121–130 of 754 posts
Can't Uber and Lyft get around this by requiring their contractors to register their own companies? E.g. a SMLLC might be sufficient.
Even if that would work from a legal perspective, I suspect that it would be enough of a practical hurdle to greatly decrease the number of people willing to drive for Uber/Lyft.
They're calling that "Remaking the Gig Economy"? Making Uber and Lyft drivers into employees? What a sham. For 10 years I ran my own consultancy. Every new engagement was a new "job" where I could negotiate the rules of engagement however I deemed fit. Usually lasting no more than 5 days each. Every new month for 10 years I'd think: "this is it, it's over; I have no work scheduled for next month, I'm going to have to…
But whatever, it did suck to pay ~$1K per month for health insurance.
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The law explicitly mentions "independent contractors", not contractors in general.
Oh interesting. So there'll be a rise in the drivers I had recently who work for a dude who gives them the car to use. Just a little more paperwork.
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As an American living in Ontario, Canada for a time, I literally COULD NOT BELIEVE the gig economy there. It is what the US aspires to: a guy owns a snow plow business, employs 30 other gig workers 6mos a year. A woman does city/house hunting tours. Contractors are consistently self-employed. On and on. These folks, earning enough to live, and (to another commentor’s point) without fear of medical bills/issues. That…
I often wonder about this cost to the US economy due to a lack of universal health care: how much productivity is lost due to people staying in jobs just for health care, how many businesses not started, etc.
Can't Uber and Lyft get around this by requiring their contractors to register their own companies? E.g. a SMLLC might be sufficient.
How do we get past the NYT paywall these days? Incognito mode no longer seems to do the trick?
They're calling that "Remaking the Gig Economy"? Making Uber and Lyft drivers into employees? What a sham. For 10 years I ran my own consultancy. Every new engagement was a new "job" where I could negotiate the rules of engagement however I deemed fit. Usually lasting no more than 5 days each. Every new month for 10 years I'd think: "this is it, it's over; I have no work scheduled for next month, I'm going to have to…
It is misleading to lump people billing at $100s/hr with drivers, shoppers, dog walkers, etc. But what's the median billing rate for the "gig economy"? Given my experience with consulting, it seems odd to use the "gig" label. But whatever, it did suck to pay ~$1K per month for health insurance.
If you’re billing at $300/hr and working when and how you want, it actually seems immensely disingenuous to try to associate with the sympathies for people stuck in the gig economy con job the tech tyrants have been imposing on society as a kind of excuse why you couldn’t manage to fill your consultancy pipeline.
I also guarantee he could have gotten health insurance, he just did not feel comfortable paying the roughly $1,000 to $2,000 per month it would have cost because his business pipeline was not full of work consistently.
People don’t realize just how much health care costs, regardless of whether it’s American employees who don’t realize the employers contribution is about 4-5 time what they pay monthly, or the worshiped and beatified “universal healthcare” that is “free” in Europe where massive taxes are paid to augment the also massive individual monthly cost taken out of people’s paychecks.
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Your case seems to be a consequence of how healthcare works in America (insurance). For those of us lucky enough to be in good health, the "Gig economy" as-described would be just fine.
> For those of us lucky enough to be in good health It's a common refrain that only people with health problems need health care, but that's just not true. Risk has a price. That's why health care and life insurance for healthy people is not free. Good health just makes it easier to pretend that risk isn't there. Tying health care to employment is a historical accident long overdue for change.
Ironically, it came about because of wage freezes imposed by the government during WW2. Employers had to find something to offer to attract workers, and employer-paid insurance did the trick.
The trap, though, was that employer paid insurance was paid with pre-tax dollars, while if you bought it yourself you'd pay in post-tax dollars, making it far more expensive.
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California loves making bandaid state fixes to federal problems, I think this is the wrong way to go. Problem: You need a full-time job at a company to get benefits such as healthcare. Californian solution: Reclassify as many as possible as full-time workers. Problem: USA immigration laws are horribly inflexible. Californian solution: Make it illegal to go after illegal immigrants. I don't think that these passive-ag…
> moving between states as hard as moving between EU countries It depends on the country of origin, but for many, moving between EU countries is about as moving between states is now. There's some bureaucracy to deal with, but it's not like moving between states in the US is hassle free. Most US states require immigrants from other states get a local drivers license and local car registration, which requires multiple…