"The full-time job is disappearing--is landing the right gig the new American Dream? One in three American workers is now a freelancer. This 'gig economy'--one that provides neither the guarantee of steady hours nor benefits--emerged out of the digital era and has revolutionized the way we do business. High-profile tech start-ups such as Uber and Airbnb are constantly making headlines for the disruption they cause to the industries they overturn....

Every working person in the United States asks the same question, how secure is my job? For a generation, roughly from 1945 to 1970, business and government leaders embraced a vision of an American workforce rooted in stability. But over the last fifty years, job security has cratered as the postwar institutions that insulated us from volatility--big unions, big corporations, powerful regulators--have been swept aside by a fervent belief in "the market."...

Four temporary office workers share good times and bad times while trying to maintain their sanity and upward mobility.