For a long time, our corporate jobs offered us more than just a paycheck. They offered us a promise: work hard, and in exchange, you would be given an entry ticket to a certain place called the middle class. But that social contract is now fraying. And as the safety net bundled with the 9-to-5 erodes, millions of knowledge workers are now being pushed into an unfamiliar, unrecognizable job market with no map and very little floor.

The Portfolio Career Lab is a podcast that explores this phenomenon: the reasons so many professionals are polyworking and the myriad of inventive ways they are closing the gap between how they actually want to work and live and how our social safety net was actually designed.

In this 4th season of the show, we will explore a new set of economies that has bloomed  as people try to make ends meet: from sports betting and sex work, to a sprawling world of cash advance apps and online coaches and influencers selling the promise of six figures and a better life. We’ll also explore the flip side of the coin: the ways people are organizing politically and building grassroots mutual aid networks to support one another through this period of extraordinary change.

Host Brie Abramowicz is the author of the bestselling book Polyworker. In each episode, she sits down with professionals choosing to live and work differently, from fractional operators and creators to economists, researchers, policy wonks, activist, athletes, and artists. The conversations are intimate and always focused on the bigger picture. You’ll leave with a sharper read on where the working world is headed and some hope and the inspiration to build a portfolio career of your own.