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I did gig work while homeless. I was homeless because of my serious health issues. The stress in my life was rooted in serious health issues and lack of housing

I did gig work while homeless. I was homeless because of my serious health issues. The stress in my life was rooted in serious health issues and lack of housing. For me, gig work was the only hope I had of making a few dollars under circumstances where a regular job was just out of the question. I'm not saying there aren't abuses and I'm not saying it's not stressful. I'm just saying it's probably more complex than this survey suggests and that I would like to not see people throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of our efforts to "fix" what we think is wrong with gig work punishes the very workers it is intended to help. Having too narrow a view of such issues is not a good place from which to try to improve things.

tpmoney 4y ago
This is something I think was really misguided about the big push to make gig workers “full employees” in various states. It felt like solving the issue of “so many benefits and taxes are tied to employment when they shouldn’t be” by simply forcing the new jobs into the same bad system, instead of figuring out how to make the system better overall. There are a lot of people out there for whom a regular job with a regular schedule are not a good fit for their life. The option to work when you can and not work when you can’t is a huge thing and we should be working on figuring out how to make that a more viable option rather than trying to tear it down because it can be abused. Especially when you consider that for many people in that position today all the security that supposedly comes with a regular job isn’t something they have because the only jobs they can take are minimum wage low skill jobs that usually come with no benefits anyway and will fire you the first time you call out. At least with the gig work, there’s no one calling you on the phone wanting to know where you are today and why you’re sick again.
- slg 4y ago
  > It felt like solving the issue of “so many benefits and taxes are tied to employment when they shouldn’t be” by simply forcing the new jobs into the same bad system, instead of figuring out how to make the system better overall. Do people deny this? The motivation for this approach is that it is easier to write one law than totally revolutionize our entire economic system. This complaint reminds me of the people who don't tip because they think the system is stupid. Sure, the ideal system would pay people a living wage and give them benefits from the start, but that system isn't here today and likely won't be here tomorrow. People need to live in the current system and they can't afford to wait. Refusing to try to help those people until we have the political will to change our entire economic system seems heartless to me.
  - teaearlgraycold 4y ago
    People that like the wealth re-distribution of universal health care, UBI or other systemic ways to help the under-paid but don't tip are full of shit. Wealth re-distribution starts local and if you have more money than you need you should tip. I have a high paying job and no kids. I'll go 25%, sometimes 30%. It doesn't really matter to me but it does to the service worker.
    - fineIllregister 4y ago
      > Wealth re-distribution starts local and if you have more money than you need you should tip. Tipping isn't wealth redistribution. The server might be wealthier and make more money than me. Tips aren't income security or health care. I think it would be strange to call it "wealth" too. I'm not dropping enough money on the table to buy significant capital. I tip because that's how the service is expected to be paid for. The system is set up so that the server bears the risk. It's unfair stiff the person with the least ability to change that system.
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    > that system isn't here today and likely won't be here tomorrow And the more you prop the old system up by tipping the less likely it will be that the new system will ever arrive.
  - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
    > People need to live in the current system and they can't afford to wait. Refusing to try to help those people until we have the political will to change our entire economic system seems heartless to me. Your way is to make the incumbent system just tolerable enough that it never changes. Under the existing system, you can take a job at a retailer making $10/hour, or you can work in a restaurant for $2/hour plus tips, which comes out to $10/hour again. Flip a coin. If some people stop tipping, the restaurant is now paying the equivalent of $9/hour after tips and the restaurant has to raise the base pay to $3/hour or the worker will quit and work for the retailer. If everyone stops tipping, the restaurant has to pay $10/hour. Workers can respond to this at the individual level in proportion to how much it happens. But if no one ever stops tipping, where does the change come from? The restaurants? No. So you get the status quo indefinitely.
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pessimizer 4y ago
That it's a last resort for the desperate and homeless isn't exactly an endorsement. So is street prostitution.
- tpmoney 4y ago
  The alternative is that they are desperate, homeless and have no income. It’s not like major employers are holding hiring fairs in homeless camps
  - viscanti 4y ago
    If people choose to do gig work, it's because they believe it's the best option for them. For many, it seems like it's the only option. I'm not sure why every other major employer isn't being held more accountable for completely ignoring this population of people who want a chance to make money but can't find it anywhere outside of gig work.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  1. The people who want to take away what little is available to those who are desperate never propose giving them something actually better in its place. It's always a policy of making things worse for those who already can't achieve a middle class lifestyle. 2. I'm for the decriminalization of sex work.
WalterBright 4y ago
I once talked to the driver of an Uber I was in. He was a grad student, and liked that he could drive and make a little extra money whenever he felt like it and it fit in between his other activities.
civilized 4y ago
This is the libertarian critique of a lot of labor policy. People think they can just have the government mandate that businesses do XYZ for all their employees and all those jobs will continue to exist just as before, but with XYZ benefits. Pure win! The problem is, job providers can also just stop providing the jobs that are no longer in their interest to provide when the extra burden of XYZ is added. That's the trouble with a free society. If you make something more costly to do, people will do less of it. (In all fairness I hear you can sometimes get away with this, e.g. some studies say minimum wage doesn't necessarily reduce available jobs, but it's very tricky. I think you will ultimately pay the piper some way or another.)
- standardUser 4y ago
  "People think they can just have the government mandate that businesses do XYZ for all their employees and all those jobs will continue to exist just as before" No they don't. That sounds like something you think people think.
  - civilized 4y ago
    They definitely do, I've seen it. If the comment doesn't apply to you personally, feel free to ignore it. But don't pretend you can speak for everyone.
    - standardUser 4y ago
      You were asserting, without evidence or even rationale, what "people think". So feel free to take your own advice and stop making up fantasies about how strangers think.
      - civilized 4y ago
        I'll leave it up to the audience which is more plausible, given the policies we have today and the public discourse around those policies: A. Basically everyone has a nuanced understanding of the trade-offs involved in mandating businesses to do things. B. A sizable proportion of people and politicians neglect, in their thinking, the unintended negative consequences of mandating businesses to do things. I admit I may be speculating a bit, since people are not eager to volunteer what they neglect in their thinking, but I don't find it difficult to determine between these two options what is more likely.
killjoywashere 4y ago
AB5 (California's anti-gig-work law) has made it nearly impossible for my wife to grow her business providing in-home occupational therapy for children with special needs. That and policies requiring health care providers to have brick-and-mortar offices threaten to make her business untenable. In fact, it's only tenable now because of the extraordinary levels of wealth in the Bay area. Children are best served through in-home care because it's often the in-home situation that's most difficult, and the parents are most stressed. And no amount of taking the parent and child to a clinic is going to help that.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Someone at some point emailed me about probably exactly that law. They were in California and freaking out because it had just been passed and they were like "This is just ruining my life."

tpmoney 4y ago

This is something I think was really misguided about the big push to make gig workers “full employees” in various states. It felt like solving the issue of “so many benefits and taxes are tied to employment when they shouldn’t be” by simply forcing the new jobs into the same bad system, instead of figuring out how to make the system better overall. There are a lot of people out there for whom a regular job with a regular schedule are not a good fit for their life. The option to work when you can and not work when you can’t is a huge thing and we should be working on figuring out how to make that a more viable option rather than trying to tear it down because it can be abused. Especially when you consider that for many people in that position today all the security that supposedly comes with a regular job isn’t something they have because the only jobs they can take are minimum wage low skill jobs that usually come with no benefits anyway and will fire you the first time you call out. At least with the gig work, there’s no one calling you on the phone wanting to know where you are today and why you’re sick again.

slg 4y ago
> It felt like solving the issue of “so many benefits and taxes are tied to employment when they shouldn’t be” by simply forcing the new jobs into the same bad system, instead of figuring out how to make the system better overall. Do people deny this? The motivation for this approach is that it is easier to write one law than totally revolutionize our entire economic system. This complaint reminds me of the people who don't tip because they think the system is stupid. Sure, the ideal system would pay people a living wage and give them benefits from the start, but that system isn't here today and likely won't be here tomorrow. People need to live in the current system and they can't afford to wait. Refusing to try to help those people until we have the political will to change our entire economic system seems heartless to me.
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  People that like the wealth re-distribution of universal health care, UBI or other systemic ways to help the under-paid but don't tip are full of shit. Wealth re-distribution starts local and if you have more money than you need you should tip. I have a high paying job and no kids. I'll go 25%, sometimes 30%. It doesn't really matter to me but it does to the service worker.
  - fineIllregister 4y ago
    > Wealth re-distribution starts local and if you have more money than you need you should tip. Tipping isn't wealth redistribution. The server might be wealthier and make more money than me. Tips aren't income security or health care. I think it would be strange to call it "wealth" too. I'm not dropping enough money on the table to buy significant capital. I tip because that's how the service is expected to be paid for. The system is set up so that the server bears the risk. It's unfair stiff the person with the least ability to change that system.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  > that system isn't here today and likely won't be here tomorrow And the more you prop the old system up by tipping the less likely it will be that the new system will ever arrive.
- AnthonyMouse 4y ago
  > People need to live in the current system and they can't afford to wait. Refusing to try to help those people until we have the political will to change our entire economic system seems heartless to me. Your way is to make the incumbent system just tolerable enough that it never changes. Under the existing system, you can take a job at a retailer making $10/hour, or you can work in a restaurant for $2/hour plus tips, which comes out to $10/hour again. Flip a coin. If some people stop tipping, the restaurant is now paying the equivalent of $9/hour after tips and the restaurant has to raise the base pay to $3/hour or the worker will quit and work for the retailer. If everyone stops tipping, the restaurant has to pay $10/hour. Workers can respond to this at the individual level in proportion to how much it happens. But if no one ever stops tipping, where does the change come from? The restaurants? No. So you get the status quo indefinitely.
deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago

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pessimizer 4y ago

That it's a last resort for the desperate and homeless isn't exactly an endorsement. So is street prostitution.

tpmoney 4y ago
The alternative is that they are desperate, homeless and have no income. It’s not like major employers are holding hiring fairs in homeless camps
- viscanti 4y ago
  If people choose to do gig work, it's because they believe it's the best option for them. For many, it seems like it's the only option. I'm not sure why every other major employer isn't being held more accountable for completely ignoring this population of people who want a chance to make money but can't find it anywhere outside of gig work.
DoreenMichele 4y ago
1. The people who want to take away what little is available to those who are desperate never propose giving them something actually better in its place. It's always a policy of making things worse for those who already can't achieve a middle class lifestyle. 2. I'm for the decriminalization of sex work.

WalterBright 4y ago

I once talked to the driver of an Uber I was in. He was a grad student, and liked that he could drive and make a little extra money whenever he felt like it and it fit in between his other activities.

civilized 4y ago

This is the libertarian critique of a lot of labor policy. People think they can just have the government mandate that businesses do XYZ for all their employees and all those jobs will continue to exist just as before, but with XYZ benefits. Pure win! The problem is, job providers can also just stop providing the jobs that are no longer in their interest to provide when the extra burden of XYZ is added. That's the trouble with a free society. If you make something more costly to do, people will do less of it. (In all fairness I hear you can sometimes get away with this, e.g. some studies say minimum wage doesn't necessarily reduce available jobs, but it's very tricky. I think you will ultimately pay the piper some way or another.)

standardUser 4y ago
"People think they can just have the government mandate that businesses do XYZ for all their employees and all those jobs will continue to exist just as before" No they don't. That sounds like something you think people think.
- civilized 4y ago
  They definitely do, I've seen it. If the comment doesn't apply to you personally, feel free to ignore it. But don't pretend you can speak for everyone.
  - standardUser 4y ago
    You were asserting, without evidence or even rationale, what "people think". So feel free to take your own advice and stop making up fantasies about how strangers think.
    - civilized 4y ago
      I'll leave it up to the audience which is more plausible, given the policies we have today and the public discourse around those policies: A. Basically everyone has a nuanced understanding of the trade-offs involved in mandating businesses to do things. B. A sizable proportion of people and politicians neglect, in their thinking, the unintended negative consequences of mandating businesses to do things. I admit I may be speculating a bit, since people are not eager to volunteer what they neglect in their thinking, but I don't find it difficult to determine between these two options what is more likely.

killjoywashere 4y ago

AB5 (California's anti-gig-work law) has made it nearly impossible for my wife to grow her business providing in-home occupational therapy for children with special needs. That and policies requiring health care providers to have brick-and-mortar offices threaten to make her business untenable. In fact, it's only tenable now because of the extraordinary levels of wealth in the Bay area. Children are best served through in-home care because it's often the in-home situation that's most difficult, and the parents are most stressed. And no amount of taking the parent and child to a clinic is going to help that.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
Someone at some point emailed me about probably exactly that law. They were in California and freaking out because it had just been passed and they were like "This is just ruining my life."