US Senator Introduces the First Bill To Give Gig Workers Benefits (techcrunch.com) 155
Virginia Senator Mark Warner has introduced a bill that will give basic benefits to gig workers. "Warner has just proposed the first-ever piece of national legislation aimed at helping on-demand and other non-traditional workers without traditional benefits, like paid sick days or a retirement plan, have some sort of a safety net," reports TechCrunch. "The bill asks the federal government to set aside $20 million in funding for organizations to use to look at the types of benefits programs individual workers could take with them from job to job." From the report: "[Portable benefits is] that emergency fund," Warner told BuzzFeed, which first reported news of the bill. "It might be a fund to take care of a disability if you get hurt. It might work with some existing retirement programs. Part of it would be, depending on what happens with Obamacare, an ability to help deal with health care expenses. I think there will be a variety of models." The funding wouldn't be enough to cover everyone, of course, but if it gets the green light a draft of the bill indicates it would earmark $5 million toward grants doled out by Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta for organizations already looking into portable benefits and $15 million for new programs.
What about IRS 1706 (Score:5, Interesting)
..which specifically targets computer programmers from an era before the government allowed millions of Americans to lose their jobs to cheaper offshore labor and to foreign nationals imported to be trained as their replacements to work in America without even knowing how to use toilet paper, deodorant or having any loyalty to the country, intent to contribute in any way to the common good or even an ancestor who ever defended the world from tyranny.
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If I had mod points I would give you all of them because I did not know about this obscure tax code which explicitly targets "the technical services industry" and cuts off any hope of large growth for computer-related contractors.
For those who don't want to read the legalese and would like a less-biased view of what the regulation says, it basically says that the IRS is looser in its determination of employment status (contractor vs employee) for technical services workers. The terms of a contract which might cause the IRS to determine that an individual is actually an employee if that individual is a ditch digger may allow him to be considered a contractor if he's a programmer or similar.
I'm not certain that this "targets from an
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02... [nytimes.com]
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This was my first thought too...
They're trying to drive the death knell into the 1099 contract circuit, and make everyone a fucking wage slave.....
So much for giving people like myself, a choice....and be independent.
Re: What about IRS 1706 (Score:1)
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They're trying to drive the death knell into the 1099 contract circuit
The way I read it, IRS 1706 does the opposite. It makes it easier for contractors to stay contractors and not be considered employees.
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Oh hell yeah between that and Obama and the IRS destroying 1099 workers...
They did not "destroy" 1099 workers. A large percentage of those workers now simply take pay under the table and in cash when possible. The IRS simply doesn't get a cut anymore. Maybe a few 1099 workers either left the workforce or found a wage-slave job, maybe even found another work-around to the regulations, but many simply "dropped off the 'scope".
Sure, the government will make up the losses with more of your tax money and that's good that they don't actually lose revenue when manipulating people, but t
This is so bad. (Score:2, Insightful)
$20 million now. $20 billion in 10 years. $200 billion in 20. And it keeps going up.
This bill says "basic" but you know what that means. "Basic" now, but in five years it will be argued that these are entitlements that everyone should receive if anyone who says otherwise is racist, sexist, and greedy.
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What the fuck are you talking about?
"The bill asks the federal government to set aside $20 million in funding for organizations to use to look at the types of benefits programs individual workers could take with them from job to job."
Re:This is so bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
There already IS benefits 1099 contractors can take with them from job to job (gig to gig)...it's called learning to negotiate your bill rate so that you can pay (and be free to choose) your own health insurance, set up a nice HSA to sock away pre-tax money for routine medical needs, to pick and choose your own retirement, set up a SEP, sock away and invest your money as you wish...no, we can't have the vast majority of contractors be depended upon to put on their "big boy" pants and make their own choices in life, negotiate their gigs, have the freedom to move from job to job and be able to write of actual expenses of doing business (mileage, etc).
No...we throw the baby out with the bathwater, on something that has worked for a LONG time, now that there are some new twists on it out there.
No one holds a fucking gun to your head to work 1099. You have to either be a responsible (and talented enough to be in demand) adult, and know what jobs to take and how to negotiate, do paperwork and budget to be a contractor, OR...have it be something part time to add money to your regular "day job".
I"m sorry, but being an uber driver has never been about making a living at it full time, it is a part time job to make some side money.
But, here we go, likely ruining people that do "real" 1099 contracting, and balance the risks vs the rewards of this form of employment, and independence.
If you are a real 1099 contractor, you already budget your bill rate to pay you own benefits and vacation/sick time...and it is portable wherever you wish to work next....it already works without the Feds intruding even more into our work lives.
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There already IS benefits
If you're willing to go to the effort of making your typos bold, perhaps you could just fix them instead.
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No one holds a fucking gun to your head to work 1099.
This is a shitty argument only made by shitty people. It's a crime to be broke in America and people are desperate to make money lest they wind criminals.
The reason why the minimum wage was outright intended to be a living wage is that allowing people to hire people for less than a living wage is just kinder, gentler slavery.
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No one holds a fucking gun to your head to work 1099. You have to either be a responsible (and talented enough to be in demand) adult, and know what jobs to take and how to negotiate, do paperwork and budget to be a contractor, OR...have it be something part time to add money to your regular "day job".
While I haven't seen firearms used yet. I have seen job markets that amounted to "work as a fake 1099 or die of starvation..."
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And what markets, exactly are those....?
The Feds have already made it hard enough to be a 1099 contractor, that it is harder and harder to find people or companies that are willing to let your work 1099 with them, for fear someone will try to sue them later (ala MS) or the govt will try to reclassify you, even if you are legit.
I've never seen an industry really even enthusiastical
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And what markets, exactly are those....?
The Feds have already made it hard enough to be a 1099 contractor, that it is harder and harder to find people or companies that are willing to let your work 1099 with them, for fear someone will try to sue them later (ala MS) or the govt will try to reclassify you, even if you are legit.
I've never seen an industry really even enthusiastically try to work on a 1099 basis.
I find it interesting that we apparently have absolutely alien experiences. In Texas pretty much every single small employer will ONLY do 1099 and at minimum wage or LESS.
There is also effectively no food stamps for an adult, given that if you can pay for lodging you aren't eligible.
So you can literally starve, or work in the exploitative positions offered. Illegal you say? When laws are not enforced, they don't really exist.
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That's just it since health insurance is optional I can beat your rates by not charging the company for it, I get more work and more money and get free unlimited healthcare from emergency room visits per reagans law saying no one who goes to an emergency room goes untreated.
Personally I think forcing the cheap, poor and lazy to contribute something to the healthcare they need anywayswpuld be a good thing but republicans don't believe in people taking personal responsibility of their lives.
A better question
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"...and get free unlimited healthcare from emergency room visits per reagans law saying no one who goes to an emergency room goes untreated."
Emergency room visits are just that: for emergencies. If you're bleeding out they'll patch you up or if your kid's temp is 102 they may give you a shot of antibiotics, but if you're dying of cancer you don't get to go to an emergency room and get "free unlimited healthcare". The ER will label your cancer, symptoms, and pain as a non-emergency and tell you to see the ca
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... being an Uber driver has never been about making a living at it full time ...
Who told you that? Certainly not Uber who promised that people could buy a car by being self-employed. Why couldn't it be a full-time job, at least in cities with shitty public transport? Probably because Uber knew that their rates wouldn't cover healthcare, holiday fund, pension fund, uniforms and training. ... it is a part time job ...
Ah, it's pocket-money for the poor kids. No, when the kid has hire-purchase contract that de
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$20 million now. $20 billion in 10 years. $200 billion in 20. And it keeps going up.
What the fuck are you talking about?
"The bill asks the federal government to set aside $20 million in funding for organizations to use to look at the types of benefits programs individual workers could take with them from job to job."
So you've never noticed how federal programs happened to grow in scope, budget, and the number of people that qualify?
The only rule for a federal program is to survive.
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Well, call me an optimist, but I'd have thought it would be a pool the workers would have to pay into themselves.
It's not like "benefits included" jobs don't take the cost of those benefits into account when creating a salary package, it just seeks to make that same arrangement more portable.
The flaw, of course, is that "gig workers" are paid shit. It looks OK on the surface because they're comparing their income to one that has already had a good portion removed before they see it to pay for benefits, but
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That simply is NOT true...you only hear about gig workers (aka 1099 contractors) in the news recently for things like uber...but for MANY years, there is a majority of contract workers that make incredibly good livings. You have to put on your big boy pants and know how to negotiat
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I wouldn't even contemplate dumping real contractors in with "gig workers". That's like confusing Hobby Lobby with an aspiring author that sells bangles on Etsy for pin money.
The Self-Attribution Fallacy (Score:2)
He's so awesome that he finds it hard to comprehend that some people aren't as awesome as he is.
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Wich, of course, per Dunning-Kruger means that he is a lot less awesome than he thinks.
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I am not a fan of this as a small government guy don't get me wrong.
One I have not understood is why most guys doing the 1099 thing in the way you speak of it don't set themselves up an LLC or even just an S-Corp. It takes no time and can offer some pretty significant legal advantages in terms of liability. If you are the owner and the only employee, than you will be doing basically all the extact same things you'd do as someone taking 1099 work.
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People, when it matters *will* pay for quality.
And at some point you may have to tell yourself a company that does that...."is not my customer", and move on to greener pastures.
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It would already be much simpler to solve this problem with a basic income that everyone gets.
The biggest problem that I see with this proposal is, as others have pointed out, where do you draw the line between someone "doing gigs" and a sole proprietor of a business with a variety of clients? Or between either of those and an independent contractor working full time over years for one big client? Say the latter were entitled to benefits because he's close enough to a regular employee; if he then shifts to
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"Much, much simpler to just give everyone a simple cash payment" ...and let inflation eat it on the spot.
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Inflation is caused by an increase in money supply, not a redistribution of it.
Or would you say that if, by some miracle of the free market, people somehow ended up with more equal incomes naturally, that that would cause inflation and take away all the benefits of that? Because if so, the logical consequence of that would be that one person holding all the world's wealth would cause deflation sufficient to more than make up for the loss of income to everyone else. Sure everyone's poor but now everything's
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"Inflation is caused by an increase in money supply"
That's true.
"not a redistribution of it"
That's false. Yes, just redistributing money so the ones that are refraining themselves from buying can start buying causes inflation. It might be eventually controlled (by offer increasing to meet increasing demand), or not, if demand increases on somehow inelastic or limited offer (i.e. real state market).
Of course, the case of UBI would not only increase demand but also would most probably require increasing the
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No, you can (and should) collect the funds to pay the basic income from an income tax, just like you do to fund all social programs. Printing or borrowing money to fund it is a ridiculous straw man.
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Much, much simpler to just give everyone a simple cash payment (call it a tax credit, make tax payments due and refunds distributed monthly instead of annual, and you need no additional administration overhead), funded by a flat tax (of that credit amount over the mean income, so the math automatically balances out and it is revenue-neutral).
No. Flat taxes are inherently regressive because people with less money spend more of their income on taxes on necessities, and you are taxing them twice; once when they get paid, and again when they buy the things they need. Graduated tax scales are inherently fairer because those who derive the most benefit pay the most taxes.
If you want to fix taxes, start taking out exemptions. The best one is social security, which we call a contribution but is really just a kind of tax anyway. Remove the salary cap on
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A flat tax plus a basic income becomes a progressive tax in net, so progressive that it becomes negative below a certain income, approaching negative infinity and zero income, while approaching but never exceeding the fixed percent as income tends toward infinity. Gross income plus a fixed amount minus a fixed percent moves all net incomes closer to the same number by some percent, meaning those further above and below that number get pushed toward it harder, and those close to it get pushed toward it less.
What's a "gig"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is running a sole proprietor business a "gig"? Or is that too formal to count? It's the same exact thing with even more volatility.
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Is running a sole proprietor business a "gig"? Or is that too formal to count? It's the same exact thing with even more volatility.
For the purposes of this plan, a "gig" is defined as any area of labor for remuneration where there is not enough money to feed political campaigns and lobbyists sufficient protection money to prevent government interference.
Strat
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Kinda goes withhout saying, ... (Score:3, Informative)
... but would it have been too much to ask, to mention that he is of course a Democrat.
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every R will call this 'socialism'.
the dog whistle will blow, count on it.
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For sure. It's what they do.
These days it's pretty much the only thing they do. I am old enough to remember when they actually had somewhat competent politicians who could run an administration.
Damn, I feel old ...
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lol [youtube.com]
Re: Government has no business dictating relations (Score:2)
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This is why I think the real, long-term solution to the conflict that split classical liberalism into (on the one hand) socialism and (on the other hand) libertarianism, is a kind of modified libertarianism that takes a good hard look at what kind of contracts are acceptable. Initially it was only contracts of rent and interest that I sought to invalidate, but then I started thinking maybe it's contracts more generally; a respect for property rights, the core of libertarianism, doesn't say anything about an
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All of libertarianism is impossible without a complete dictatorship. Interestingly one of the first people to every realize that and say it out loud was a highly regarded conservative.
History lesson follows:
Back in the 1970's after the democratically elected but left-leaning Salvadore Alende's government was overthrown in a coup by Pinochet, major libertarian economist F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman basically wrote his economic policy. Pinochet did the whole republican pipe dream. He destroyed the welfare s
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This is your brain on libertarian stupidity.
Kids, don't become libertarians.
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It's pretty sad when you're more worried about the party of the Senator who introduced the bill than what they bill covers.
(That being said, it's not a tax break for the wealthy or a kick in the teeth for the not wealthy - of course it was a Democrat. Which means the right wing nutjobs that now inhabit Slashdot will soon be along to mod me down.)
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"It's pretty sad when you're more worried about the party of the Senator who introduced the bill than what they bill covers."
Why is that sad? It's a bit of information that should have been included, after all the legislation was explained.
Adding that this comes from a Democrat would have made clear, that there is zero chance of this going anywhere at this time.
It would have also conveyed who you have to vote for, if you want to have these kind of laws.
Color me biased, but I think that's kinda important.
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...but would it have been too much to ask, to mention that he is of course a Democrat.
His party affiliation is entirely irrelevant. Political party loyalty is perhaps THE major obstacle to a free society. Instead of focusing on parties, we are all better served by focusing on the individual. Not all Democrats are equal, and not all Republicans are equal.
Members of all parties do things I like and things I don't like. However, there are generally individuals in all parties that do the right things, and I vote for those people regardless of their party affiliation.
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Meanwhile you are going to be out voted by hordes flying the flag of the traitors. [google.com] They will also mark you an enemy because anyone who is not 100% them is their enemy.
Someday you will realize, for all their faults, the Democrats are an order of magnitude better than the Republicans. Not saying the Democrats are great or ideal. They fall short of ideal by an order of magnitude too. But way better than Republicans.
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Part affiliation and loyalty is a reality that you ignore at your own peril. To pretend that these politicos are somehow all magically independent from their party doesn't even pass the laugh test.
They'll spend.. (Score:2)
more on researching and administering this than all the benefits they will pay to end workers combined, guaranteed. Until companies don't receive the benefit of "contracting" employees, this won't change.
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If it were a basic income instead, not only would that problem be more than solved, but there would be no point in differentiating between "contractors" and "employees" anyway. Everyone gets the same benefits either way.
Re: They'll spend.. (Score:3)
Why can't they pay into SS (retirement plan) and signup for 'affordable' Obamacare, paid sick days? As a self-employed worker, that's on the gig worker, not the taxpayer. Your gig economy 'career' doesn't pay enough to cover SS & Obamacare? Time to figure out a better career...
Re: They'll spend.. (Score:2)
Because Social Security doesn't work that way,
Yes, it does.
Most 'contributors' to SS pay about 5% of their first $100K in income to SS, their employer matches the contribution, for a total of around 10% of the first $100K being 'paid into' Social Security - Self-employed workers pay both the employee and employer portions of Social Security... why can't 'gig workers' pay for SS benefits the same way an IT contractor does?
Re: They'll spend.. (Score:2)
Affordable Care Act covers healthcare, not other expenses
I never said it didn't, I said that compensation for sick days, vacation days is 'baked into' the compensation rate the 'gig worker' is paid.
When an IT consultant quotes a daily rate of, say, $400/day, that $400/day is only paid on days worked, not on sick days, not on vacation days. If the worker wants to earn $100K/yr, at $400/day they'll have to work 250 days. If the also want to take 15 days off for family vacations during the year, they'll have to up their daily rate to $425/day... the principles are t
contractors still need some of the min wage stuff (Score:2)
contractors still need some of the min wage stuff so they can be changed for stuff like dine and dash / CC change backs / etc.
Good Start (Score:2)
How about giving benefits to workers scheduled exactly 29 hours per week, or who are 'contractors' in name only.
This sounds more like a plan to create a committee that will start to think about the issue, rather than a solution.
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Of course, the reason all of those workers are scheduled 29 hours per week is because of the laws to give benefits to workers who were working 39 hours a week before. So unless you're planning on seeing a law requiring all workers get benefits no matter the number of hours worked, then all you're doing in ensuring those 29 hour a week workers will be dropped to whatever is one hour less than your new limit.
And if you do require benefits for all workers regardless of hours work, I suspect that one of two thi
Bullshit. (Score:2)
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The ACA gave gig workers access to healthcare, this is unnecessary as long as it's in place.
The ACA crammed a POS insurance tax down the throats of gig workers.
Wow. (Score:2)
Virginia Senator Mark Warner has introduced a bill that will give basic benefits to gig workers. "Warner has just proposed the first-ever piece of national legislation aimed at helping on-demand and other non-traditional workers without traditional benefits, like paid sick days or a retirement plan, have some sort of a safety net," reports TechCrunch.
All gigworkers need to do is register as a corporation, pay both sides of FICA/SS (worker and employer), and by not offering himself healthcare coverage can qualify for subsidized Obamacare... that is the purpose of those two existing programs, no need to throw millions down the rat hole of 'analysis' and 'study'.
As for giving gig workers a 'safety net', that's their responsibility, folks outside the gig economy shouldn't be paying subidies, paid sick time, etc. for gig economy workers, being self-employed,
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FWIW, contractors currently pay both sides of FICA, although half is deductible on the income tax. Registering as a corporation does increase the paperwork significantly. I thought ACA subsidies went to low-income people without employer health care, no matter whether W-2 or 1099. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The problem is people being forced to work for peanuts in a gig economy because it's that or starve. A UBI would solve that problem.
This sentance hurt my brain (Score:2)
look at the types of benefits programs? For fucks sake, can we please just have Medicare for All [google.com] already and a proper safety net? We don't need exploratory committees. We already know what works and what doesn't.
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"can we please just have Medicare for All already ...?"
No. It would cause the system to collapse.
Medicare appears to "work" because it dictates the prices it will pay for any particular service. It certainly works for the people using the program, but the rest of us end up getting screwed because of it. Medical service providers make up for the losses they take on Medicare patients by forcing everyone else to pay more. Insurance companies have some negotiating power however. The prices they pay are muc
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Which is exactly why Democrats need to just stop lying. With medical care already 1/6 of the economy its simply not practical to do single payer.
The only way it could be done is with price controls and that means 2 things.
1) the level of service the majority of people (anyone not paying extra for private care) gets will decline dramatically.
2) the era the US leadership in medical technology development ends. In order to keep everyone's tax burden manageable all the profit will have to be taken out of medi
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However, lots of less wealthy countries have good universal health care. It's more complicated than just extending Medicare, but it can be done.
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First point: cost shifting exists in almost every industry. Insurance of all types is basically defined by cost shifting. Airlines play all sorts of games with it. ISP's depend on lots of people who use almost none of their bandwidth to pay for those who download constantly.
Second point: No-one is saying "Everything states the same, except it's free" about anything in healthcare. The point of single payer is that you absorb all of the insurance companies into one (governmentally run) organization, including
what about enforcing the labor laws / add an in be (Score:2)
what about enforcing the labor laws / adding an in between from 1099 to W2. or some like if you must where an uniform then you are W2.
I would love to one sign up for a 1099 job that forces an uniforms and not where it when they ask where is the uniform I can say where is the W2?
Right now we have sub contractors that are listed as 1099 but are controlled like w2 and when something goes wrong they get lumped with all of the costs even when it's not really there fault.
http://www.slate.com/articles/... [slate.com]
https://w [generallia...scodes.com]
Was this even meant to be a career? (Score:1)
I thought the entire point of the "gig" economy was to provide people with flexibility to earn extra cash. Not as a full time job. The price for that flexibility of working how much and when you want is no benefits. Want a full time job with benefits, go get a real job.
Gig workers? (Score:2)
They're talking about musicians here, right?
Another corporate handout (Score:1)
How about rather than handing out money to the corporations to "do the right thing" we tax the fuck out of corps paying primarily 1099 and use that to fund real benefits for people.
bad regulations to fix bad regulations (Score:2)
The reason benefits are tied to employers is because government regulations and tax incentives make it so. That's why we now need even more regulations to deal with gig workers, and preexisting conditions, etc. And don't be fooled: people like Mark Warner will use this kind of regulation as yet another opportunity to pay off supporters, lobbyists, and special interests, including the gig economy corporations themselves.
Health insurance, disability insurance, etc. should be like car insurance: tied to the in
unexplored here ... (Score:1)
Isn't this contract work? (Score:2)
And aren't there existing insurance policies that cover this stuff?
Free lunch (Score:2)
The newly unemployed gig workers thank you for your help.
Speaking of Europe (Score:3)
In several jurisdiction on the European continent, contractors are already legally required to get their own insurance (in countries that don't provide it), save money for retirement, pay insurance for sick leave, factor in vacation time in their rates, etc.
This ends up working nicely there.
It helps bringing down the amount of working poors.
So yeah, we "Evil Euro-Communists" have actually manage to find a way to fuck it less than your "Land of the Free (markets) !"
Re: Speaking of Europe (Score:2)
The USA is a lot more capitalist and free in that way. You can obviously do all that in the US or you can choose not to.
If you do, you give honest rates to your customers and one of the many reasons independent mechanics and most "sole proprietors" have hourly rates starting at about $75-150 depending on your area.
The gig economy is based around people that are too stupid to run a business trying to be independent contractors. They will accept $15/hour jobs while also doing a part time job elsewhere without
Maybe Marx was right (Score:1)
Marx never intended for his ideas to be implemented in feudal Russia or the carcass of Austria-Hungary. He more so had in mind developed countries like the UK or the US, where workers actually existed.
The more I look at the state of the so-called first world, maybe some of Marx's ideals should be reviewed without the stain of Stalinism applied to it. I know this is all nonsense to most Americans who hear the word Marx and automatically think SATAN.
With more and more of the US population somehow being reli
Marx was completely wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Marx did not propose ideas — to be implemented or not. He thought of his theories as laws of nature — like gravity — take it from someone, who was forced to study Marxism in high school and college...
His claim was, the workers' revolution is inevitable when the means of production develop beyond a certain point. That it did not actually happen in the US, UK, and other countries is proof, the asshole was a fool and wasted years of his life on a big mistake — while his wife brought up their children.
Or maybe we should, now that the realization is kicking in, stop this creep up of Communism and go back to having a drastically lower involvement of government in the citizens' daily lives? Something like this [bloomberg.com], perhaps?
Re: Marx was completely wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Or maybe we should, now that the realization is kicking in, stop this creep up of Communism and go back to having a drastically lower involvement of government in the citizens' daily lives? Something like this, perhaps?
You should read more carefully, that link clearly shows that Trump is going to get all up in your grill, whether it be through Jeff "Jail them all" Sessions or Rex "Bring me the Money" Tillerson or Betsy "All your students are belog to us" DeVos.
Or any of is other swarm of totalitarian wannabes whose vampiric desires are being given free reign.
The Kleptocracy of Cheney has returned, and you won't benefit from it.
Not in Michigan, Not in Florida, Not in Kansas, Not in Texas.
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Yeah, yeah. Capitalism is oppressive, Marxism is liberty. War is Peace...
Re: Marx was completely wrong (Score:1)
You're confusing philosophical ideas with Trump, the man, and the people around him.
He is a controlling, deceitful, pompous, con artist, and so are the people he surrounds himself with, they will promise anything, then stab you in the back, steal your wallet, and piss on your body.
They'll do it with economics, religion, or personal relationships.
That is who they are, after all. A bunch of crooks.
Haterz gonna hate (Score:2)
Re:Marx was completely wrong (Score:4, Informative)
"did not actually happen in the us, uk, other countries"
and did you ever stop to wonder why?
it wasnt because he was wrong.
it was because we began fixing things, aka the progressive movement of the early 1900s that sought to correct the excesses of the gilded age.
it didnt happen because we fixed the problem, or tried to, before the masses became discontented enough to resort to widespread violence (bread riots still occured, but not as widespread as in other nations that did NOT correct thier problems).
so.
once again.
you only prove your own ignorance.
Re:Marx was completely wrong (trigger warning) (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. It is because he was wrong. Fundamentally...
According to him, for example, 8 hours of work by a ditch-digger is equally valuable as 8 hours of an engineer or a pastry-chef. Equally valuable and therefore to be equally rewarded. As I said, wrong [giphy.com].
The progressive movement of 1900 [wikipedia.org] had little to do with what's known as "progressive" today. But if you are willing to defend, what those guys did, let's start with the Prohibition... :)
No. The reason was Capitalism's ability to produce wealth — more than any other regime — and enough of it to keep the workers and the farmers satisfied, to the dismay of the Marxists. It is this satisfaction they've been trying to erode with varying success ever since — with made-up "outrages" over non-issues like "gender equality"... See also Marxism 2.0 [redstate.com].
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No, I don't think this is true — what ditch-digger would prefer a ditch he dug to a pastry? But even if he did value his ditch out of some sentimental attachment, what of it?
No, I haven't. And why is such inequality even a bad thing automatically and by itself?
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What has eroded away the middle class are blue collar jobs going away. Between jobs going to Mexico, Indonesia and China and the taxes paid, the middle class has taken a hit. When the factories close, blue collar workers become waitresses and the like.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
you argument is essentially this:
Marx: If we don't fix the leak in the boat, the boat will sink.
*boat gets fixed*
Mi: See? The boat didn't sink. Therefore, Marx was wrong.
Fraudulent Bloomberg News (Score:3)
From your link ( https://www.bloomberg.com/poli... [bloomberg.com] )...
Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said "We are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs and the amount spent on those programs."
Bloomberg fraudulently inserted a period to make it seem like that was the full quote. It was not. The full quote is:
"We are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs, but the number of people we help get off of those programs."
Bloomberg's cut-o
Re: Maybe Marx was right (Score:1)
Re: We need communism now! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If so, why?
Re: Employers everwhere are rejoicing (Score:2)
Exactly - this is how you kill the 'gig economy'.
Re: Employers everwhere are rejoicing (Score:2)
^^^^^^ sorry, read previous comment wrong.
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More half measures. Fix this problem, fix that problem, when what we really need is a sensible, universal, single payer system. American healthcare is increasingly looking like a tower of quick fixes and temporary patches, which of course are ineffectual, because we won't start the root problem in the face. We need a healthcare system, not a medical industry.
Half measures are likely the only viable course of action at this point, because we don't stand a chance in hell in dismantling the trillion-dollar Medical Industrial Complex.
Greed N. Corruption has become far too powerful. Not saying it's right, just stating fact.