Jan 28, 2018 4 min read

A little more than 50 years ago, “CBS Evening News” anchor Walter Cronkite – popularly referred to as “the most trusted man in America” at that point – assured television viewers that a future of less work and more leisure was just over the horizon.

“Technology is opening a new world of leisure time,” Cronkite said. “One government report projects that by the year 2020, the United States will have a 30-hour work week and monthlong vacations as a rule.”

We only have 23 months left until Jan. 1, 2020, arrives, and those 30-hour work weeks and monthlong vacations are as elusive as ever for most Americans. The average American now puts in 47 hours a week, according to Gallup, and receives 10 paid vacation days per year. And that’s the case even as technology has grown more sophisticated and increased our productivity.

Cronkite’s prediction a half-century ago may now generate chuckles, but he was hardly a lone voice in the wilderness. In the late 1960s, prophecies of a future stuffed with free time were commonplace. The greatest problem we would have, more than a few economists and political scientists predicted, is how we would fill our days.

Confident forecasts of a world without work have been resurfacing in recent months, but they have a much more dystopian cast than they did in the Age of Aquarius. Yes, we could well be facing a world where everyday jobs that employ legions of Americans disappear, whether it’s truckers whose jobs could be eliminated because of driverless vehicles, or retail workers who are shown the door because of online shopping. But rather than envisioning a world where comfort and recreation will predominate, prognosticators are wondering whether there will be a permanent class of unemployed or underemployed workers, and whether governments should consider offering a universal basic income to its citizens so some can survive at a subsistence level.

All this crystal-gazing should perhaps be taken with a degree of caution, but the opening last week of a convenience store in downtown Seattle operated by Amazon could offer a hint of what the future could hold for retailers, shoppers and, yes, workers.

Dubbed Amazon Go, it has no checkout lines. Customers can get through the gates at the front of the store if they have its smartphone app. They can fill bags with the food on sale at the store, and then head out the door without pausing to stop at a cash register. Once they leave, their Amazon account is automatically charged. According to The New York Times, “Amazon’s technology can see and identify every item in the store, without attaching a special chip to every can of soup and bag of trail mix.”

Amazon contends that a store like this doesn’t necessarily sound the death knell for employees of grocery or convenience stores. Rather than being stationed at cash registers, they will be stocking shelves, checking IDs when alcohol purchases are made or otherwise assisting customers. On a broader scale, some retail experts have argued that employees who are no longer punching clocks at stores can find jobs instead at warehouses where goods are shipped out to online customers.

Well, maybe. That assumes you live near one of these warehouses and have the ability to hoist goods around or drive a forklift. Otherwise, you might well be out of luck.

It’s long been a given that the future of work could well contain jobs for which there are no descriptions now. And that you need to be skilled in order to stay afloat. Are we adequately preparing for this destabilized work world? There is much reason to wonder. As an article in The Atlantic pointed out last year, “Politicians are often nostalgia merchants, selling the irreplaceable virtues of whatever cultural or economic norm is in its twilight.”

Helping us get ready for this new world of work is something our leaders must do much more urgently. This needs to be a front-and-center issue in this year’s elections and beyond.