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When there exists a social net, isn't it obvious that the existence of poor costs money? Plus, that money disproportionately comes from the lower and middle cla
by rapind 9y ago
When there exists a social net, isn't it obvious that the existence of poor costs money? Plus, that money disproportionately comes from the lower and middle class in the form of tax.
So in reality all you're doing with an underpaid gig economy is allowing corps to indirectly make money off of taxpayers instead of just the customers / companies involved in the service.
TLDR; You're paying a tax for someone else to get their food delivered.
- Chris2048 9y agoThat's not true; if no one offered "underpaid" work we'd pay more tax, so that interpretation doesn't work. What you don't understand is that whike "existence of poor costs money", underpaid jobs do not made people poor - you'd have to assume that if companies where held to a minimum wage, that they just pay that (and/or raise prices), rather than employ less.
- rapind 9y agoIf companies are held to a minimum wage, then they'll pay it. Sure, maybe it becomes more cost effective to invest in technology that requires them to pay less people... but I would argue they are doing that already (especially in the context of Uber), regardless of whether it's gig or minimum wage. Rich people don't buy more stuff in proportion to what they make. So the more money that moves from the lower and middle class, the less business opportunity you have. I'm not going to use 10 times more uber eats than someone who makes 10 times less than me. It's not a hard problem to solve in theory. Just figure out how to move money the opposite direction and business will boom! It doesn't even have to be a socialist structure. Maybe we just tax companies for their external negative effects?
- prostoalex 9y agoSuppose one day gig economy companies all go out of business, and all their current workforce files for unemployment benefits. Is my tax burden as a taxpayer going up or down?
- rapind 9y agoHard to say. What are they going to spend their unemployment benefits on? What is replacing the gig economy companies?
- prostoalex 9y ago> What is replacing the gig economy companies? That one we do know without a crystal ball - taxi medallion systems and hotels.