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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

#291

Post by Consultant32452 »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #253
Consultant32452 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's so easy. All you have to do is make plenty of money. Why didn't those stupid poor people think of that?

You are making a lot of assumptions about my current income and how much I have made historically. I did all of those things except buy my own health insurance when I was working inside at a pizza place, that means I was making less than people who deliver pizzas for a living.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#292

Post by Consultant32452 »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #269
Consultant32452 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This discussion is not a comparison between a low income contract job and a job as a neurosurgeon. It's a comparison between a low income contract job and the type of "traditional" job that same worker might be qualified for. Buying your own workman's comp is 0.0075% of your salary in my state ($0.75 per $100 in salary). Disability insurance is $30/mo for $50k salary, so if you're making $30k/yr then disability will…

Your numbers seem unrealistically low for the types of jobs that low income contract workers usually have. For a job like software development where very few types of injuries are likely to occur on the job and where very few types of injuries would prevent you from performing the job the rates are low. For a higher risk job, like driving the rates will be higher. For instance, in Florida a driver's worker's comp wil…

For the majority of those jobs you're going to be making more money, too. Take, for example, construction work. Sure, your disability, workman's comp, etc. is going to be higher than if you're working a desk job. But at the same time the going rate for a random illegal immigrant you pick up at Home Depot around here is $20/hr.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#293

Post by DoreenMichele »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #290
DoreenMichele wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep 6 months of expenses in your emergency fund. You have to have sufficient income to consistently cover basics with money leftover. Some people simply don't have that.

The vast majority of people do have that. Whether or not they behave in an financially responsible manner is a different question altogether.

Given the high cost of healthcare in the US, the lack of affordable housing and other constraints, no, this is not merely an issue of lack of personal restraint.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#294

Post by Consultant32452 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #293
Consultant32452 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of people do have that. Whether or not they behave in an financially responsible manner is a different question altogether.

Given the high cost of healthcare in the US, the lack of affordable housing and other constraints, no, this is not merely an issue of lack of personal restraint.

Are we trying to talk about an average person who might be considering branching out on their own or are we going to try to solve every problem for a blind one legged cancer patient? For the average person it very much is a matter of adopting different behaviors including but not limited to personal financial restraint.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#295

Post by Consultant32452 »

Jesus_Jones wrote: post #282
Consultant32452 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Person 1: Life is easier if you budget properly Person 2: But what if you're a diabetic blind one legged cancer patient?

I guess I'm person 2? I think that's not really what I was saying. Here's my personal experience - I had a single parent who always worked and always had health insurance through her employer. In her 50s she got hurt and couldn't work much (no cobra, no money either) and lost her insurance. She worked in retail for a while. Then she got cancer and died. Maybe if she'd had more frequent checkups it might have been cau…

So you're saying even working for a company (retail) she was at least no better or worse off than if she'd been a consultant who couldn't afford health insurance on her own.

Whether or not there are improvements to be made to our healthcare system is an entirely different discussion than whether or not an average, able bodied person could reasonably go out on their own without another person working in the home to back them up financially. Of course it would be better/easier to have a support system with another worker in the house. Of course it would be better if you had easier access to healthcare. I would never suggest otherwise.

Also, I'm sorry for your loss. My mother is a cancer survivor and it's just a shit situation all the way through.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#296

Post by acconrad »

seangrogg wrote: post #277
acconrad wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* I haven't considered it, I just do what my accountant advises * A general contractor? I hear that term I think of those guys who work on your house. Could you be more specific?

* fair enough * I guess I just lifted the term as it seemed appropriate; given you mentioned subcontracting I imagine there is an entity above you that does the direct contracting - any recommendations for what to look for in that contracting authority?

Good marketing. They came to me

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#297

Post by gknoy »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #266
gknoy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For non-salary workers, in your "8 hour" work day there is a certain mandated amount of break time. X minutes per Y hours, for example, plus time for lunch. They might have taken 8 hours and subtracted two 15-minute breaks. I'm not sure if the 8 hours is intended to be (8h + X break time), or (8h - X break time); I thought it was the former, but but might be mistaken. That's probably where the GP got their 7.5 from.

In the USA, there is no federal requirement for break time.

How true! However, there are some at state levels. For example [0]:

(2018) Under California law (which is much more generous to employees than federal law), if you are a non-exempt worker, you are entitled to meal and rest breaks: a 30-minute meal break if you work more than 5 hours in a workday, and 10 minutes breaks for every 4 hours you work

For an 8-hour work day, that would yield a 30 minute break + two ten minute ones.

0: https://calaborlaw.com/what-break-periods-am-i-entitled-to/

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#298

Post by FireBeyond »

ttoinou wrote: post #258
FireBeyond wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that -your- cost of health insurance would go down as a direct benefit of being in a larger, more diverse, pool? Well, apparently not. Apparently to you everyone for socialized medicine is a freeloader who doesn't work or pay taxes. This polarized vision is a large part of what plagues the country.

You realize that -your- cost of health insurance would go down as a direct benefit of being in a larger, more diverse, pool? Explain the magic to me

Increasing the size of the risk pool, for a genuine pool, and a genuine insurance product, should reduce individual pool member costs.

Of course, that word genuine, in both contexts, is abused in US healthcare “insurance”, as I’ve discussed in numerous of my comments (and I work in the industry - it’s an absolute abuse of the definition).

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#299

Post by cbeach »

As a contractor I don’t feel I opted out of a “social contract.”

Instead, I opting in to a tailored package of benefits that I choose myself. I fund (at very reasonable cost) my insurances directly.

The phrase “social contract” sounds like statist utopian fiction to me. It’s a sad world indeed, when employees can only rely on the impersonal, bureaucratic HR department of their massive employer. Or the cold, dead hand of the state and its civil servants.

Freedom lies in taking responsibility for your own affairs. Insuring yourself against calamity. Saving money for a rainy day.

Step outside our one-size-fits-all system, and further both your career and your security.

Re: The Challenges of Being in the New Contract Workforce

#300

Post by cbeach »

gaius wrote: post #192
acconrad wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 beca…

3. The customers without whom these sleazy companies could not exist. But Uber is oh-so-convenient, who cares about the societal consequences, right?

Drivers choose Uber when other options are available. So why would you judge that, and imagine that your view of “societal consequences” should trump their right to freely choose the best employment option for them and their personal situation?
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