> The gig economy is just a big scam on taxpayers shoulders. Companies get the benefit of low paid workers and low or not-at-all taxes. And the rest of the soci

> The gig economy is just a big scam on taxpayers shoulders. Companies get the benefit of low paid workers and low or not-at-all taxes. And the rest of the society has to pay the burden of increasing poverty. All things being equal, companies would aim to spend the same TOE (total cost of employment), on each worker regardless of if they are a contractor or a employee. A contractor being paid $15/hour has to pay self-employment tax to cover medicare and social security. A company who hired the same worker, would only do so at say $14/hour to make up for the taxes that they now cover. The goal of contracting isn't to pay less, it's to handle jobs that are irregularly distributed so you aren't literally paying people to sit around. The only cases where you'd choose to employ part-time instead is if a workers' presence is physically required (e.g. Starbucks), or near instant time is extremely important (e.g. not Uber).