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Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

news.gallup.com

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Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#21

Post by SoftTalker »

cpncrunch wrote: post #9
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.

A teacher or a kid who paints houses in the summer is a 1-person business. They file a Schedule C but they may just make a few thousand dollars a year from their "business". I don't think income statistics on "one-owner businesses" are particularly meaningful without some more breakdown.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#22

Post by shrubble »

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…

1 person businesses often write off huge swaths of their expenses in the year they occur. Mileage reimbursement etc. adds up as well.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#23

Post by sandspar »

Gud wrote: post #15
akira2501 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leaving only the benefits. Well.. those and the liabilities and risk.

Such as? It seems to me that whatever risk the owning class has can be easily controlled by diversifying. And what liabilities do they have?

The fact that you call them the "owning class" makes it seem like you're not interested in fair handed analysis.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#24

Post by akira2501 »

Gud wrote: post #15
akira2501 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leaving only the benefits. Well.. those and the liabilities and risk.

Such as? It seems to me that whatever risk the owning class has can be easily controlled by diversifying. And what liabilities do they have?

> And what liabilities do they have?

All of them associated with operating their business. The most pertinent to this discussion would obviously be workers compensation in cases of work related injury or illness.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#25

Post by ajmurmann »

anon373839 wrote: post #17
thyrsus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that not presumed by capitalists as well? It appears to me the difference between the two lies in the expectations (Marxist: bad outcome; capitalist: good outcome) and the degree to which moral judgements adhere (ironically, the putative "scientific" Marxists seem more moralist than the capitalists).

Certainly not with the baggage that words like "exploiting" and "extracting" carry. Capitalism is rooted in the idea of comparative advantage and gains from trade: I give you this, you give me that, and we're both better off than if we hadn't done it. Of course, that's the lofty, textbook ideal. Plenty of capital owners actually do want to extract and exploit. To me, that's not the intent of capitalism, but rather a…

What does "exploit" mean in this context? Are we just referring to pay market price for labor as "exploit" or is this about abusive bosses?

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#26

Post by rjzzleep »

devonsolomon wrote: post #20

Tempting to deduce that employing people will make you happier and wealthier: it wont. It will just kill your business faster and reduce the chance you show up in a Gallup poll as a business owner at all. People who have employees and haven’t yet gone out of business are likely to have a good product and business model. Having a good business model is likely to make you wealthier than not having yet found a good busi…

> “We interviewed a 100 bananas and found that the ripe ones were yellow”

I had to google to see if this was from somewhere else, but seems like no. Thank you for this wonderful comment.

EDIT: one of the most toxic part of VC culture is that growth is measured by headcount growth.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#27

Post by devonsolomon »

hermitcrab wrote: post #18
lr4444lr wrote: post #5

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.

Yes. Having a business with employees fail must be so much more painful than having a business with no employees fail.

Im not sure new entrepreneurs quite appreciate the gravity of having family livelihoods dependent on your decisions.

The toll is also much worse in developing nations where the demand in the job market is low. Business failure then could mean people being long-term or permanently out of work.

Entrepreneurship is a massive driver of employment in developed markets (especially VC backed). Ironically, entrepreneurs in developing markets may be dissuaded from employing so not to carry this risk.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#28

Post by grujicd »

hermitcrab wrote: post #19
repomies69 wrote: post #14

Yeah, as an employer I made much more money. It was also very stressful, as managing people can be quite a hassle. I much prefer being self-employed without employees.

Yep. I've been running a 1-man software business for 19 years. I could have taken on employees and made more money, but made a conscious decision not to. I don't regret it.

You could also fail completely if employed some people. Adding employees doesn’t necessarily equate with adding revenue, but 100% equates with adding cost. As a fellow solo business owner for 19 years (hi!) I’m sure you understand this, but few posters on this topic seem to to think that additional employee is a guaranteered profit. It’s especially dangerous when bad times come and you’re reluctant to lay off people.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#29

Post by hermitcrab »

grujicd wrote: post #28
hermitcrab wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I've been running a 1-man software business for 19 years. I could have taken on employees and made more money, but made a conscious decision not to. I don't regret it.

You could also fail completely if employed some people. Adding employees doesn’t necessarily equate with adding revenue, but 100% equates with adding cost. As a fellow solo business owner for 19 years (hi!) I’m sure you understand this, but few posters on this topic seem to to think that additional employee is a guaranteered profit. It’s especially dangerous when bad times come and you’re reluctant to lay off people.

Absolutely. My main product is an event seating planner (PerfectTablePlan) and my sales basically went to zero during the pandemic. So glad I didn't have any staff to pay/fire.

Re: Employing Others Is Linked to Wealth and Wellbeing

#30

Post by kaliqt »

devonsolomon wrote: post #20

Tempting to deduce that employing people will make you happier and wealthier: it wont. It will just kill your business faster and reduce the chance you show up in a Gallup poll as a business owner at all. People who have employees and haven’t yet gone out of business are likely to have a good product and business model. Having a good business model is likely to make you wealthier than not having yet found a good busi…

Agreed. I made a lot of mistakes hiring out my first set of employees, turns out that people are incredibly difficult to handle and manage, even when they are on a payroll.
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