A.Word.A.Day --precariat

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Today's Word

precariat

PRONUNCIATION:

(pri-KAIR-ee-uht)

MEANING:

noun: People living with chronic economic insecurity.

ETYMOLOGY:

A blend of precarious (uncertain) + proletariat (working class). Earliest documented use: 1989.

NOTES:

The precariat, as a social class, consists of people living day to day. It is characterized by a lack of stable employment, predictable income, and traditional benefits. Many work in the gig economy or on temporary contracts, and a significant number are underemployed despite holding college degrees.

USAGE:

“As Japan’s growth began to slow in the 1990s, the price was paid by a growing precariat. Firms reluctant to let full-time workers go have been hiring more people on short-term contracts with few of the protections afforded to salarymen.”
Analects and Abacus; The Economist (London, UK); Mar 20, 2021.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, and of the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us to set our young men abroad for a term among the few allies our wars have left us. -Lord Byron, poet (22 Jan 1788-1824)

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