141–150 of 304 posts
I'm totally cool with "contract" work (that's what I do in a way) so long as I: * Do the work from home or wherever I want * Use my own tools and equipment * Work when I want to (within reason) * Have a say in the deadlines * Can turn down projects But the minute you dictate my hours and where the work is done? No way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might work for some people. Many people don't have a spouse providing health insurance - without that it's drastically different. Probably your spouse has a reliable job so you can weather the danger of not having work when a contract ends. You are fortunate, good for you. But if you got hurt, and were single, you'd be much more vulnerable. I'm lucky, I work in a full time job with all the benefits, but not everyo…
I consulted for 5 years. I bought my own health insurance, and short and long term disability. I budgeted properly so that I could easily weather periods of time between contracts. This is all while being a single father. It's really not difficult, the hardest part for most people seems to be being responsible with your money. It's certainly not a matter of luck though. The only reason I stopped is because someone of…
One aspect of the "gig economy" that I've not seen covered is the way it effects gigsters professional social graphs. At the deep end of Mechanical Turk services where work is dispatched by an algorithm (Uber/Lyft/AirBnB/etc.) there are no upward connections to supervisors and managers and officers and no lateral connections to coworkers. This means that working does not provide insider access to potentially better (…
Another aspect of gig economy companies controlling networking: they typically ban workers from communicating directly with customers. Ostensibly it's for safety reasons, but the real reason is most likely to prevent workers and customers from circumventing the fees. The result is that workers are not able to develop a regular set of clients which could provide referrals, etc.
The US will have huge numbers of broke old people in future decades.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 i…
I guess it must be different in the US vs the UK. Contracting in the UK (at least in the IT world) is very popular and quite lucrative. (I guess not having to worry about health insurance helps somewhat, though) I've been permanent, and I've been contract, I really hope I get to finish the rest of my career as a contractor.
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We can't have a reasonable conversation about it because it's a zero-sum war between labor and capital. It's not possible to decide issues such as benefits on the basis of what's best for the economy because where the benefits come from doesn't have a big macro-economic impact. What this argument is about is who gets how much of the pie.
Compared to America's current health care regulations it's not zero sum at all.
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…
You're certainly more exposed to downturns, much like solo lawyers, consultants, etc. It's a trade-off and comes with definite benefits like you listed.
At the same time, companies fire by the millions in aggregate in a recessionary environment. Or worse, your employer simply vaporizes and goes out of business, which similarly happens in droves.
If you're a contractor, your exposure depends on who you're doing business with, how strong their circumstances are, just as it does when it comes to who is employing you.
The U6 went up to ~17.5% during the great recession. There is a very small group of elite tech companies that weathered that storm without firing people. Google is up at 80,000 employees now, Microsoft is at 125,000. Do they avoid layoffs in the next recession? I'm skeptical. Microsoft has almost no growth, any recession would hit them hard. Google's growth is 1/3 what it was ten years ago, a recession would slam their ad business and bring their growth down toward single digits.
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…
But, I am medically handicapped. When I had a corporate job, I lived in fear of losing my job for taking too much time off. My life revolved around getting myself together enough to make it to work 5 days a week.
I don't have those issues anymore. I can take time off at will and resume working when I feel better. My access to paid work is not threatened by that.
My income is portable. This has allowed me to repeatedly move to improve my quality of life. Historically, this was a luxury enjoyed by only the jet set and well off retirees, not working stiffs.
I think we need to provide national healthcare in the US to make the lack of benefits less of a problem. But I think if gig work is well designed, it can raise quality of life for ordinary people.
I wish my life were easier. I am really grumpy about it not being easier. But gig work is a viable solution for me under circumstances where most normal jobs simply are not. This has helped make it possible to make headway on my problems when I should simply be doomed with no real hope.
So I think we need to just focus on making gig work a positive. I don't think it is a given that it has to be a terrible experience, even for people who aren't making tons of money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I consulted for 5 years. I bought my own health insurance, and short and long term disability. I budgeted properly so that I could easily weather periods of time between contracts. This is all while being a single father. It's really not difficult, the hardest part for most people seems to be being responsible with your money. It's certainly not a matter of luck though. The only reason I stopped is because someone of…
Did you ever require care that was not covered by insurance or maxed out your coverage? Or have an expensive pre-existing condition? There's certainly an element of luck involved, especially when it comes to the US healthcare system!
Not that I recall, but that situation could happen to you if you had employer or government provided coverage.
>Or have an expensive pre-existing condition?
No, but there are other options like health-shares. These are usually tied to religious organizations and works almost exactly like health insurance, pooling costs. Obamacare grandfathered in existing health shares but made it illegal to start new ones.
>There's certainly an element of luck involved, especially when it comes to the US healthcare system!
There's a certain element of luck to life in general. I'm certainly not dismissing the unfortunate souls you're referring to, but we equally should not pretend like these things are all that difficult for the average person to do.