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How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers
- lynnah 8y agoDisheartening. Interesting article. We need to get healthcare uncoupled from jobs.
- maxxxxx 8y agoThe gig economy is already bad enough for workers but in the US it's even worse due to the health care situation. We should get rid of any advantages corporations have over individuals like health insurance.
- FundThrowaway 8y agoDo you have the scourge of zero hour contracts in the US? Basically a person can be contractually obligated to work when demanded but with no guarantees of minimum hours or salary.
- maxxxxx 8y agoThat's plain evil and should be illegal.
- downrightmike 8y agoBut the USA oligarchy want to keep it that way.
- vinceguidry 8y agoNo, I think at-will employment is the principle that makes that illegal. No judge or jury would hold up such a contract as binding.
- mgkimsal 8y agoI don't think we call it that, but I don't see much diff between "zero hour contracts" and the random shift scheduling others have mentioned. One week you have 25 hours, the next week you have 5, but you don't know and can't plan around it. There may be a technical/legal distinction, but the practicality of it seems the same.
- srslymissng 8y agoWe need to stop importing children and adults until we make sure all current citizens have jobs. Not everyone has cancer nor needs healthcare. The truly broke get it for free. Only thing not covered is cosmetic dentistry like non silver fillings and partial dentures and brand name medication.
- d4mi3n 8y agoI hear immigration come up a lot when healthcare does, but most homeless in the US are US citizens suffering from mental disorders. From the numbers I've read, immigrants tend to be the most economically productive compared to US citizens of the same economic class. That said, I think it'd be cheaper to provide preventative care for free than it would be to cover ER visits for the same number of uninsured people. Tends to be cheaper and a bit more humane.
- tankerslay 8y agoOur system is such a disaster, even "preventative care" can be a wolf in sheep's clothing. There's basically nothing to disincentivize doctors or pharma from aggressively selling drugs and procedures that give no benefit or even cause harm.
- sjg007 8y agoHow about we just vote for single payer? Simple. The truly broken end up homeless in the end.. unless by magic you find section 8. And then there is the paperwork, the miles and miles and miles of paperwork. And then, soon, there will be the work means test. No medical if you don't work. Got cancer? Too bad, work. The only positive is that it equalizes medicaid with the working stiff... which might bring about single payer faster.
- duxup 8y agoAmen. I'm making a career change and my wife is going bay to work and half our questions about a new job... healthcare benefits, not necessarily the better career choice...
- vertexFarm 8y agoAbsolutely. As an independent contractor with an autoimmune disorder, I make good money but it's still an absolute nightmare. I really hope the current administration doesn't bring back the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage for a pre-existing condition, because I can't imagine a reliable way to secure coverage that never has any gaps.
- cornellwright 8y agoThis is completely right. I don't think people realize how much tying healthcare to full time employment hurts people and slow innovation. It makes people stick in bad situations and disadvantages small businesses both financially and in wasted time.
- tankerslay 8y agoHealth care has leeched a huge amount of wage growth from the economy, in businesses large and small. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-28/health-care-costs-ate-your-pay-raises https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-28/health-ca...
- candiodari 8y agoWell, in trade for health care ... yes. In the same way cars and TVs have "caused" a huge amount of debt.
- lovich 8y agoCars and TVs go down in price for the same feature set as technological improvements and nor efficient business models are created. Healthcare has gotten more expensive every year for the same features(ex, a physical, or treatment for the flu). That is where healthcare is leeching money out of the economy. They haven't provided any improvements in service or products, they've just learned how to wring more money out of everyone
- tankerslay 8y agoA very limited number of features have improved (e.g. if you have HepC). At the same time there has been massive price inflation for things that are marketed as "improvements" without convincing evidence of actually being better (e.g. nexium vs prilosec, many medical devices).
- candiodari 8y agoFirst, cars haven't gone down much in price. Advanced in quality, sure. Gone down in price ? Hardly, at least in my experience. About 8-14 months net pay. TVs have gone up massively, mostly because flatscreens make ridiculous TVs possible. A CRT screen just can't be big. 50" is ridiculously large for a CRT, and anything under 40" is just unusable, so there just wasn't much difference between the cheapest and the most expensive screen in the 90s. Then, when plasma screens came, the prices for the top end went utterly ridiculous. But in the 90s you just couldn't spend a month's pay on a (single) TV. Now, 32000$ screens are in every electronics store (who do they sell these to I often wonder). But the thing is, eliminating labor from healthcare seems to just be impossible to do in a responsible manner. So their prices go up with specialist labor prices. And yes, those have not exactly gone down. As for actual prices for basic things, I do get the impression they've gone down. Not by a lot, but 20-30% over a decade or two ? Certainly.
- jadedhacker 8y agoThere's a very reasonable proposal right here that would do it: https://berniesanders.com/medicareforall/ https://berniesanders.com/medicareforall/ It could happen in a few years. Something to look forward to. :)
- mikece 8y agoOn the one hand my first impulse is to ask “What’s the supply-side version of caveat emptor?” but if companies like Uber are hiding the true pay of their IRS-1099 “gig workers” then I have to wonder if they aren’t running afoul of disclosure or fair labor laws as well.
- dredmorbius 8y agoWhat’s the supple-side version of caveat emptor? How do you mean? "Employer beware" would be cave dico. Provider beware, provisor cave. Though it's not clear what dynamic you're pointing to.
- wh313 8y agoActually employer beware would be "cave conductor". Dico means "I say". Provisor comes from the verb vidi, and means "one who sees ahead," but I suppose you can use "patronus" instead to mean provider. So provider beware should be "cave patrone".
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- dredmorbius 8y agoGranted my Latin's weak. I was more interested in meaning than the linguistics lesson.
- brohoolio 8y agoWhat’s going to happen to gig wages when the economy hits a recession?
- abvdasker 8y agoIf there is anything beautiful about Uber it's that the marketplace maintained in each city is a relatively pure expression of supply and demand. A recession in which unemployment rates increase would probably lead to an increase in drivers (supply) from the displaced employees and a decrease in people with disposable income to take Ubers (demand) leading to a reduction in cost per ride and the associated driver wages (unit price). Given the sheer number of countries Uber operates in, the company has probably already seen this happen more than once. What happens to driver wages and Uber as a company in the event of a global recession is harder to predict since that would be unprecedented for the company. Maybe having Uber available as a source of income during a recession would be a good thing for the recently unemployed?
- downrightmike 8y agoPeople have a tendency to stay home more and "nest" during a recession. Or if they do go out, like in the last recession, people went to the movies. Which is why theaters rebounded in 2009-2010.
- maxxxxx 8y agoThey'll go down or reach zero?
- DrScump 8y agoMore gig workers will be competing for fewer tasks.
- marsrover 8y ago> On average, it estimated they were making $10.75 per hour in the Houston area, $8.77 per hour in Detroit, and $13.17 in Denver, which was slightly less than Walmart’s average full-time hourly rate in 2016 I'm not saying this is ok, but I think there are also more intangible things that come into play here. Working for Uber gives you the freedom to work when you want. You don't have to call in sick or find someone to take your shift. You just don't get in the car that day. Which really, I think, is the allure of a lot of gig jobs: the ability to be your own boss (kinda).
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoWhen you’re earning $9 to $14 an hour you don’t take time off. When you’re earning so little you don’t have the freedom to take a day off because you feel unwell.
- Matticus_Rex 8y agoHaving been in that category of worker and having taken gig jobs, I can promise you that the flexibility of the gig jobs really is a life improvement. I appreciate that you think you're looking out for people, but that kind of sentiment will end up actually harming people because you apparently don't know how we feel about things and can't support policies accordingly.
- ggg9990 8y agoNot to mention, “we” is a pretty varied group. I’ve met Uber drivers who were refugees trying to survive in America and I met one who was a retired Stanford surgeon who just liked to get out of the house and meet people a few times a week. He picked me up in a BMW 5-Series.
- OJFord 8y agoSimilarly, one of the hosts (software engineers) on _The Bike Shed_ podcast mentioned driving people around for Lyft in his Tesla just for the excuse (and justification, since it must more than cover fuel) to drive it.
- peterwwillis 8y agoThe gig economy is literally a product of a lack of economic security. As I've mentioned before, if suddenly people had enough money or assistance that they didn't need to gig to make ends meet, businesses like Uber and Lyft would have no more "independent contractors". They'd probably fold or have to raise prices above that of Taxis.
- vertexFarm 8y agoIt's absolutely a desperation career. Those always exist somewhere in any economy, and arguably there should be options available for desperate people, but the sheer volume of them is getting sad. It's like the US has a very poor, developing country double-exposed over an insanely wealthy and advanced one, both occupying the same territory. I'm not a historian but it strikes me as very strange and somewhat new to the world.
- jjoske 8y agoActually I suspect this has been somewhat the norm through out history, and the last 50-100 years have been some what odd.
- adrianratnapala 8y agoYes, but the "norm through out history" of course contains a lot of variations. If you look at the UK or US during the Industrial Revolution (or China today) you will see poor people doing hard jobs and its all part of a huge economic build-up that makes everyone richer -- even if some people at the top could skim off fortunes. But if you look at even broader history, such as Medieval Europe, or China and India for most of their history, you will still see industrious poor people. But there's little build-up -- just skimming by the people at the top. I think modern India is somewhere in between those two modes. And sometimes I fear that western democracies are converging on the same in-between place, but from the other side.
- knuththetruth 8y ago>I'm not a historian but it strikes me as very strange and somewhat new to the world. It’s similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union, with the opioid crisis taking the place of people drinking themselves to death. You also see the same high-levels of corruption, especially in tech, where former Obama officials are given high-level jobs at the big firms or gig unicorns. Hell, even Obama himself just got a Netflix deal.
- carapace 8y agoReminds me of "The Market Fairy Will Not Solve the Problems of Uber and Lyft": > Here is the thing about Uber and Lyft (and much of the “sharing economy”). > They don’t pay the cost of their capital. > The wages they pay to their drivers are less than the depreciation of the cars and the expense of keeping the drivers fed, housed, and healthy. They pay less than minimum wage in most markets, and, in most markets, that is not enough to pay the costs of a car plus a human. http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-market-fairy-will-not-solve-the-problems-of-uber-and-lyft/ http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-market-fairy-will-not-solve-the-...? Like with the electric scooter companies. You're not paying for the scooter, you can buy one of those. You're paying for the service of being able to leave your scooter in public somewhere and have someone else collect and recharge it.
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoThis really needs reposted: Uber is an Old Scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE Seriously, watch the video. Professor Richard D Wolff. Long story short, when taxis first came out, we saw the following: unsafe everything, assaults, kidnappings (pay more or you get dropped in $bad_location), wrecks and injuries and no insurance. The result of that was regulation, which improved conditions for riders and drivers both, but raising the bottom line. It's only time until the regulation hammer hits Uber and similar businesses.
- roenxi 8y agoThe gentleman in the video has a couple of good points (and it is likely that Uber will eventually get regulated). That being said, the premise here seems to be confused on a number of issues. + "Unsafe everything, assaults [and] kidnappings" are in fact already illegal. More regulation will not make them more illegal. Claiming we need a taxicab commission to enforce basic laws is a non-sequitur of breathtaking scope. + There was a vibe that Uber will compromise the customer experience to make more money. This is nonsense, uber is operating in a cut-throat environment where any cost savings will be passed directly to consumers who are getting what they pay for. As one questioner pointed out at the end, Uber isn't actually making a profit. Any cuts in quality are being passed on to the customer in reduced fares. + Insufficient insurance. This one is one that is up for debate; but the message of 'insurance good, profit bad' is probably oversimplifying the issue and likely pushing an outcome where everyone has to pay more for transport without a proportional improvement in outcomes. The speaker might feel better about that, but I doubt the Uber passengers would.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago+ "Unsafe everything, assaults [and] kidnappings" are in fact already illegal. More regulation will not make them more illegal. Claiming we need a taxicab commission to enforce basic laws is a non-sequitur of breathtaking scope. Indeed they are already illegal, however adequate checks are not done on those who want to be people driver. That effect of not actually doing due diligence does allow much higher incidence of bad actors in positions of power. + There was a vibe that Uber will compromise the customer experience to make more money. This is nonsense, uber is operating in a cut-throat environment where any cost savings will be passed directly to consumers who are getting what they pay for. Bullshit. They have one of the hottest stock request IPOs out there. A year ago their estimated market cap was $50B. Now its estimated at $70B. Sure doesn't sound like a no-profit company. +As one questioner pointed out at the end, Uber isn't actually making a profit. Any cuts in quality are being passed on to the customer in reduced fares. Hollywood accounting. And foregoing profit to starve the market is also a perfectly valid strategy. In other words, the lack of profit is intentional and easily reversed at will.
- aphextron 8y agoHave you eaten in at a take out place lately? It's literally nothing but ageing, disheveled looking people who could barely operate a smartphone running in and out desperately, working either Uber Eats, Doordash, etc. stacking orders, getting stressed out over maybe making $3. It's the most depressing fucking thing I have ever seen. Maybe there's an argument to be made that these people are better off than they would be otherwise. But I'm not so sure it's that simple. You have this zero sum game where the health and well being of humanity is being arbitraged for VC profits and increased efficiency for the restaurant owner.
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- gehwartzen 8y agoNot only that but as a consumer the experience doesn't feel that much better. Sure there are lots more places that deliver but I now feel like I pay more after delivery fee+ service fee + tip.
- vuln 8y agoThe real cost of 'disruption'
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- adrianratnapala 8y ago> But I'm not so sure it's that simple. At this point I was expecting an explanation of how an similar number of low-skilled people would have jobs if these services didn't exist. Instead you give the unexplained assertion > You have this zero sum game ... Which game is it? Who are the players? What is zero-sum about it?
- aphextron 8y ago>Which game is it? Who are the players? What is zero-sum about it? It's the same game they're playing with AirBnB, Uber, etc. Just openly break the law and subvert centuries of built up labor laws and protections we've created to make America into a livable society, just to profit a small minority of shareholders. The players are the American people, with no choice left but live with this system because more equitable uses of this capital aren't perceived to give investors "10x returns". There used to be an agreement in the US between Capital and Labor that struck a fair deal, and this agreement has fundamentally eroded. What benefits and rights that did still exist in jobs up to this point are gone for most people. The result is a zero sum game, where human suffering is converted to shareholder profits.
- sjg007 8y agoSuccess but by your own bootstrap. Hell hath no fury if you unionize.
- suyash 8y agoThis is only the beginning, automation is coming fast to disrupt gig workers, then situation will be worse.
- gumby 8y agoFor non-speakers of American English: though "gig" is well known to mean "short-term/casual work", the use of "gigged" in the title is likely a pun: "gigging" or "to gig" is to hunt small game with a pronged spear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigging A usage which sadly underlines the fate of most gig workers.
- anovikov 8y agoI never had a full time job, and i think of it as of a very, very odd thing. I know there are areas where it is necessary (say upper levels of management, public servants, and doctors in areas of healthcare where it's all about collective efforts, not private practice). But for the most people, being full time is nothing but a form of psychological exploitation. People were generationally taught to value the (false) sense of stability it provides in return for being paid much less, and many social institutions such as mortgages, were built on top of that to reinforce, and take advantage of, that odd thing. If it dies for about 80% of population i'll see it as a benefit, and i feel totally comfortable with it. I fully realise that i am totally unemployable as i am: hiring me full time and paying me what i make will be simply unprofitable for almost every potential boss. And many better qualified people than me 'happily' work for the fraction of what i make because they are addicted to these guaranteed twice a month paychecks, unable to imagine their life without these 'guarantees', which are nothing but guaranteed misery. And yes i am 38 and have a family.
- dev_north_east 8y ago> the (false) sense of stability it provides What's false about it?
- anovikov 8y agoBecause most of the time, need to fire a worker who held for a time period longer than a typical contract duration of a contractor, comes when the company itself goes bust. When nothing can help you regardless of your employment status.
- anovikov 8y agoEssentially, this is because the companies themselves are living for much shorter than they used to. And their 'useful lives' (when working there can provide for any career advancement, improving one's skills, personal growth) is even shorter.
- expertentipp 8y agoKeep this gig economy thing away from me. Companies promoting this business model (whether car lifting, food delivery, or temporary housing) are exploiting all parties involved, while damaging the local environment. Everyone, except them, is getting the short end of the stick.