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The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

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Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#131

Post by acconrad »

zardo wrote: post #112
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…

Yes, you are in the minority. The huge rise in contract work is not in boutique consulting firms or well compensated tech consultants. It's low skill work, groundskeepers, janitors, housekeepers, drivers. Businesses have moved to contracting to effectively lower total compensation.

I guess part of why I posted that is the audience - I imagine in submitting this article to HN, it is meant to resonate with two subsets of people here:

1. Entrepreneurs running gig economy startups and the implications for how they should treat their workforce

2. Tech workers who work in the gig economy (e.g. Gigster developers, PullRequest reviewers, independent developers)

So I read this and bring up my point because it seems like contract work, inherently, is not the problem. The problem is, what others have mentioned, that the government regulates employment in such a way that we tie benefits like health insurance to the employers, and do not align incentives properly. Would you say that's an accurate assessment?

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#132

Post by rectang »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #126
rectang wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you factoring business expenses into that $20/hr, or are you confusing raw revenue with income, and failing to take into account all the risk that Uber offloads onto its contractors? If you're confused, then you have a lot in common with many Uber drivers!

Yes, that national average of $20/hr is after expenses. That language, offloads, is loaded. This idea that it's someone else's responsibility to handle even the most trivial of life's decisions for us is toxic. If you don't understand the basic concepts around running a small business, there's plenty of books on the subject in the library.

> Yes, that national average of $20/hr is after expenses.

Where on earth is that number coming from? Uber?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/internal-uber-driv...

"In early 2015, a study commissioned by Uber found that drivers in 20 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, were grossing around $17 an hour.... But the $17-an-hour figure was based on data from 2014, when Uber rates in most cities were higher than they were in late 2015. It was also based on gross earnings and did not account for driver expenses."

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#133

Post by rectang »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #130
rectang wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big barrier is realizing you have personal agency and can do basic things like shop. This argument reminds me of web designers who blame users for the mistakes they make when presented with a horrible user interface -- that there is no system so terrible that the user can't be a moral failure, 100% responsible for their own misfortune.

The difference between you and me is that you believe poor people are stupid and I don't. Otherwise you wouldn't have felt the need to qualify how difficult it would be for "poor people" to figure out how to buy disability insurance, a product that's largely off the shelf.

No, the difference is that I factor in structural factors that keep people poor, while you pretend they don't exist.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#134

Post by module0000 »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #29
SamReidHughes wrote: post #4

Good (edit: in the long run). The services they list, like health insurance, retirement, or pensions, should be decoupled from your employer.

I agree absolutely. Corporations should only pay employees money (including whatever amount it takes to buy reasonable insurance etc) and that should be up to the employee to choose an insurance company and pay them. Insurance companies should compete targeting not corporations but people as their customers.

Tell it your elected official, because the law currently obliges your employer to subsidize your insurance if they have greater than employees.

This is not evil corporations pushing their insurance choice upon you, it's government pushing employee insurance mandates on corporations. If that bothers you(enough to compel you to take political action), then vote or write your elected official. If your elected official ignores you, then consider that you are not the majority, or your elected official simply does not care, and is motivated by something other than their constituents well being.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#135

Post by Consultant32452 »

rectang wrote: post #132
Consultant32452 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that national average of $20/hr is after expenses. That language, offloads, is loaded. This idea that it's someone else's responsibility to handle even the most trivial of life's decisions for us is toxic. If you don't understand the basic concepts around running a small business, there's plenty of books on the subject in the library.

> Yes, that national average of $20/hr is after expenses. Where on earth is that number coming from? Uber? https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/internal-uber-driv... "In early 2015, a study commissioned by Uber found that drivers in 20 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, were grossing around $17 an hour.... But the $17-an-hour figure was based on data from 2014, when Uber rates in…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/27...

This is from an article complaining about how little Uber drivers make...

>But in three large metropolitan cities, drivers make far less than the national average, about $20 per hour, after expenses.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#136

Post by lev99 »

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…

Being a contract developer is a happy place to be. Here are some things you haven't mentioned.

* Contract developers have greater flexibility on taxes. "Pass through" entities are big now.

* Contract developers are more independent in a lot of ways. Some employees have clauses where they give up all IP they create.

* Contract developers often move from project to project more, which gives them a better network effect then their W2 counterparts.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#137

Post by module0000 »

trfergus wrote: post #64
acdha wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#138

Post by Consultant32452 »

rectang wrote: post #133
Consultant32452 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between you and me is that you believe poor people are stupid and I don't. Otherwise you wouldn't have felt the need to qualify how difficult it would be for "poor people" to figure out how to buy disability insurance, a product that's largely off the shelf.

No, the difference is that I factor in structural factors that keep people poor, while you pretend they don't exist.

What structural factors, specifically, stop poor people from attaining the level of "expertise" necessary to buy disability insurance?

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#139

Post by module0000 »

lacker wrote: post #67

"No benefits" is a somewhat strange way to think about it because all of these benefits, you can buy yourself. They are just really expensive. The underlying problem is that these jobs do not pay as much as people would like. That is still a very real problem. But since this article does not discuss pay at all, it's hard to really understand what's going on from the article.

What's going on is ad revenue. Pick a touchy subject, write something(references and quality not required), and watch the impressions stack up.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#140

Post by rectang »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #135
rectang wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, that national average of $20/hr is after expenses. Where on earth is that number coming from? Uber? https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/internal-uber-driv... "In early 2015, a study commissioned by Uber found that drivers in 20 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, were grossing around $17 an hour.... But the $17-an-hour figure was based on data from 2014, when Uber rates in…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/27... This is from an article complaining about how little Uber drivers make... >But in three large metropolitan cities, drivers make far less than the national average, about $20 per hour, after expenses.

That Washington Post article is garbage. It cites as the source of its numbers, the Buzzfeed article I quoted. But the only place the number "$20" appears in the Buzzfeed article is this:

"None of these advertisements mention driver expenses. The same goes for the alerts Uber sends to drivers — sometimes five times a day or more — telling them that other drivers on the road were making $20 or $30 an hour in gross fares."

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