Who Makes Below Minimum Wage on Mechanical Turk?

I can see some appeal to making a miniscule amount of money in my spare time on Mechanical Turk. I mean, I already spend my spare time doing pointless tasks such as solving crossword puzzles and commenting on things.

I would see it as a game where the goal is to try and make as much money as possible with as little work. I can also see that unemployed people might enjoy it just as a way of feeling like they're doing something worthwhile.

Certainly, since I don't need the money, I'd much rather earn $3 an hour on Mechanical Turk, sitting at home and picking and choosing what I feel like doing, than $7.25 an hour in a minimum-wage job.

> Certainly, since I don't need the money, I'd much rather earn $3 an hour on Mechanical Turk, sitting at home and picking and choosing what I feel like doing, than $7.25 an hour in a minimum-wage job.

You don't need the money, so the money doesn't come into it. It could read:

> I'd much rather -- sit-- at home and pick-- and choose-- what I feel like doing, than -work- a minimum-wage job.

The important piece here is not what the people who have time to waste are doing with job gamification, but the reasons why some people are investing significant amounts of time in a sub minimum wage system and presumably why this group has a large crossover with those using it as a primary income source.

Complete speculation suggests to me that this group contains a non-trivial amount of people who are somehow "locked in" by transport, mental illness, or caring requirements yet need to earn money and are more than willing to work.

I am very concerned that there are people cornered into living like this at sub-societal standards. This is not ok yet I am unsure as to how to find out if this is the case.

I'm wondering what percentage of Mechanical Turk workers are doing the work while at their primary job.

I did this for awhile, and it takes surprisingly long to do these transcriptions. They are mostly transcribing accident interviews for insurance companies. The recordings are absolutely terrible, so you have to re-listen to each part many times to get it right. Additionally, since it is paralegal work, there are very strict requirements for formatting and accuracy.

30 minutes spent transcribing a 4 minute audio clip would not be unusual.

This is like the worst case scenario.

If the person can touch type or if there are major pauses during the recordings (which happens a lot during lectures), you make $15/hr. If there are enough pauses, you can do two at a time and get $30/hr.