Noam Scheiber

nytimes.comHow to Straddle the MAGA Divide (Gift Article)Beth Wilkinson is a Washington lawyer who has thrived representing the Trump administration’s enemies and allies alike. Does she represent a vanishing type?

I profiled the DC superlawyer Beth Wilkinson--arguably the most successful lawyer in the country representing both Trump allies and Trump enemies. I tried to get at how she pulls it off, and whether there's a future in this line of work www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/b...

One piece of advice she's given young lawyers about squaring the job with your moral intuitions...

nytimes.comHow Scientists Can Shape Public Opinion Over A.I. Risks (Gift Article)Artificial intelligence workers may have leverage to make the world safer.

Nuclear scientists help derail Reagan's Star Wars missile-defense program when they criticized it in the 1980s. Of all the analogies b/w AI and nukes over the past two weeks, that one may be the most relevant. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/b...

nytimes.comThe Working Class Face a ‘Class Ceiling’ in Elite Occupations (Gift Article)Being female or a person of color has long been seen as a disadvantage in hiring and promotion. A new study of college professors shows that class may loom as large.

18 Sept

"If you’re a white working-class guy in an elite profession, you’re also facing pretty serious barriers.” Some very persuasive evidence that the "class ceiling" is a huge problem for white-collar workers. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/b...

nytimes.comCisco Likely Allowed Harassment of Pro-Palestinian Workers, EEOC Says (Gift Article)The finding by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said there was reason to believe that the tech giant subjected employees to a hostile environment.

14 Sept

Another example of the rancor that engulfed American workplaces after 10.7.23: The EEOC has found that Cisco likely allowed harassment of pro-Palestinian employees. Cisco denies the allegation. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/b...

dissentmagazine.orgThe Party of Baristas - Dissent MagazineNoam Scheiber’s Mutiny shows that the labor organizing of the radicalized PMC is far more than a fit of whimsical proletarian roleplay.

10 Sept

If you're lucky, someone will eventually review your book in a way that almost makes you jealous of their insights into the material. It's fair to say that the historian Gabe Winant has just published that review of my book. dissentmagazine.org/article/muti...

10 Sept

Among other things, Winant addresses the (very fair) critique of my argument about the possibility of a political coalition b/w college grads and non-graduates, based on their shared identity as put-upon workers.

nytimes.comMore Young College Graduates Are Living At Home. Is That a Bad Thing? (Gift Article)More young adults are living with their parents. The development suggests that they face a weak job market, but also that fewer face stigma in returning to the roost.

2 Aug

More and more college grads are moving home after graduation. It reflects the combination of a lousy job market, high rent and the easing of a social stigma www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/b...

2 Aug

Here's the data on the rise in college grads age 23 to 27 living with their parents, courtesy of the economists Stefania Albanesi, Rania Gihleb and Ning Zhang

papers.ssrn.comBoomerang College Kids: Unemployment, Job Mismatch and CoresidenceLabor market outcomes for young college graduates have deteriorated substantially in the last twenty five years, and more of them are residing with their parent

2 Aug

And here's a 2022 paper by them exploring the phenomenon. They're circulating a 2026 version to fellow economists, but it's not online yet papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

nytimes.comWe’re Only Starting to Grasp the Pitfalls of Using A.I. at Work

29 June

Companies are adopting AI much faster than they can identify the blindspots that AI introduces. One example: Many are adding AI agents to their org charts as bona fide employees. But human managers check the work of AI employees much less carefully, increasing errors www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/b...

epi.orgClass of 2026: Young college graduates face a weaker labor market—but a more mixed picture than the headlines suggestOver the last couple of years, the overall labor market has slowly weakened—with many arguing that the weakening is most pronounced for young college graduates (whom we define as young workers ages 22...

15 May

From the Economic Policy Institute: "In the long run, the college degree is losing its edge: Unemployment for young college graduates has risen in historical terms, and the college wage premium has been flat or falling in recent years." www.epi.org/blog/class-o...

15 May

Ergo www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/b...

8 May

George Will has some thoughts on my book today. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202.... His take on the young college grads I wrote about:

28 Apr

"Among the recent job cuts at Citi were employees who were part of the bank’s 'AI Champions and Accelerators' program... [which] involves Citi employees who perform their day jobs while also working to persuade their colleagues to adopt A.I. technologies." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/b...

wired.comHow the Vision Pro Rollout Inflamed Tensions at AppleEven before the headset’s release, the workforce at Apple Stores was under duress. Trying to get customers interested in the Vision Pro made it worse.

My book on the college-educated working class is out today! Here’s an excerpt in WIRED about how the chaotic rollout of the Apple Vision Pro was the last straw for a lot of Apple workers. 1/ www.wired.com/story/book-e...

It was hardly the only reason the Vision Pro flopped—the price tag didn’t help. Neither did the shortage of useful apps, the relatively heavy weight (~1.5 pounds), and the weird “persona” that showed up on people’s screens when you did a video call. 10/

But whereas the well-staffed, well-trained Apple stores used to be an asset in ambitious new rollouts—like for the Apple Watch in 2015—this time the understaffed, poorly trained Apple workers turned into a liability. 11/

Within about a week, Apple abandoned the idea that Apple store workers should become fluent in the script, and let them read it from iPads. A far cry from the kind of showmanship Jobs was famous for. 8/

Many employees struggled to place the headset on people’s heads properly, which could result in blurry images. 9/

“I got a 20-minute demo. I got maybe 30 minutes to review the script, did a demo on one person who had went to Cupertino, and was thrown from the nest,” said Sam Hernandez, a longtime salesperson at a flagship Apple Store in Chicago. 6/

The temps and recent hires didn’t have any experience with a complicated rollout, and it showed in many cases. 7/

Training for Apple store employees has shifted from a classroom style format to computer modules that new hires click through. 4/

When it came to the Vision Pro, many managers didn’t give employees time to do the training mandated by Cupertino. 5/

Apple HQ choreographed an elaborate rollout for its $3,500 mixed-reality headset, which required store workers to learn a 20-25 min script and get more than five hours of training. 2/

But the corporate folks in Cupertino didn’t quite grasp that this was no longer Steve Jobs’ Apple Store. During 15 years under Tim Cook, the stores have become increasingly understaffed and have relied much more heavily on temps. 3/

I have a story up today about why young college grads are feeling so angry: It’s more than just rising unemployment and the threat of AI. It’s a deep sense of betrayal. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/b...

Finally, people who follow politics know that Zohran Mamdani won over a lot of frustrated college grads in NYC last fall. But I’m not sure people appreciate quite how big that margin was. For college grads under 30, Mamdani won 84%! 10/

ssrs.comJoe Lenski - SSRS

Special thanks to Joe Lenski at SSRS for this data. 11/ ssrs.com/about/teams/...

Last year, the exact same portion of college grads and high school grads said they expected to be better off in a year—32 percent—while college grads were much *more* likely to predict they would be worse off. 7/

gallup.comU.S. Worker Thriving Declines as Job Market Pessimism GrowsFor the first time in Gallup's tracking, more U.S. workers are struggling than thriving. Job market confidence has dropped sharply with about half of employees watching for better opportunities.

Then there’s this striking Gallup poll from a few days ago. The portion of college grads who said it was a good time to look for a quality job was over 70% as recently as 2022. By late last year it had dropped to 19%. 8/ www.gallup.com/workplace/70...

If you look at 4-year-averages, college grads have never been more pessimistic than over the past four years. 5/

Relatedly, beginning in the 1960s, college grads were generally much more optimistic about their future financial situation than people with only a high school diploma. But that gap dropped substantially over the last decade. 6/

us.macmillan.comMutinyThe story of a disillusioned generation that set out to reclaim its dignity and take on corporate America.In recent years, young college grads have faced an ...

If you’re interested in the topic, my book “Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College Educated Working Class,” comes out April 7. 3/ us.macmillan.com/books/978037...

data.sca.isr.umich.eduSurveys of Consumers - Tables

There are tons of data points showing how demoralized college grads are, but a few really caught my eye. The first is from the University of Michigan, which allows you to break out consumer sentiment by education level. data.sca.isr.umich.edu/demographic-... 4/

A generation of people in their 20s and 30s was told that if they do all this homework and take these AP classes and run up this debt and get their degree, their place in the upper-middle class would be secure. And suffice it to say it hasn’t worked out that way for a lot of them 2/

26 Mar

Thank you Kate! bsky.app/profile/kate...

kate conger@kateconger.com

Very excited to dive into @noamscheiber.bsky.social’s new book! What a cover

nytimes.comAre You Using A.I. at Work? We Want to Hear From You.

16 Mar

Are you using AI at work? Please tell us how! And whether it's make you feel more anxious or less... www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/b...

nytimes.comWhen Your Apple Watch Becomes an Office Taskmaster

15 Mar

More and more white collar workers are hiring heart rate variability coaches to get ahead at work. Is that a good idea? Maybe... www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/b...

13 Mar

The ritual book unboxing… out soon!

nytimes.comTrump Administration Abandons Efforts to Impose Orders on Law Firms

3 Mar

Trump admin abandons cases against big law firms that resisted its exec orders www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/u...

nytimes.comHe Researched Dishonesty. He Got Friendly With Jeffrey Epstein.

21 Feb

Dan Ariely, the best-selling behavioral scientist, reached out to Jeffrey Epstein in hopes of advancing his research. Then the relationship evolved www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/b...

nytimes.comTop Labor Regulator Dismisses Charges Against SpaceX

20 Feb

Some news: Workers at a Patagonia in NYC file for a union election. They're organizing with RWDSU, which kicked off the union campaign at REI a few years ago.

Noam Scheiber reposted

Ryan Mac 🙃

@rmac.bsky.social

10 Feb

In 2022, a group of SpaceX employees wrote an open letter asking the co to distance itself from Elon Musk's online behavior. They were fired and the NLRB opened an investigation. Then Musk funded Trump's election win. Now, the Trump NLRB has dismissed the case. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/b...

nytimes.comTop Labor Regulator Dismisses Charges Against SpaceX

10 Feb

The country's top labor regulator has dismissed a case against SpaceX for firing 8 workers who criticized Elon Musk. Regulators “seem to have lost their independence and mission to protect workers rights," said the Biden prosecutor who brought the case www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/b...

nytimes.comDespite Crackdown on Activism, Tech Employees Are Still Picking Fights

28 Jan

Apropos of today's big layoff announcement at Amazon, I have a piece about why tech workers at Amazon and other big companies continue to challenge their employers even as the companies aggressively cut jobs. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b...

nytimes.comHow Did Tucker Carlson Get This Way? How Did America?

27 Jan

Great review today of Jason Zengerle's essential new book on Tucker Carlson www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/b...

21 Jan

Seems like a consequential appointment by Mamdani www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/n...

nytimes.comProminent Architecture Firm Is Accused of Illegally Ousting Employees

20 Jan

"Now it’s up to me to design some prophylaxis against any such future efforts.” An email from a manager at Snohetta, a prominent architecture firm accused by the NLRB of laying off 8 employees in retaliation for trying to unionize www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/b...