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Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

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Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#81

Post by toyg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #35
nfriedly wrote: post #27

For what it's worth, I used to do work on freelancing sites ~10 years ago and just tended to ignore the race to the bottom. I initially charged $50/hr, and regularly raised my rates so that I was up over $150/hr by the time I stopped doing it. Of course I got passed over for a lot of jobs in favor of cheaper folks. But the jobs I did get were from clients who actually respected me. Also, more than once, a client who…

> I'm not sure what the rules are, but perhaps you could set up a corporation that takes on the freelancing jobs and then pays you a salary of $1,200 a month? No, that'll lose you the benefits. https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/404/404-1575.htm "We will evaluate your work activity based on the value of your services to the business regardless of whether you receive an immediate income for your services." SSI is delib…

Hard thresholds on benefits just suck. They should always, always be progressively tapered, in a way that incentivises work. Otherwise you're just creating a permanent class of people without any incentive to contribute to the society that keeps them alive.

I know someone with similar problems in the UK: they are part-time, but working more hours would mean paying more in childcare and lose benefits, ending up with less money than before. It's just stupid.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#82

Post by dubcanada »

jacknews wrote: post #29

It's hard to take Fiver seriously. For example a quick search for 'Ruby Rails' and one of the top service providers lists a premium service of 'full stack development app' delivered in 3 days, and including a 15 minute consultation, a project plan, and audit, for ... $20.

Ya fiverr tends to be more of $20 for the initial meeting, followed by a custom quote for $500 for the project.

Usually that $20 is just to get you in the door (which is why it's hilariously low), very very rarely have I experienced that being the actual cost.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#83

Post by bbarn »

You mention Python and CMS - are there not thousands of Django development jobs out there? A quick search found them in high income areas and tons of remote positions as well. Even if you don't know Django itself, if you have python and CMS - it should be a natural step. It's not super sexy or new but it's very embedded in some companies.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#84

Post by jonnycomputer »

jmduke wrote: post #30

Have you considered technical writing? I've talked to a number of folks who are in a similar position, and writing (as opposed to generalist development) has a number of advantages: - It rewards experience though, except for niche-specific writing, does not require understanding of specific frameworks or programming languages - It is often 'important-but-not-urgent' work, so intermittent availability is less of a dea…

Interesting. Do you have a feel for the market for this as a contract-job or side-gig?

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#85

Post by moneywoes »

grugagag wrote: post #72

Naive question but can you do it through a friend? You get the contract on your friend/relative name, you do the work, you pay his/her taxes for that work and whatever overhead then the friend dispenses you enough money so you don’t lose disability?

Isn’t that fraud?

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#87

Post by FpUser »

toyg wrote: post #81
ceejayoz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what the rules are, but perhaps you could set up a corporation that takes on the freelancing jobs and then pays you a salary of $1,200 a month? No, that'll lose you the benefits. https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/404/404-1575.htm "We will evaluate your work activity based on the value of your services to the business regardless of whether you receive an immediate income for your services." SSI is delib…

Hard thresholds on benefits just suck. They should always, always be progressively tapered, in a way that incentivises work. Otherwise you're just creating a permanent class of people without any incentive to contribute to the society that keeps them alive. I know someone with similar problems in the UK: they are part-time, but working more hours would mean paying more in childcare and lose benefits, ending up with l…

I once found German guy on github and wanted to hire him to perform some domain specific programming. He refused with the same argument: will loose the benefits.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#88

Post by ernestipark »

$1200/m as a decent software engineer should be really doable, whether writing software directly or not. It just might take some work to get creative and figure out where the right niches are.

I think you really want to explore more non-traditional routes, since $1200 is not much for a full time job, and probably too low end for traditional consulting as well.

For instance:

* I would get on all the expert networks (GLG, Guidepoint, Alphasights, Deepbench, etc) and get really good there. These can be a bit of overhead, but it only takes a few gigs per month to get close to $1200/month. Charge $100-$300/call. reddit.com/r/expertneworks will give you more detail

* Do you know friends/ppl in your network who work at startups or are indie hackers/solo software shops? If you're still a solid engineer, but you have a cost cap, you could be really useful to some startups who need flexible help thats not 40 hrs/week. You can also offer to be a generalist doing software, documentation, other stuff as well since you're not trying to optimize salary. A jack of all trades who can pitch in on software could be very useful for the right startup.

* Some others have suggested it too, but I'd explore the Fiverrs/Upworks and see if you can find an optimal niche where you're working, say, 10-15 hours/month and hitting that $1200. I think it's doable if you figure out what works well on those networks.

I've written a bit more about ways to get part-time work here (https://blog.parttimetech.io/p/work-part-time-as-a-software-...), hopefully some of the tips there and resources can be helpful. I've had friends with disabilities leverage part-time to be able to stay in the workforce, hope you can as well.

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#89

Post by bjacobt »

You could try moonlight work, they seem to have some python jobs available. I like it better than Upwork and Fiver.

Another option could be to freelance as a code reviewer, I've never tried it but it seems interesting [1]

[0] https://www.moonlightwork.com/ [1] https://app.pullrequest.com/signups/reviewer

Re: Ask HN: Disabled and out of work for years, but need some side income

#90

Post by dev_tty01 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #54
hansvm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if their business brings in $5k for one contract done one month and then has no work for 4 months to bring the average under $1,200, is that not above board with such a ruling? Test 3 in that legal document references that their income will be evaluated relative to what salary they might receive for such work, and I wouldn't think it would be reasonable for the business to be expected to pay more than the average…

It doesn't average. https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/cfr20/416/416-0420.htm > We generally use the amount of your countable income in the second month prior to the current month to determine how much your benefit amount will be for the current month. Earning $5k in a particular month would mean zero benefit in a subsequent month, and keeping that $5k sitting in their account to tide themselves over would put them over the…

If the 5k is better than the "normal" month with benefit, it is still better to earn the 5k that month, assuming the benefit is immediately restored on the subsequent months with low income.
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