Work & Labor: Jobs, Pay, and Power
How work is counted, what it pays, and who holds the power in a market that in 2026 hired at its slowest pace since 2010–12 while layoffs stayed rare: the workforce and the jobs report, the statistics strained in 2025–26, the cycle and the Fed, pay and labor's record-low share of income, what AI has done to work so far, the first job and the trades, immigration and the raids, unions and the 2026 strikes, the law of work, gig and remote work, and the world's labor markets, with each side's case made on the jobs data, AI, college, immigration, unions, the minimum wage, and gig work. Eleven worked examples, from the September jobs report read the way the market reads it to a rideshare driver's hour.** **