Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 304 posts

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#101

Post by AgalmicVentures »

acconrad wrote: post #76

Am I in the minority here for being a contract developer who is happy to be in this place? * I make over 40% more than I did when I was full-time, and I was already in the top band for pay in my title. This far exceeds the 15% markup for self-employment tax. * My wife works full time so she has our back for health insurance * I can save way more for retirement with an SEP IRA than I ever could with a company-sponsore…

Disclaimer: I am not an accountant and I am definitely not your accountant.

Heads up that you can only contribute 20% of your earnings up (up to the limit) to a SEP-IRA. This is because you can contribute up to 25% of your taxable income, but your contributions are deducted from your income.

For example, if you make $1, and put $0.20 in your SEP-IRA, your taxable income is $1 - $0.20 = $0.80, so the $0.20 you put in is the full 25% of your income.

To contribute $55K in 2018, you will need to generate $275K of income.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#102

Post by eppsilon »

ttoinou wrote: post #72
lovich wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

How could you be independent if you all buy the same brand of smartphone ? Why couldn't independent unite themselves voluntarily ?

If only all the people in a given country were united under some common organization that could negotiate on their behalf....

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#103

Post by icantdrive55 »

twobyfour wrote: post #57
Ancalagon wrote: post #35

I'm sure I'll get some flak for saying this on HN, but I would encourage everyone not to take a contracting gig unless you're absolutely desperate for work. I don't believe most people are cut out to properly negotiate the pay for a contracting position (in that they do not know how to properly account for all of the benefits they are not getting). And by taking a contracting position you are basically encouraging th…

Most of the "gig economy" is not contracts like a freelancer negotiates. It's tons of tiny jobs at non-negotiable rates like Uber or Fiverr pay their "contractors". I agree that they're terrible jobs that one should take only if truly desperate for work or perhaps to supplement another income. But talking about whether people taking them are cut out to negotiate contracts totally misses the point.

Uber is the cute one. There are people going into debt buying that Uber approved four door taxi.

All to be at the mercy/whims of this company.

Most of the workforce cannot work in tech. People are desperate. Hell--even most of tech will be thinned out in a few months.

I don't see it getting better either.

I don't see a business out there not trying to eliminate jobs. You have immigrants that are happy with being exploited. You have a whole generation of people who don't believe in unions.

I know a lot of you don't believe in government regulations, and I'm not either for the most part, but these "side hussle", gig jobs are begging for a butt slapping. F they want to exploit workers--move to the country that allows exploitation. Just go!

If you can't guarantee minimum wage--have the federal government takeover the website. Yes, I'm looking right at you Mechanicalturk/Fiverr. (I know nothing about Fiverr--but can just picture the thieving site.). If you are taking advantage of Independent Contractor laws--have the federal government do their job. Don't pay sales tax--have the you know. Hold onto fees for weeks because you can--gave the federal government shut it down. I'm not just picking on tech. I would like to do away with all volunteer jobs, in every sector of society, except within the family. Yes, Moderators would get paid. Internships would be history.

It was kinda cute a few years ago, but now I see companies just exploiting.

"Hay bro--we got our app. Website is hot. Now how do we get someone to deliver our product for essentiall free? Oh yea--and those taxes? I guess that's why they had Retail leases? You mean the customer drove their car to us? Trippy? Our app will work? Why bro? Because American employment hasen't been this bad in years. What--the unemployment number is low? You have to look at the ever increasing "able bodied, but just gave up" number. There's tons of works we can Hussle."

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#104

Post by Consultant32452 »

lostcolony wrote: post #89
prepend wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creation of exchanges for purchases and removal of preexisting conditions as exclusions made it much more possible to buy insurance outside of group plans. I contracted for a few years and it was impossible to get insurance at a reasonable cost because of an extremely common health condition that’s never caused complication in my life. So I was only able to get insurance through employers.

This. I had asthma as a child. Now? No meds, no issues, for two decades. I would not qualify for affordable healthcare because of that pre-existing condition without Obamacare. Even as is, with the fragility of our political system, I am very wary of contract work; the concern that I could lose healthcare at any time based on elected idiots stymies me.

Did you ever actually shop for it? I bought health insurance before Obamacare and I have asthma.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#105

Post by apercu »

I'm totally cool with "contract" work (that's what I do in a way) so long as I:

* Do the work from home or wherever I want

* Use my own tools and equipment

* Work when I want to (within reason)

* Have a say in the deadlines

* Can turn down projects

But the minute you dictate my hours and where the work is done? No way.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#106

Post by barrkel »

vinceguidry wrote: post #18
ttoinou wrote: post #13

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…

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.

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

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.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#107

Post by zrail »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #36
wincy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should be able to get health insurance and bargain based on community groups or individually tax-free rather than by employer. If the entire Mormon church could collective bargain for health insurance for its members it would be WAY cheaper than any employer (because they don't drink alcohol or smoke).

Can't it actually do this? Can't a club of people establish a nonprofit and buy insurance collectively somewhat the way corporations do?

This is something that is coming down the pike with the changes the current administration has made for "association health plans". They solve some micro problems (healthy self-employed people will be able to buy cheap group health insurance without being part of a traditional employer group) while also making the overall problem much worse (the individual exchanges become a de-facto high risk dumping ground and get way more expensive).

This is a problem for high income self-employed people with preexisting conditions. They probably won't be able to buy into an association health plan and they won't get premium subsidies from the government because they make too much, which means their premiums will be a ridiculous percentage of their income.

I switched from self-employed contracting to full time W2 with my biggest client back in December. The biggest reason is because they offered to pay for very good small group health insurance.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#108

Post by brudgers »

One aspect of the "gig economy" that I've not seen covered is the way it effects gigsters professional social graphs. At the deep end of Mechanical Turk services where work is dispatched by an algorithm (Uber/Lyft/AirBnB/etc.) there are no upward connections to supervisors and managers and officers and no lateral connections to coworkers.

This means that working does not provide insider access to potentially better (or alternative) jobs when coworkers move on. There's no implicit social framework for insider information. There's no personal channel where a Lyft driver finds out that Uber is a better opportunity (or vice versa).

To put it another way, two Lyft drivers have little basis for connecting on Linkedin. Not that I think Linkedin is great. Only that gigsters don't even get the loose social connections that Linkedin facilitates...and cynically, the gig economy casts other Lyft drivers as competitors rather than coworkers.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#109

Post by dgabriel »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #100
briffle wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would your situation change, if item number 2 was no longer there. (ie, your wife became a contractor) I think that is the largest concern/tipping point for most people..

Single father and consultant of 5 years here. It's easy if you're conservative/responsible with your money. Buy health insurance, get short and long term disability. Keep 6 months of expenses in your emergency fund. Don't have any consumer debt. I think the hardest part for most people is being able to not burn through their money as fast as they get it.

But possibly not easy for an Uber driver, rather than a highly skilled tech worker.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#110

Post by hatsubai »

40acres wrote: post #5

> Within a decade, contractors and freelancers could make up half of the American workforce. This is pretty shocking to me. With recent trends you can easily see that the other half of the population will be people in IT and health care (home service providers, nurses, etc.) I've never had a contract job, I'm not sure if part-time college jobs count, are contract employees getting work via an agency or are they on th…

I am a contract employee who gets work via an agency. I have full health benefits (health, vision, dental which costs me about $200/mo), paid holiday, vacation, and even paid overtime (1.5x my hourly rate). All of this was negotiated ahead of time, along with the salary range I was looking for.

Any new opportunities that are available, my agency contacts me and asks if I am interested in doing work there, or if I want to stay at my current place. I have been working at my current place in govt defense embedded work for the past 2+ years getting paid more than most direct hires with the only real downsides being no 401k matching and no personal/sick time when looking at total comp. I am also able to work from home and make my own hours, so I am more flexible than direct hires who have to remain in the office during "core hours".

Some people here have been contract workers for well over a decade, so as long as the company has a need for you, you can remain on contract. If you want to go direct with the company you are contracted at, you can also negotiate that during their periods when they open up direct hiring.

This is my situation here in the Midwest as a defense contractor, so it may differ elsewhere and in different fields of work. Needless to say, it's not a bad gig, especially if you can get into an area where the company can't afford to lose you. For example, I am one of two people in the entire company who knows the OS architecture for every vehicle we make, and I got paid extra money to grind out a few hours a week to learn that architecture.

Post reply on HN