Who Makes Below Minimum Wage on Mechanical Turk?

She has a disability. And I do not qualify for ssi.

I have cystic fibrosis. I am getting myself well when doctors say it cannot be done. Having CF does not qualify you for disability. You qualify based on having allowed infection to eat away enough of your lungs so as to have reduced lung capacity below a certain threshold. Based on my last x-rays and the fact that it no longer hurts like a bitch to breathe, the hole in my left lung appears to be gone. So I will never qualify for disability. I am too competent.

For starters, that paying people more for the exact same work has zero side effects. It galls me that so many people on HN think you can just magic up money to throw at poor people, like casting fireballs in D&D by magically importing fire from some magical plane of fire without this adding mass to the earth every time it is done. There are no magic solutions. When you inject more money into a process but add no extra value, the result is inflation. That is, in fact, the very definition of inflation: paying more money for the same goods and services.

Also, you are basically assuming me to be incompetent and incapable of bettering myself. That is called prejudice.

Here are things I can do and am doing or have done to improve my income or my situation:

1) Get healthier so I can be more productive. This is my top priority and it is working.

2) Take advantage of the fact that my online income (and other income) is portable by moving someplace cheaper to live. I did this in May. I still struggle to make ends meet every month, but the amount I need to scrape by has dropped by about 20%. My quality of life has gone up substantially in several ways, not just because this area is cheaper.

3) Improve my work process and learn to work the system better. I have been working on both of those things for a long time and they are resulting in me getting access to better paying work and more consistent access to work. At one time, it was often the case that there was abundant work available when I was too sick to do it and a dearth of work on days when I felt okay and wanted to work.

4) Develop my own projects. I run several websites. They sometimes make ad money or tips. It is less reliable, but it is something I often am able to work on at times when I cannot do paid work. This is true in part because I can develop my own projects even without Internet access and in part because I can work on them at times when I am too tired to cope with paid work.

5) Get off the street. I am currently homeless. I left a corporate job and chose to be homeless to get myself healthier. I am somnewhat knowleadeagle about real estate. For a few thousand dollars, I think I could get a tax lien house and get off the street. I think I am well enough for housing to make sense. Having housing would allow me to cook, which would lower my food bill. It would also allow me to have access to the Internet 24/7, which would allow me to work more.

I am not doomed to only make, at best, $12/hour and my life would likely get easier, faster if I didn't have to deal so much with the assumption that because I am handicapped/a woman/insert prejudicebof your choosing, that I will never amount to anything and I should be grateful for idiotic plans, like basic income, that would shunt me off into a permanent, inescapable underclass status.

If you want to help me, here are things you can do in the here and now to help me:

1) Follow me on Twitter.

2) Read one or more of my blogs.

3) Engage me in discussion, either here or on Twitter or by leaving comments on my blog posts. (And a sincere thank you for engaging me in this discussion.)

4) Whitelist my blogs on ad blocker or leave a tip.

5) Promote my work.

6) Answer me in a sincere, good faith effort to help me improve my performance when I ask questions.

Anyway, I have work to do and not enough time.

Have a good day.

I certainly didn't assume you're incompetent.

I was a little baffled by your initial complaint about people who want to raise the working conditions for people who take ad-hoc labor, like you. You said you "worry" about them, that you can't take a regular job, and so on.

Great, fine, I certainly don't want you to have to take a regular job. I think it's great if you can work a few hours here, pick up a few extra bucks as your health permits, and so on. I have no interest in taking that away from you. I doubt very many people do, unless it's to slough off the work onto people who are more economically hard up than you.

I was, however, baffled by your implication that the way things are now (you making an average of $12 an hour with ad-hoc work, instead of some larger amount) is the best things can be.

I think you're wrong about that, but it is, of course, certainly true if we insist that everything's as good as it can be.

And you're right, there's no magic money solution. Basic income is one, and there's several different models that get tossed around, including just cutting everyone a check (so hey, you make the $12/hour patched together on top of the basic income).

But if you think I'm arguing because I think you're a dumb cripple or whatever, no, get over it, I'm arguing because you typed some otherwise thoughtful stuff and I just don't agree with all of it.

I don't mean to intentionally misunderstand you. I really do appreciate your patience, though, and willingness to engage, too, and am sorry if I come across as thick or willfully being a jerk.

I actually think it's great how much you're doing, outside the patched-together work, to get your own business/content marketing stuff going.

I wish some of the people I knew who were in a similar situation to you (i.e. some disability or another that prevents them from taking regular employ) had your ability to get things done. I wasn't even thinking about them until now, but I just got a linkedin connection request from one of them (and it's like, I know there's no point in them doing it like this, because regular scheduled employ is not in the cards for them, they're just tired of being so poor) and it got me thinking.

Let's say, it's not you I'm worried about, it's more for them that I'm concerned. $12 isn't much, but you're already doing stuff to do better. If my friends could do better, though, given their constraints, their lives would be a lot better off for it. Maybe a basic income isn't the answer, but an extra hundred dollars or two a month would go a long way toward improving their quality of life.

Most people like me feel hopeless. They feel it is pointless. They don't see that there will be a payoff. It takes a long time to see a payoff and most of the social messages around them only reinforce the idea that it is hopeless, there isn't really a solution. The American mindset currently is that poor people need basic income or welfare or to win the lottery.

I am angry and frustrated and I feel it is taking too long and I don't really want to do this anymore. I spend a lot of time cussing at the sky about how hard it is, how unfair it is, how I deserve better and so on.

But I also know what my fate was "supposed to be." I am supposed to be getting about $100k in medical care annually while I steadily deteriorate. My ability to be productive is supposed to be declining, not improving. I am supposed to be either dead or dying a slow gruesome death from problems that doctors do not know how to fix.

You might consider checking out my websites and possibly forwarding selected links to the people you are concerned about. I have a homeless blog. I have a food blog where I talk about using food as my medicine. Those might be the most immediately relevant to your concerns.

There are things disabled people can do to exercise agency and get small gains in the short term that can be gradually leveraged for larger gains down the road. But they have lost hope. So do not talk to them about big gains down the road and do not talk to them about the scope of their challenges. It only makes them depressed. Instead, if you find an article with concrete small, doable solutions that can benefit them in the here and now, share that in a non pushy way. Then be patient. It may be months before you see evidence of results. But if you get into the habit of forwarding them useful bits periodically, it can slowly change.

I apologize if I am overstepping my bounds. I woke up with a fierce headache. Trying to be helpful is a longstanding habit and it is sometimes the wrong thing to do.

Have a good day.