that try to steer women away from abortions.

Season 4

A History of Now: The Trailer

A History of Now: The Trailer

There’s not much more uncertain than our current moment. Our day-to-day lives and our economy have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic. On this season, “A History of Now,” we’re digging into the history and policies that help make sense of this current moment, a time where issues of wealth and poverty feel even more stark than usual. New episodes start May 13.

You’re an essential worker. Do you get essential protections?

You’re an essential worker. Do you get essential protections?

Chicken is America’s most popular meat. But chicken supply chains — in fact, many of our food supply chains — are in danger of breaking down. Part of the reason is the workers who process and package those goods are getting sick. In some cases, they’re dying. For the first episode of our new season, “A History of Now,” we focused on America’s chicken supply chain because it raises a huge, looming question: How is it that essential workers don’t have essential protections? How do we get through a crisis — any crisis — if we can’t be sure our food-producing workforce is safe?

An unequal history of quarantines

An unequal history of quarantines

As long as there’s been such a thing as quarantine, each person’s experience under it has depended largely on their economic status. On this week’s show, we take a tour of quarantines through history, from the bubonic plague outbreaks in 14th and 17th century Italy, to the a typhoid outbreak in New York in the early 1900s and a few other stops along the way. Those quarantines looked very different if you were, say, an immigrant, or a Jewish textile merchant, or a sex worker. Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic shine a spotlight on all the inequalities already lurking in the system, and ideas of what the government owes to people in quarantine have changed over the centuries too. Long gone are the days of the government sending your family fennel sausage, cheese and wine to make it through.