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David M. Gordon advanced labour economics with his theory of labour market segmentation, in which jobs rather than the marginal productivity of individual workers were the unit of analysis. He advanced economic historiography and macroeconomics by conceptualising social structures of accumulation – a framework built on the foundation of his institutionalist training and enriched by his study of Marxist economics. By appropriating methods from other social science disciplines into econometrics, he augmented empirical analysis in economics. He was a founding member of the Union of Radical Political Economics and its journal, the Review of Radical Political Economics – that advanced and promoted heterodox, radical, and Marxist economists in the United States. His contributions to economics, to organised labour, and to the New School for Social Research, where I studied with him, were stunning.

Part 1 lays out some context about the New School Graduate Faculty where Gordon taught. Part 2 explores what historical forces, including his family, led to his expansive creativity. Part 3 summarises how he expanded labour economics to include the relations as well as the technology of production, linked his understanding of the production process to a historical materialist view of labour in the United States, then extended that to econometric analyses of the US macroeconomy. Part 4 presents a bibliometric analysis to provide some idea of the impact of his work. I end with some concluding remarks.

In the United States, many arguments for mass transport often focus on its benefits to the environment or in terms of congestion relief. This chapter instead looks at direct micro-scale and meso-scale economic and social benefits by identifying occupations, industries, and demographic groups that are both growing and can benefit from transit. In using this form of local-scale identification of unique economic circumstances, government planners, elected officials, and academics can create a practical, GIS-focused approach to increase the utility and acceptance of mass transportation in the United States.

Using a GIS-based approach with US Census and US Labor Department data, the chapter focuses on local growth sectors in the economy, then identifying their transit-usage patterns. Additionally some GIS are used to identify concentration areas of both occupations and transit usage, along with areas of likely employment for those individuals. Locally this creates “micro-climates” or hot spots for favorable views and usage of transport. These micro-climates can be duplicated in other similar areas to increase utilization, and therefore return on investment, of public transportation.

For denser areas, affluent downtowns, and areas which are accessible to hospitals and universities, the primary growth engines of the current US labor market, transit has a positive correlated relationship. Additionally, recent immigrant groups, particularly those with limited English speaking ability, have also shown a correlated growth in transit usage. By identifying these areas with GIS, transit can better align its services to needs and improve it return on investment.

The United States has had a fifty-year-long negative view of public transport outside of major urban areas. By identifying groups with positive correlated use of transit, the return on investment and public perception of its use and environmental sustainability can mesh with land use planning and perceived quality of the service. In so doing, transit use may be encouraged.

The United States is faced with very high petrol prices relative to its history, and somewhat lesser incomes among its sub-age-30 work cohorts. This has encouraged density. However, in order to provide for this increased demand, there must be an increase in both supply and politically perceived value in its investment. This chapter seeks to be an early pragmatic model in valuing public transport at a local level.

In 1978, the once powerful US apparel industry was on the cusp of change, and the consulting firm KSA conducted a Delphi survey of apparel executives’ predictions into the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to compare actual changes over the subsequent decades with these 1978 expert predictions and explore the accuracy/inaccuracy of these “educated guesses” (KSA, 1978, p. 1).

The chorographic method was used to analyze the report and document historical data. Chorography is “concerned with significance of place, regional characterization, [and] local history […]” (Rohl, 2012, p.1) and includes contextual settings and researcher input. Primary data were examined during each decade and included: industry literature, government documents and labor data. The researchers used content analysis to reduce and organize data.

Findings cover three decades of Southeast US apparel industry data including imports, employment, number of plants, size of plants and productivity. Predictions were inaccurate about imports, predicted to be minor in comparison with domestic production, which they actually surpassed. Predicted decrease in employment was similar to actual decrease but reasons were inaccurate. Change in number and size of plants were over-predicted and under-predicted. Reasons given by experts were automation and government intervention; in actuality, limited automation occurred with insignificant impact in contrast to outsourcing, which decimated employment in US plants. Steady increase in productivity was predicted when productivity often decreased.

Previous studies focus on the textile sector; studies of the apparel sector tend to be regional or topical. This study is more expansive and provides insight into predictions and changes made in the US apparel industry at a critical time in its near demise. With the current climate of global change and increased market uncertainty, insights from this study may provide direction for rethinking of the domestic apparel industry for the USA and other developed countries.

Over the past 12 years scores of reports and articles have been written about occupational, workforce, or workplace literacy (Workforce 2000 – economic and labour force changes, and skills requirements, impacting on America). Research and published materials have failed to address the impact of these issues for the vast local public sector work‐force. Reports on exploratory research on issues of occupational literacy in a large metropolitan US county government workforce. All of the 32 county departments were surveyed regarding Workforce 2000 and occupational literacy in order to assess employee skills and workplace requirements, literacy issues, leadership awareness and policies and planning. Results show a well intentioned, but poorly prepared, (and preparing) county leadership and workforce, which may well impact on the quality of future service delivery. Makes recommendations for policy and programme changes, and for continuing research.

US consumers admit they are not knowledgeable about the global apparel industry; however, they hold positive beliefs about US apparel industry labour practices. Consumers have much less regard for the foreign industry. There is a slightly higher level of concern for US workers versus foreign workers. Governmental regulations, labelling and store boycotts are agreed upon solutions for abolishing sweatshops. Implications of consumers' beliefs and attitudes to the global apparel industry and governmental policy are discussed.

Women now represent approximately half of the working population in the USA. In 1996, the US Department of Labor reported that women comprised 44 percent of the total persons employed in executive, administrative and managerial occupations. However, this category is extremely broad, and women are grossly underrepresented at the top executive positions of Fortune 500 corporations. In 1995 the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission produced two reports: the first finding the existence of a glass ceiling; and the second presenting strategic recommendations on what corporations could do to remove or reduce these findings. Explores how women in middle management perceive their career advancement opportunities and what they consider their organizations to be doing to support their advancement. Overall, results suggest that the glass ceiling is still an issue for women within organizations. Finally, the business implications of this are considered.

Recent research begins to explore how organizations of informal workers function, and succeed or fail. Using cases of domestic-worker movements in Mexico and the United States, we seek to extend this research by adding historical analysis of the movements’ evolution through a cross-national analysis of movement differences. We draw on concepts from the social movement and intersectionality literature. Historically, the two movements have been propelled by multiple streams of activism corresponding to shifting salient intersectional identities and frames, always including gender but incorporating other elements as well. Comparatively, the US domestic-worker movement recently has had greater success due to superior financial resources and more facilitative political opportunities – advantages due in part precisely to intersectional identities resonant with potential allies. However, this relative advantage was not always present and may not persist. Social movement concepts and intersectional analysis thus help understand both historical changes and cross-national contrasts in informal-worker organizing.

Public health measures implemented early in the COVID-19 pandemic brought the idea of essential work into the public discourse, as the public reflected upon what types of work are essential for society to function, who performs that work, and how the labour of essential workers is rewarded. This chapter focusses on the rewards associated with essential work. The authors develop an intersectional lens on work that was officially deemed essential in 2020 to highlight longstanding patterns of devaluation among essential workers, including those undergirded by systemic racism in employment and labour law. The authors use quantitative data from the CPS-MORG to examine earnings differences between essential and non-essential workers and investigate whether the essential worker wage gap changed from month to month in 2020. The authors find that patterns of valuation among essential workers cannot be explained by human capital or other standard labour market characteristics. Rather, intersectional wage inequalities in 2020 reflect historical patterns that are highly durable and did not abate in the first year of the global pandemic.

Farm labor contractors operate as intermediaries between farmworkers and agricultural employers by recruiting and supplying labor to US farms. In a political economy where there are employer sanctions for hiring workers without proper documentation, contractors share risk alongside final employers. Furthermore, contractors may facilitate quick employment matches during time sensitive agricultural tasks such as harvesting. For undocumented workers, using a contractor may decrease uncertainty associated with a foreign labor market and ease language barriers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the current role of labor contractors in delivering immigrant agricultural workers, particularly undocumented workers, to farms.

Determinants of labor contractor use and relationships to final worker outcomes are examined using econometric methods and a large nationally‐representative worker survey that is distinctive in that it distinguishes legal status.

Undocumented farmworkers are shown to be more likely to use contractors than are documented workers, though statistical significance is sensitive to the inclusion of crop and task indicators, and wages and fringe compensation to workers who use contractors are lower, even after controlling for legal status.

The paper contributes to limited recent academic work on the role of labor contractors in US agriculture. Future work may examine ongoing changes to this role in the context of mutable immigration policy and public opinion.

It is argued that the decline in labor contracting increases the need for employer‐level bilingual communication skills and compliance with labor regulations.

Understanding current dynamics of the agricultural labor market should be of value to scholars of rural economies, farm owners and agricultural policymakers.

Immigration has been a subject of intense historical and contemporary debate in US political life. Proponents of immigration cite the important contributions immigrants have made and continue to make to the USA’s national development and evolution. Advocates of more restrictive immigration policies stress concerns over the USA’s ability to support immigrant residents and whether newer immigrants threaten the US national identity and social cohesion. Proponents and opponents of current US immigration policy will use figures from the 2000 census to justify their respective arguments in upcoming debates on this subject. This article examines a variety of immigration literature resources such as scholarly books, government documents, and Websites and seeks to emphasize the subject’s complexities and contradictions along with US and transnational perspectives.