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Being on your own in the workforce often means you don't have the safety net of benefits and other forms of support that traditional workers do. Even the fir

Being on your own in the workforce often means you don't have the safety net of benefits and other forms of support that traditional workers do. Even the first sentence is kinda stupid. Benefits are a form of salary. Independent have the freedom to buy the benefits they want and spend their income as they please. What's wrong with that ? The best antidote to fear, she says, is to create a new social safety net where freelancers can rely on each other I fear people like her trying to force us "for our own good"

vinceguidry 9y ago
Unfortunately cash is not as efficient in procuring the sorts of services that are normally provided by benefits, due to the advantages of structured negotiation. You are unlikely to get as good a deal from health insurance providers as your employer.
- acdha 9y ago
  Beyond just pricing there’s also a question of availability: prior to the ACA you could easily find former contractors who needed to take a corporate job because they or a family member had some sort of long-term condition or risk factor which meant that insurance plans wouldn’t cover them at less than extortionate rates. Having insurance negotiated by individuals is a huge impediment for entrepreneurship.
  - trfergus 9y ago
    This is why a Social Health Care system would be such a boon to entrepreneurship. It would remove one of the biggest worries for people creating their own business.
    - module0000 9y ago
      Yea - we can work and pay taxes to give you a "boon" as you try out your next big idea. Sounds great for you, not so great for me. Hard pass.
      - FireBeyond 9y ago
        You realize that -your- cost of health insurance would go down as a direct benefit of being in a larger, more diverse, pool? Well, apparently not. Apparently to you everyone for socialized medicine is a freeloader who doesn't work or pay taxes. This polarized vision is a large part of what plagues the country.
        ttoinou 9y ago
        You realize that -your- cost of health insurance would go down as a direct benefit of being in a larger, more diverse, pool? Explain the magic to me
        FireBeyond 9y ago
        Increasing the size of the risk pool, for a genuine pool, and a genuine insurance product, should reduce individual pool member costs. Of course, that word genuine, in both contexts, is abused in US healthcare “insurance”, as I’ve discussed in numerous of my comments (and I work in the industry - it’s an absolute abuse of the definition).
      - acdha 9y ago
        As FireBeyond noted, the system you’re defending takes more of your money: not only are U.S. medical costs substantially higher – on average! It’s even worse for independent buyers — but the layers of inefficiency designed into the system mean that the outcomes are worse. The other side of this is considering what happens if you get sick: should we just let you die and bill your next of kin for the cleanup costs? If you’re not that heartless, all of the alternatives cost more than helping people get medical care. I’d much prefer to pay a little more so people can get treated rather than pay for them to be disabled and out of the workforce, or to spare their families the crippling cost of trying to effectively be an insurance pool with a single-digit number of members.
        module0000 9y ago
        I'm not trolling you - but yes I am that heartless. This could have a lot to do with upbringing, but mine was full of analogies of humanity to nature. One of those was a firm belief that there is no "safety net" to catch me or my family. If I succeed, they succeed - if I fail, then we all fail. Everyone is responsible for themselves. Everyone's particular set of values will vary, but that is mine.
- barrkel 9y ago
  It's not just negotiation strength. The theory of the firm gives lots of reasons why employment can afford to reward people better than individual contractors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm Though if you have niche skills or knowledge (and I'd include contacts in that), you can be better off with contracts that leverage your specialisms specifically, and not waste your time with work that can be done cheaper by more freely available labour.
zenlikethat 9y ago
Employers can provide benefits for cheaper due to economies of scale buying a lot of them from big insurance orgs. Individual contractors, even if they weren’t already being pushed into possibly-exploitative relationships with companies like Uber et al., don’t get those discounts. Life on the other side of the API layer ain’t so rosy.
- zip1234 9y ago
  Is there not some kind of organization that one can join to increase buying power?
  - dabockster 9y ago
    Not in software apparently.
- ttoinou 9y ago
  I don't agree at all, and even if having an employer is better for economies of scale this doesn't mean we should force employers to give benefits (employers could negotiate deals and propose them to their employees). The economies of scale argument is not always a good argument because you need to specify where does the deal cut comes from. I think it comes from the fact that the overhead in negotiating a huge amount of contracts is more amortized. So we could have this kind of good deals if independents find a way to reunite themselves. Otherwise the economies of scale argument could basically be the answer to everything ("We need a worldwide government because of economies of scale"). Who knows what we people will find to address this issue. Maybe we'll have coworking space packages with benefits ?
  - lovich 9y ago
    How are you independent if you have to band together with other people to get the same benefits other groups have? You cant rely on a group and be independent at the same time!
    - ttoinou 9y ago
thrownaway954 9y ago
The issue is that any decent health plan is around $700 dollars and you cannot deduct that as an expense from your salary when you're a contractor or 1099. Now if you could deduct any and all types of "benefits" (so to speak) from your taxes as contractor, I think that would be a win.
- prepend 9y ago
  You may want to check with your CPA as you can certainly deduct health insurance as an expense as a 1099 contractor. It’s actually easier as a contractor to deduct these as straight business expenses than as a w2 employee.

vinceguidry 9y ago

Unfortunately cash is not as efficient in procuring the sorts of services that are normally provided by benefits, due to the advantages of structured negotiation. You are unlikely to get as good a deal from health insurance providers as your employer.

acdha 9y ago
Beyond just pricing there’s also a question of availability: prior to the ACA you could easily find former contractors who needed to take a corporate job because they or a family member had some sort of long-term condition or risk factor which meant that insurance plans wouldn’t cover them at less than extortionate rates. Having insurance negotiated by individuals is a huge impediment for entrepreneurship.
- trfergus 9y ago
  This is why a Social Health Care system would be such a boon to entrepreneurship. It would remove one of the biggest worries for people creating their own business.
  - module0000 9y ago
    Yea - we can work and pay taxes to give you a "boon" as you try out your next big idea. Sounds great for you, not so great for me. Hard pass.
    - FireBeyond 9y ago
      You realize that -your- cost of health insurance would go down as a direct benefit of being in a larger, more diverse, pool? Well, apparently not. Apparently to you everyone for socialized medicine is a freeloader who doesn't work or pay taxes. This polarized vision is a large part of what plagues the country.
      - ttoinou 9y ago
        You realize that -your- cost of health insurance would go down as a direct benefit of being in a larger, more diverse, pool? Explain the magic to me
        FireBeyond 9y ago
        Increasing the size of the risk pool, for a genuine pool, and a genuine insurance product, should reduce individual pool member costs. Of course, that word genuine, in both contexts, is abused in US healthcare “insurance”, as I’ve discussed in numerous of my comments (and I work in the industry - it’s an absolute abuse of the definition).
    - acdha 9y ago
      As FireBeyond noted, the system you’re defending takes more of your money: not only are U.S. medical costs substantially higher – on average! It’s even worse for independent buyers — but the layers of inefficiency designed into the system mean that the outcomes are worse. The other side of this is considering what happens if you get sick: should we just let you die and bill your next of kin for the cleanup costs? If you’re not that heartless, all of the alternatives cost more than helping people get medical care. I’d much prefer to pay a little more so people can get treated rather than pay for them to be disabled and out of the workforce, or to spare their families the crippling cost of trying to effectively be an insurance pool with a single-digit number of members.
      - module0000 9y ago
        I'm not trolling you - but yes I am that heartless. This could have a lot to do with upbringing, but mine was full of analogies of humanity to nature. One of those was a firm belief that there is no "safety net" to catch me or my family. If I succeed, they succeed - if I fail, then we all fail. Everyone is responsible for themselves. Everyone's particular set of values will vary, but that is mine.
barrkel 9y ago
It's not just negotiation strength. The theory of the firm gives lots of reasons why employment can afford to reward people better than individual contractors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm Though if you have niche skills or knowledge (and I'd include contacts in that), you can be better off with contracts that leverage your specialisms specifically, and not waste your time with work that can be done cheaper by more freely available labour.

zenlikethat 9y ago

Employers can provide benefits for cheaper due to economies of scale buying a lot of them from big insurance orgs. Individual contractors, even if they weren’t already being pushed into possibly-exploitative relationships with companies like Uber et al., don’t get those discounts. Life on the other side of the API layer ain’t so rosy.

zip1234 9y ago
Is there not some kind of organization that one can join to increase buying power?
- dabockster 9y ago
  Not in software apparently.
ttoinou 9y ago
I don't agree at all, and even if having an employer is better for economies of scale this doesn't mean we should force employers to give benefits (employers could negotiate deals and propose them to their employees). The economies of scale argument is not always a good argument because you need to specify where does the deal cut comes from. I think it comes from the fact that the overhead in negotiating a huge amount of contracts is more amortized. So we could have this kind of good deals if independents find a way to reunite themselves. Otherwise the economies of scale argument could basically be the answer to everything ("We need a worldwide government because of economies of scale"). Who knows what we people will find to address this issue. Maybe we'll have coworking space packages with benefits ?
- lovich 9y ago
  How are you independent if you have to band together with other people to get the same benefits other groups have? You cant rely on a group and be independent at the same time!
  - ttoinou 9y ago

thrownaway954 9y ago

The issue is that any decent health plan is around $700 dollars and you cannot deduct that as an expense from your salary when you're a contractor or 1099. Now if you could deduct any and all types of "benefits" (so to speak) from your taxes as contractor, I think that would be a win.

prepend 9y ago
You may want to check with your CPA as you can certainly deduct health insurance as an expense as a 1099 contractor. It’s actually easier as a contractor to deduct these as straight business expenses than as a w2 employee.