Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

Well yes, in the strict sense, that's what it says: you are better off extracting labor from others via the wage relation. You could swear the headline was written by a doctrinaire Marxist.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#5

Post by lr4444lr » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:45 AM UTC

There's gotta be a lot of survivorship bias here: many people whose businesses failed and had to go back to wage labor, or who simply lack the motivation to even try to pursue their own occupational freedom would be expected to feel more disgruntled.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#6

Post by bawolff » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:50 AM UTC

> Self-employed adults tend to have the lowest scores

That kind of surprised me.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#7

Post by jamilton » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 4:15 AM UTC

Seems kinda "no duh" to me. An non-employer owner is essentially employing themselves, right, having to do the work of an employee, just with the added work and benefits of being the owner. An employer-owner does not have to do the work of an employee, and is likely able to employee people to deal with the added work of ownership, leaving only the benefits.

The median for non-employer owner being 24k while the median for employee is 62k is surprising, I would expect the owner to be above or comparable. I guess there's a lot of unsuccessful one-person businesses. Looking at the full report, the median household income for NEO is 100k, and 110k for employee, and wealth for NEO is 5k higher. So there's something else going on there.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#8

Post by warcher » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 4:24 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #6

> Self-employed adults tend to have the lowest scores That kind of surprised me.

Wondering how that gets measured— the gig economy could skew this by a lot. In general it’s a tough road no matter the paycheck though.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#9

Post by cpncrunch » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 4:32 AM UTC

jamilton wrote: post #7

Seems kinda "no duh" to me. An non-employer owner is essentially employing themselves, right, having to do the work of an employee, just with the added work and benefits of being the owner. An employer-owner does not have to do the work of an employee, and is likely able to employee people to deal with the added work of ownership, leaving only the benefits. The median for non-employer owner being 24k while the median…

Yeah, I think the study is clouded by all the struggling 1-person businesses. As someone running a fairly successful 1-person business, I have to say that my wellbeing seems to be higher than the small employer owners that I know, due to all the hassles they have dealing with employees.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#10

Post by tstrimple » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 4:40 AM UTC

jamilton wrote: post #7

Seems kinda "no duh" to me. An non-employer owner is essentially employing themselves, right, having to do the work of an employee, just with the added work and benefits of being the owner. An employer-owner does not have to do the work of an employee, and is likely able to employee people to deal with the added work of ownership, leaving only the benefits. The median for non-employer owner being 24k while the median…

Non-employer owner includes folks who rent property as their "business". I'm sure there are tons of folks who are semi-retired and just renting out part of their property to cover most of their ongoing expenses. These folks wouldn't have a business in the sense they are trying to maximize profits. Just doing enough to maintain their existing lifestyle.

I could see myself doing the same or similar. Starting a business with the goal of growing it to the point of just sustaining my family's lifestyle to bridge the gap to retirement. Once we own this house and our kids become self-sufficient, our monthly expenses can drop quite drastically and we'll be able to sustain ourselves off of something much more modest than my current salary. Giving boat tours on the great lakes while fixing up a small cabin or something like that. Also considered a camp site / cabin rentals. Something that gives me an excuse to get outside more and moving around but rarely involves urgency and deadlines. All things which can earn some money, but unless I really grind at it they really aren't designed to grow too much.