What I do IS work

This is Dr. Richard Florida, best known for his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class.  Here's the crazy thing, his area of study and research is economic development.  His job is to help figure out how civic leaders can make their cities more prosperous.  And yet, A LOT of today's conservative leaders hate this guy.  Why?  Because when he actually did the research, he found that human creativity is the driving force in today's world.  That means cities with clusters of highly creative people, particularly the really big cities, are creating the new ideas that are driving our economy forward.  But not everyone is moving forward.  That hit home with me the night before last when I got out of the hospital and was sent to a very low budget, but functional, homeless shelter.  I was sent there since I don't have a physical address here. 

A very tough, but fair, woman asked me the questions necessary for my intake.  At one point, she asked if I had a way to make any money.  So I told her the truth. 
"Well, I do some artwork, and I make..."
"NO!" she snapped, "A job, a REAL job."  
"No income," I replied.  

I knew better than to argue with her.  But the little incident really pissed me off.  I wasn't mad at her.  She's probably a volunteer, in a homeless shelter, dealing mostly with small time idiots and shady con artists.  You have to be tough. 

But my artwork IS a job.  Sorry lady.  It may not count for that homeless shelter, but it does count in today's world.  OK, my income is sketchy as fuck at the moment.  No arguments.  But a huge part of that is because of other people's prejudice that what I do doesn't count.  BUT, as Richard Florida says above, 35% to 45% of today's workers are in his "Creative Class," which includes working artists.  But this news STILL hasn't made it to most of society.  Here's a rough breakdown of where people work these days (check this chart under "building a better service class"):

Agriculture- 1%-2% of all workers
(Manufacturing- 7% to 8% of all workers- included in working class below)
Traditional "blue collar" working class- 20% of all workers
Creative Class (arts, design, science, engineering, teachers, management, doctors, entrepreneurs/business owners, etc)- 30% to 35 % of all workers
Service class- 50% of all workers.

These are rough estimates, but in the ballpark.  Check the 2012 re-edit of The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida for all the charts on these ideas.

Working for Lyft or UBER is work.  Selling crafts on Etsy is work.  Buying stuff on Craigslist and reselling it on Ebay is work.  Having a YouTube channel that pays is work.  Running niche websites selling stuff from China (or wherever) is work.  And me drawing unusual looking Sharpie drawings and making $500-$600 a month, is work.  It's not a decent living (yet!) but it is work.  The combination of the internet, laptops, tablets, smart phones, and widespread wifi has made all kinds of new business models real.  But huge numbers of people still don't take all these millions of odd jobs, side jobs, gig jobs, and small businesses seriously.  But it IS all work in today's world.

This is a huge part of the issues in small town and rural America.  A lot of older people who run these smaller towns, both civic and traditional business leaders, are completely out of touch with the millions of new ways money is being earned in today's world by millions of people.  These people are settled in their ways, which I get, I'm like that, too.  But they're holding lots of small business ideas back because they just haven't seen that a lot of people are actually making money in all these weird, new ways.  I think getting past this education barrier in rural areas, small towns, and mid sized cities will ultimately not only help more people make better livings, but will help mellow out our polarized political anger as well.  Time will tell.

Just found this article: One in four Americans makes money from the online economy