Are You Working? #192 By Hank Silverberg Are you working? The jobless rate dropped to 4.8% in September, with payroll employment increasing by 194,000 jobs. Hourly earnings were up just 0.04%. You hear these statistics all the time, but they don't always tell the whole story. For example, I'm not included in those statistics because technically I am retired, even though I am back in the classroom, and like my students, wearing a mandatory mask and teaching Communications at Northern Virginia Community College again. It's a part time "retirement job" as they say, because very few people can really afford to completely retire these days. Millions of others are working out of necessity and not choice, in what is called the "gig" economy where they take a series of temporary jobs and often have periods where they have no work at all. The Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps track of all this, but the numbers don't g