Economic Policy

data-4-black-lives

Joint Center Economic Policy Director Moderates Panel at Data4BlackLives Conference

Joint Center’s Economic Policy Director Jessica Fulton moderated a panel at the Data4BlackLives second annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Jessica’s panel,Black People vs Robots: Reparations and Workers Rights in the Age of Automation, took place on Sunday, January 13 from 9:45 AM – 11:15 AM.

According to the Data4BlackLives schedule, the panel discussed the following:
“In 2009, 13% of the US population were either self-employed or working as independent contractors, in 2016 this number had doubled. And from Silicon Valley to the US Supreme court, the rights of workers are under attack. At the same time, robots capable of driving cars, assembling goods, and caring for the elderly are poised to put millions of people out of work. Black people and poor people will undoubtedly bear the brunt of this automation. In response to these threats, conversations about Universal Basic Income have become mainstream. But we cannot achieve the goals of economic justice and equality without seriously reckoning with the history of slavery in the United States and the need for reparations. How do we protect workers as work is transformed by technology? And how do address the need for reparations in a seismically shifting economy?”

Watch it below.

The full schedule for the Data4BlackLives conference can be found below. A more detailed schedule can be foundhere. Several videos of the panels can be found here.

Friday, January 11, 2019
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM:Opening Remarks and Keynote Address

Saturday, January 12, 2019
9:00 AM – 10:30 AM: We are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For: Organizing for Algorithmic Accountability
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM: Abolition in the Age of Big Data
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM: Pain, Place, and Race
1:45 PM – 3:15 PM: “The seas are rising but so are the people”: Data, Disaster & Collective Power
1:45 PM – 3:15 PM: Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Education Justice and Mathematics

Sunday, January 13, 2019
9:45 AM – 11:15 AM: Black People vs Robots: Reparations and Workers Rights in the Age of Automation
9:45 AM – 11:15 AM: We Will Be Counted: the 2020 Census
11:30 AM – 12:45 PM: What is a Movement Scientist?