June 11, 2019 • 43 mins
The gig economy is not new, but it's bigger than ever. Is that a good thing? We'll discuss that today!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, there, it's me Josh, and I just wanted to
let you know, people living in Minneapolis or with access
to Minneapolis, I'm going to be in your city doing
my solo show, The End of the World or How
I Learned to Start Worrying and Love Humanity. It's a
gas and it's pretty interesting too. So in June I'll
be at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, and the next
(00:23):
night I'll be at the Miracle Theater in Washington, d C.
So come see me. Go to the Miracle Theater dot
com or the Parkway Theater dot com for tickets. Welcome
to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five Heart
Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:48):
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant. And
there's our guest producer today, Dylan. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah.
We picked Dylan up by UM Advertising on task Rabbit
saying that we needed a guest producer today, and here
he is. That's not true, but it could be, Chuck,
(01:10):
it could be. It is true. Um. The reason it
could be is because, whether you know this or not, Charles,
we are living smack dab in the middle of what's
called a gig economy. Uh sure, partially, yeah, yeah, And
a lot of people are blaming UM the recession for it,
(01:34):
uh And I think that's definitely part of it. Like
there's a an abundance of people who didn't have jobs
starting in late two early two thousand nine, and it's
kind of become the tradition to give people jobs, but
not give them full time jobs because there's a lot
of things you can get around if you're an employer,
as we'll talk about UM. So the gig economy has
(01:58):
developed as a part of the recession, but it's also
developed because there's been a lot of tech, there's been
a lot of slow pace government playing catch up. There's UM,
there's and there's an abundance of workers, but it's nothing new.
The idea of of um kind of being paid as
(02:18):
an independent contractor working to fulfill a particular task and
just getting paid for the task, which is kind of
the basis of the gig economy. That's that's actually pretty
old from what I read prior to the Industrial Revolution.
That's basically how most people made a living unless you
were like a highly skilled crafts person, right like a brewer,
(02:39):
or a blacksmith or something like that, smithy smithy. Yeah,
I mean things really uh changed at a certain point
where it went from that too. You get a job
for a company, and you work for that company for
forty five years, and then you retire for that company, right,
and they take care of you in retirement and while
(02:59):
you're working for them, And that was that was really
how things went for for a long long time for
like our grandparents generation and even to a certain degree
our parents generation. And things really really changed again, and
now we kind of are back in this place where
you know, the gig economy can mean a lot of
things that can be um, I mean technically any freelancer,
(03:22):
like when I used to work as a film production
freelance U production assistant, Like, that's technically part of the
gig economy. Yeah, because you were paid for the gig.
You weren't like part of a company's You were in
a full time employee with a company, right. Yeah. But
like when I hear gig economy these days, and I
think most people associate the modern two thousand nineteen usage
(03:48):
of it, you kind of think of the tech industry
and you think of being a driver for a ride
share company or UH working or selling stuff on Etsy
or working for scrab it or something like that. Yeah,
I mean it's basically synonymous with with tech platforms that
connect people to consumers directly. That's kind of that's and
(04:09):
gig economy. I think that's a really good point when
you use the term gig economy, Yeah, that basically describes
this modern incarnation of it. But gig work, like you
were just saying, is is it's been around for a
very long time. And like remember all those temp services
like manpower and UM there was Okay, so that's that's
(04:30):
gig work too. Basically, if you're a dog walker and
you go put a sign on a UM street pole
or light a light pole at the corner, and you've
got like the little tearoffs for your phone numbers, that's
basically working in the gig economy. Now, if you took
that street pole with the little flyer that you made
(04:52):
and swapped it out for an app, that's that's basically
what we're living with right now. Yeah. So, UM, here's
a stat for you. There are all kinds of stats
for the gig economy, but here's one UM from UH
in two thousand five. The gig economy was about ten
(05:13):
of the U S workforce, and just ten years later
that had grown to about six and then just one
year later in two thousand sixteen, UM of Americans reported
earning some kind of money from what they called the
digital platform economy. And that's what we're talking about with
like ride share or Airbnb and task grab it and
(05:36):
stuff like that. So that's a lot of people, and
that's you know, we'll get into other sets later about
whether or not these are people that UM are doing
this little thing on the side, like I worked my
day job then a go drive for Uber at night
or uh. Basically, more and more people are doing this
as their full time job without the benefits of being
(05:56):
full time employees. And from the very spare um number
of studies that are actually like conducted on this gig
economy and the ramifications that holds UM those are the
people that people who work full time in gig economy jobs,
especially tech platform jobs, they they tend to be the
(06:16):
most vulnerable as far as workers go. Yeah, so there's
really a few, um, well, there's three parts to this.
There's the the platform companies that are I mean, it's
kind of funny, I guess it's genius in a way.
But all they're doing is connecting people. Yeah, they're they're
replacing those old like temp agencies and there, but you
(06:38):
don't have to go in and fill out stuff. You
just log on, create a profile and start. So that's
a that's one appealing part of it too. Yeah. So
what they do is they they're gonna draw that direct
line between you, between the consumer and the producers. So
they everyone who's ever done a rideshare knows you just
click on the little thing and you can pay through
(06:59):
the website and they get whatever percentage of money they get.
The hindy I think is no, no, no, the technology
platform gets money and obviously the gig worker gets money, right,
And all they're doing is facilitating that connection, right. But
they're also one of the things that that um, these
(07:20):
apps can do that is totally new and revolutionary is
that they can fulfill demand. They can connect supply and
demand in real time, like you know when you when
you hail like a ride app or hail a ride
through an app. I think is the way all the
millennial right, um, you you have you have just entered
(07:43):
like this world where you are saying I need to
ride right now, And they say, oh, we have a
car near you right now, let's send this person over
Like it's real time demand that's being fulfilled. Whereas if
it were just that that person who is in a
car and saying like I could use some extra scratch,
I want to take you some where, what are they
gonna do, like just drive down the sidewalk and be like,
do you need to ride somewhere right now? No? Okay,
(08:04):
do you need to ride? Think about how much time
that takes off of their plate. And that's really the
role that the platform UM performs is connecting consumers with producers. Yeah.
And as far as being a gig worker, UM, there
are a couple of big categories. It's either sort of
the UM if you don't necessarily have a college degree.
(08:26):
You might be on the lower income side of a
gig worker, which could be someone who delivers something to
your home or one of these services where you can
call a handyman to come over and do something like
cut weeds in your front yard, or it can be
on the very very high side. I got a list
of the the highest paying gig rates and the very
(08:47):
top one is uh, something you probably know a little
about about from your into the world research, but deep
learning jobs the a fifteen bucks an hour. Wow. Yeah,
what is that like consulting or something. I think it's
just any kind of AI specialization where you know, that's
the kind of rate you can command on an hourly basis. Yeah,
(09:10):
that's pretty good. Yeah. Blockchain was number two at eighty
seven bucks an hour, robotics seventy seven dollars an hour. Uh.
Number four was penetration testing jobs, which what is that?
Penetration testing jobs? Give me, give me your best guess.
I want to let's let's play a game like allowing
(09:31):
yourself to be punctured by stuff. A shot at and
they like that, that bullet works, that needles sharp. Give
me give me some money. No, it obviously sounds dirty,
but it's all it is. It's like security, to see
if your security can be penetrated. I got to, I
got to that makes sense that that would be a
cool gig. You just get hired on to to just
(09:53):
mess with somebody's cybersecurity. It's fine weaknesses, right, Yeah. But
then it goes all the way down to number ten,
which was Instagram marketing at thirty one bucks an hour. Wow. Wow,
that sounds made up, But wow, it sort of does.
But this is um, I mean, those are the highest
paying gigs. There was one film industry job in their
(10:13):
final cut pro editor thirty seven dollars an hour, So
those are on the high side. But um, I mean,
what what are these drivers making it? This is something
like twelve dollars an hour on average, that's the national
average after expenses, but before whatever taxes they need to pay. UM,
and they do need to pay taxes. This is a
hard lesson that UM. Some some gig workers are finding
(10:36):
is that like, this isn't like tax free money. Just
because the money is not so great doesn't mean there's
it's not tax free. Like you still have to pay
taxes on this. You still have to file like self
employment tax in some areas, some cities, some counties, some states.
You have to have a business license. There's a lot
of hidden costs that a lot of people don't know about.
And because as I was saying before, governments from the
(10:59):
local level up to the federal level have been so
slow to like pivot. I guess in Silicon Valley corporate
speak to this new reality of um of tech platform
apps that that the gig economy functions on um. There's
a lot of people out there who who just are
un licensed, who aren't paying taxes, and who hopefully will
(11:20):
never find out the hard way that they did, but
maybe find out the easy way like through us and
then start and don't have to pay anything for back
there are you know there's certain municipal municipalities and is
that right? Municipalities? Man, you nail municipalities. The only way
it could have been very chuck is if you've done
it with a horribly stereotypical Italian accent. Do it? Do it? No? No, no,
(11:46):
no no. Did you see that guy right in and
said I sound like a cartoon chef on TV? And
I was like, oh, well that's right. Yeah. I was like,
you didn't think I was trying to pull off a
real accident, right, Like that's what I'm going for. I
want of you to know what it sounded like to
hear chef boyer, do you know? Basically? So? Um. A
lot of counties now are getting involved though, because um,
(12:09):
well they say they want to help them transition into
the gig economy and learn to put away money to
pay taxes and stuff. What they're really probably doing is
making sure that they pay their taxes right. And and
it's not just counties that are getting into its. States
are the federal government's kind of but it's it looks
like it's starting to become a patchwork of state regulations.
And we'll talk about that UM in a minute. But first, Chuck,
(12:30):
why don't we take a break, let's do it. Uh So, UM,
(12:54):
we were saying that that there are the governments are
starting to it into this finally years on. Basically, I mean,
the gig economy itself is many many years old by now,
and they're just now starting to pass legislation. UM. But
not all of it is, you know, like on the
(13:14):
county level putting up educational posters saying, hey, you're a
small business, you need a license to do you know,
to drive for uber or whatever here. Um. It's not
just that. There's also a real, um frequently overlooked component
of the tech platforms that connect consumers and producers UM,
(13:35):
and that is that their profit margins are based largely
on getting around labor laws that have been established throughout
the twentieth century UM and that are just outdated. The
the the UM tech platforms, the apps that that connect people. Um,
we're built up around those laws, and they skirt the
(13:56):
law very plainly. I mean there have been court ruling
in UM, federal agency rulings to say, yeah, they're right,
Like these aren't employees, these are independent contractors. And so
they don't they don't get over time, they don't get
unpaid vade or they don't get paid vacation time. UM,
there's all this stuff. Health insurance is a big one.
So that's a huge chunk of revenue or of um
(14:21):
outlay that the companies who who like Uber or test
Grabit or whoever don't have to shell out. That means
that's profits more profits for them, and it's also something
that their competitors, like cab companies, say have to pay.
So it's a one way that the cab companies lose
against the ride hailing apps. But the people who are
out there still need health insurance, they still need healthcare,
(14:44):
they still need food, and so the the the companies
that make these platforms tend to kind of offload the
responsibility that used to be on the company's part onto
local governments. And so what local governments are trying to
figure out to say, like, well, with this influx of
gig economy workers saying like I need Medicare or I
(15:06):
need food stamps or something like that. How can we
deal with this? And there's been some a couple of
interesting proposals at least for how to get um the
companies to pay for benefits that companies traditionally have paid
for but in this new gig economy. Yeah, I thought
this one was really interesting. Portable benefits. So you know,
(15:27):
if you've ever changed jobs, or if you change jobs
a lot, like on a full time basis, you know
that it can be big pain to your benefits are
always changing. Sometimes they're better, sometimes they're worse, but they're
bound to be different, and that's just a hassle. The
idea of portable benefits basically that you own as an employee.
(15:48):
So when you go to a new job as a
gig worker, you take your employee your benefits with you
and basically just plug it into their system and say, well,
you are now going to contribute your your employer portion
to my portable benefits. Yeah. It's kind of like the
difference between a four oh one K and an IRA, right,
(16:08):
The IRA is yours no matter where you go. The
four one k is between you and your employer. Imagine
if all you ever had was an IRA, but your
employer paid into that, but it was for health benefits
rather than retirement, so it was always yours. But just
depending on who you worked for, part of what you
got paid was an additional premium that was a contribution
(16:30):
to your benefits, whether it's a retirement package or dental
or vision or health or whatever. And and it was
always you. It was associated with you the worker, but
everybody from each task paid into that. It's a great
idea and apparently it works too. Yeah, and I'm not
super sure this. The other idea ideas, uh, that of
(16:50):
a dependent contractor rather than an independent contractor. And that's
basically if you receive the majority of your income from
one company, um, then they need to do things like
pay your health or you know, contribute towards your health insurance.
What I don't get is what what's the difference between
that and being a full time employee. There's nothing. It's
basically just calling Uber out on its bs and saying
(17:12):
these are your employees, dude, without having to say, hey,
federal government, you guys need to revise the independent contractor
laws because this is different. These are states or local
governments saying you want to do business here. These people
are dependent contractors and you have to provide them with benefits. Sorry,
that's just the way it goes. And if you get
a big enough county or city or state and the
(17:34):
the app or the platform wants to do business there,
they will do this. And it stinks, and you have
to have different people who are experts in the different
states you're doing business in. But eventually, if enough different
states have slightly different laws that are all to the
same effect, companies like Uber are going to go to
the federal government be like, can you please pass a
(17:55):
law that says that we have to provide benefits for
these people? And maybe they're not the greatest benefit. It's
we don't want to give away the farm. But it
will be more cost effective for us to just have
one standard to adhere to nationwide than it will be
to have fifty different laws that we have to adhere
to nationwide. And how do they do that through lobbyists
(18:15):
paying tons of money? It's true, but in this case
it would benefit people, But it's it's a it's a
ground up push from the local and state government's basically
agitating for the federal government to take action. Yeah, I mean,
Uber certainly had a share of missteps along the way. Um,
and even if you cast those aside and not to
(18:37):
pick on them, let's just talk about any app based um,
gig economy or gig job or whatever. I guess gig
is all you need to say. Really, it's a mouthful,
and um, you can you can't help, but just picture
a back room boardroom in Silicon Valley with these dudes
(18:58):
just saying, like, you know, here's what we'll do. We'll
develop this app that connects people and we take a
cut and we're gonna have tens of thousands of drivers
all over the country working for us. And then the
other person goes, yeah, but man, that you know how
expensive that is with payroll and this and that and
and insurance everything. Oh no, no, no, the best part
(19:18):
is they're not employees, right, Like that was the very
first in the very first meeting. That was the big like,
oh I get it, And they all laughed. Oh, I'm
sure the room went breathless. Yeah, like that's it was
literally world changing. I mean, like that's the state of
affairs now. And yeah, it had to start somewhere. I'm
(19:39):
not sure where it started, but it started somewhere. But
like you said earlier, that is the I mean, and
they've proven it with with financials. We're not just saying
the stuff they that is the reason they are profitable
is because they're not having to pay this dough and unfortunately,
it's also the reason why people who rely on gig
work full time to make ends meet, and who are
(20:00):
not who don't have any kind of uh higher education
and are not skilled workers. That's why they are increasingly
turning to um taxpayer funded public assistance for things like
healthcare and food and basically making the ends meet. Because
from like I said, the few studies that there are
out there, what they're finding is that there's a segment
(20:23):
of people who work in the gig economy who are
who cannot make ends meet with gig work. And it's
not just to pick on the platforms and the apps
that make up the backbone of the gig economy, because
it says a lot that if there are people in
the vast majority of people who do gig work I
think you said earlier, they don't work full time. They
(20:43):
do it to supplement income, but they're not supplementing income.
I saw somewhere, um somebody said they're not supplementing income
to to save up to go to Hawaii. They're doing
it to buy medicine and food and pay utility bills.
So that actually says a lot about the state of
work in general, not just gig work. Because if you
have a regular job, whether it's part time or full time,
(21:04):
and you have to have a side hustle, which by
the way, is a term that's been around since nineteen fifty,
I saw, Yeah, you there's there's a problem with work
in general, you know what I'm saying, where you cannot
make ends meet just with your regular full time job
or even a couple of part time jobs, so you
have to do gig work too. But the people who
just do gig work, those are the people who are
(21:25):
the most vulnerable, and they usually if you're a driver,
you make about eleven ninety that's the national average. Yeah,
here's some stats for you. The Federal Reserve did a
report and from two thousand eighteen, fifty eight percent of
full time gig workers UH said they would have a
hard time coming up with a four hundred dollar emergency bill,
(21:48):
like if they had to go to hospital and pay
four hundred bucks. They couldn't cover that, nearly sixty of them. Yeah,
and that's compared to thirty eight percent of people and
just the regular economy, not the gig economy. Uh. And
they did surveys that said five percent of people said
that gig working. This out of eleven thousand people who
(22:08):
did gig work at all, five percent of them said
it was their main source of income, which is a
pretty small amount, but that's that's growing. I think between
two thousand sixteen and two thousand twenty one, they're projecting
it to grow from like three point two million people
too close to ten million people like working gig economy jobs.
I saw somewhere sixty million. Fast Company predicted something like
(22:31):
sixty million Americans are going to be working in the
gig economy um by, which was far and away the
highest number I saw. Yeah, man, that's crazy, But yeah,
I got another stat for you I saw. I think
in barrens I believe it's barrens um the gig economy.
Gig work accounted for ninety four percent of net employment
(22:54):
growth between two thousand five and two thousand fifteen, So
that means that all the new jobs that came in
and all the old jobs that went away. Of the
jobs that that accounted for the growth of work in
America were gig work. That's astounding. Yeah, I mean I
(23:15):
feel like every time I go to publics, of the
people in there are shopping for other people. Yeah. Yeah,
for sure, you can tell by their T shirts. Yeah,
they wear the shirts. And uh, Emily has done that
a couple of times, you know, a bit too busy
working parents. She's, um, I can't remember the service that
we use, but uh, I don't like it because I
(23:35):
like to chop for my own stuff. I don't want
people picking out my food. Yeah, when they bring the
bag you hold up an orange, You're like, did you
touch this? It's not even that, it's just you know,
you want to pick out your own stuff. Yeah, I'm
just season. I like running errands myself too. Um, and
it's it feels like it's never right too. They'll be like, oh,
well I couldn't find the thing, so I got this.
(23:57):
That's not what I asked for. I saw m quest
love like hadn't had peanut butter, Captain Crunch and like forever,
and he posted something I think on Instagram where he
ordered um some from like task grab it or something,
and the guy brought him a regular Captain crunch and
a jar of peanut butter. He threw it down the
(24:18):
hall of his hotel, which I thought was a little much,
but it was a pretty good ending to the slade.
It might be pretty good though, um I I did. Uh.
I had a very something, very heavy to move in
my home recently that was just sitting there because I
couldn't get a friend over and I had never heard
of task grab it and someone said you should try
task grab it and I did look up and I
(24:39):
was like, you could you get a young strong man
to come over and lift something heavy for you and
like an hour's notice? And I was like, man, I
feel like I should probably just get this done. And
I got distracted and didn't do it, and uh was
able to get friends over. But I didn't even know
it existed and that you could get that kind of work.
(24:59):
I yeah, I think task grabby you can do about anything.
And there's there's something in the UK. There's a site
called five er if I v R. I think I've
heard of that. I think and like every like all
tasks on it are for five bucks or like, whatever
you want the person to do, they'll either do it
or won't do it, but the price you pay is
five bucks. So it's like small, quick, easy tasks. What's
(25:22):
worth five dollars? Um, Like go get my mail, see
if see if this needle is sharp. I want to
do a puncture test on you. Back to that one again. Huh.
I guess we should mention the strike that happened earlier
this month. Uh, we're recording this in May two th nineteen. Um,
just very recently, there was there were thousands of Uber
(25:44):
and Lyft drivers who went on strike. Um, not just
in May, but kind of all year long. This has
sort of been brewing, I think, and uh it's it um.
Uber stock prices down for one dude by two. They
started out with a hundred and twenty billion dollar valuation
and ended up at the end of the day I
(26:06):
think at forty billion. Yeah, And that's where this whole
idea of like is it exploitation um, like, because I
mean the courts have roundly kind of said, like, no,
you can't unionize, you're not employees, right, and these are
in some of the most liberal courts in the land, right,
you're independent contractors, so you don't get over time, you
can't you can't unionize. There's all sorts of stuff that
(26:28):
you just can't do because you're an independent contractor UM,
and that's that's slowly starting to change. Yeah, But the
whole idea of this strike was is there're basically saying
you have intentionally misclassified us as non employees. And I'm
sure they're like, yeah, that that's exactly right right there,
(26:49):
Like was that I think that's like in our terms
of use that we intentionally missclassify you. Well, they probably
say we have intentionally classified you as what you are,
which is a non employee. But the drivers are saying
they're misclassified obviously, right, So there's a big lawsuit. UM.
A few hundred thousand Uber drivers sued Uber and they
(27:09):
very recently settled, I think in March, with like thirteen thousand,
six hundred of them, and they were given twenty million
dollars to split between them, which sounds like a lot,
but it's actually like less than a driver for basically
saying we we have been under paying you. The other
like three hundred something thousand drivers didn't get squat because
(27:30):
they all signed a UM an arbitration clause in their agreement,
which you should never sign if you have any saying
it whatsoever, because it basically says I can't sue and
any time I have a problem with you, we will
go to a mediator who you pay to decide whether
my claim has any value or not. So it's a terrible,
(27:53):
terrible thing to sign. But on top of that, if
you are a full time gig economy worker, you basically
don't have a choice, and the company you're working with
as an independent contractor knows that. So there's almost certainly
going to be an arbitration clause. But that's a really
good example of what happens when you signed an arbitration clause.
You lose out on the settlement because you said that
(28:14):
you are waiving your right to a trial right And
aside from stuff like health insurance, the drivers are angry
because Uber and major cities has been cutting driver pay
rates because they're trying to get their bottom line down
and say, hey, look, everyone, look at our bottom line.
How attractive is this? So, like I was saying, this
is slowly starting to change thanks to regulation, and um,
(28:38):
we'll talk a little more about that after this break
(29:02):
so Chuck Um New York really kind of changed things
recently that that one study or a study, I don't
know if we talked about it yet. The study with
eleven thousand people was conducted by the FED. There's another
study conducted by I think you see Berkeley in the
New School, and they basically found, like most I think
(29:24):
of drivers driving for ride hailing apps in New York City,
not just Uber, but all of them, um, especially the
Big four via Juno Lift in Uber, UM, fifty percent
of them work full time, so they're basically independent cab
drivers who are not licensed cabbies. UM fifty I believe
(29:47):
have families that they're supporting with that they're working for.
About eleven and of them qualified for Medicaid and eighteen
percent qualified for foods amps. Yeah, and this was shocking
enough to the city government of New York that they
passed the country's first and maybe the world's first as
(30:08):
far as I know, minimum wage law for ride hailing
app independent contractors. And it's actually more than the minimum
wage for New York in general. Yeah. I mean, basically,
the New York came out and said, first of all, Ubert,
they could fix this if they just had a very
small fair adjustment that passengers would probably not care about.
(30:32):
Then they could pay them fairly and increase driver pay.
But since they're not gonna do that, we're gonna step in.
And I believe it was was that this past January, uh,
they were required to start paying drivers um after expenses
about seventeen dollars and twenty two cents an hour, which
is about five dollars more per hour than the previous
(30:53):
almost twelve dollars per hour average. Right, So that's a
big deal. And I mean that's that's that was a
huge um win for the independent contractors who work for
ride hailing apps, at least in New York. But also
it's set a precedent across the country basically saying like, yes,
if you are big enough town, you have the clout
to to look out for these these workers who are
(31:16):
being exploited by the tech platforms that they're partnering with
as independent contractors. Yeah. And actually today, as as we
record this, the State Assembly in California past legislation that
required employers to recognize gig workers as employees UM with
sort of what they call the dynamics. It's a uh,
(31:38):
the California State Supreme Court said in May uh um
that this three part test, called the dynamics, would be
used to determine if contractors qualify as employees so to
be exempt um from labor requirements. An employer would be
required to prove that one it's workers have complete control
(31:59):
over how services are provided. So in other words, Uber
can't give a minimum amount of hours that you have
to work or so you have to drive every Tuesday
or whatever. I'm not sure, you know if they even
do that, but no, I don't think they do. And
I think that's part of their argument why they're not employers,
because the workers sets their own schedule, all right. And
(32:20):
number two, uh, the services provided are not related to
the employer's main business. So that's a big one because
that rules out all the I mean, all the ride
chairs unless they say that their main business is app development, right, Yeah,
that is I'm not sure if that's a loophole. Yeah,
(32:42):
I don't know about that one either. And then number three,
the worker is engaged in an independently established role. So
this is a big deal because other states, you know,
a lot of states look to California because this is
where a lot of the gig economy, the modern gig
economy was born, and um, and this is sort of
(33:03):
the first, the first big California legislation that's that's gone
down the road. Yeah, now that is a big deal
because it's like that's their home court making laws against them.
So that definitely kind of indicates like a turning tide.
And again, it's not just like government's looking out for
their citizens, although I'm sure that's part of it, but
(33:24):
it's also government's looking out for their own bottom line
because those citizens are having to comme and say I
need healthcare. Again, it's really important, frequently overlooked point. But
despite all that, and I mean you said it's it's
easy to pick on Uber. They're kind of a model
for this this kind of thing, but they're certainly not
the only ones. But it also, Um, when you just
(33:47):
focus on that, you miss out on the other aspect
of the gig economy, which is that it's a double
edged sword. For some people, uh, freelancing gig economy has
allowed them to basically pursue their dreams and become quite
successful at doing what they want to do on their
own terms, on their own schedule, And there are um,
(34:10):
supposedly a pretty decent amount of people out there who
are doing it that way, but usually they're highly educated
and they work in UM a craft or an artistic
or UM kind of elite field, specialized field like AI
or robotics, sure or UM. If you are a consultant
(34:32):
of some sort and especially very specialized consultant, you don't
have to spend the time and money going out and
drumming up business for yourself. You can go to platforms
like up work UM and find people who are looking
for the stuff that you do way easier than before.
And that's a huge benefit of this gig economy. It's
become way easier to find work, whether it's UM, you know,
(34:55):
driving for a rideheiling app or being a marketing consultant
you know, like you it's from from top to bottom.
It's easier to find work than ever. Yeah, but it's
also UM like the people are in these situations a
lot of times because they were unable to find the
job that they wanted on a full time basis. Uh is.
(35:18):
It is a very tough nut to crack because even
in ride shares, when you get in a car, nine
times out of ten, my driver is very happy doing
what they do. And they always say uh pretty roundly
like yeah, it's great man, it's at my own hours.
And I mean it sounds like I don't know if
they're encouraged to say these things, but it sounds like
(35:38):
an ad for when you sign up, you know, because
they kind of pair it exactly the things that that
they try and entice you with, which is your your
own boss and you set your own hours, you only
drive when you want to. But that is the deal, um,
And no one's forcing them to go do this, and
they you are putting money in their pocket. Um. I
mean I always tip super big. That's that's I think
(36:00):
the only thing within your control or not use these
apps at all if you think they're evil, right, which
is another another way to look at it, for sure.
But then all of a sudden, you know, there's a
lot of people that depend on that money that are
being heard. It's it's tough, right, No, it is for sure.
Like that is another thing about the gig economy too,
as you can say like, well, I mean you're having
(36:20):
trouble making ends meet, I get to like hire you
and like have an impact on you being able to
make ends meet. Um, or it's just it's such a
first world thing to be like, oh, forget all all
you know, platforms and apps because they exploit workers. Well,
they also help people make money where they otherwise couldn't,
(36:43):
So there's it is very much a double edged sort.
There's definitely exploitation, but there's also certainly an uplift of
the middle class that wasn't happening before. There's also been
an uptick in uh New York taxi driver suicides really yeah,
that have um long been blamed on rideshare because it's
put such a dent in taxicab incomes driver incomes. So
(37:07):
I looked into that a little bit and then found
out this whole other world about you know, the whole
deal with the taxi medallions. Yeah, like people buy the
medallions as like an investment and then they like lease
out the license to cabbies. Right. Yeah, we need to
do a full show on that because it is way
more involved than I thought, And I was going to
talk about it some here, but it deserves its own episode.
(37:30):
But they're saying that that is a big part of
the problem for the suicide rate as well. It's sort
of both of those things contributing. Right, so taxi medallions.
Look look for that one. Okay, that's a that's a deal.
There's a two other things in New York that I
want to point out, actually two other UM platforms to
other things you want to point out. The departure date
(37:50):
buildings very nice. Right, that's one UM and take your
ride on the subway. Right. There's a cleaning service called
my Clean. That's get an app where they started out
with UM as with like the normal Silicon Valley model
where they just have independent contractors, and they actually converted
(38:11):
and started hiring their contractors on as employees. And there's
another one called Hello Alfred, which is kind of like
a personal assistant, a team of personal assistance that you
can basically involve in your life as much as little
as you want. Hello Alfred. It's just in New York
and it's only in certain buildings in New York from
what I can tell. But they'll do everything from like
(38:33):
keep your plant alive, to walk your dog, to do
your grocery shopping, to pick out clothes for you, UM,
to have your shoes repaired, whatever, just basically keeping your
life in order for you. But because UM they try
to anticipate the things their customers need. They realize that
they need employees. They need people they can't have turnover
(38:54):
and frequent training and introducing their customers and new people
they need, like people who are going to be there
for long haul. So they started out having employees too,
And that really kind of underscores a big reason why
UM having a full time employment is preferable to gig employment,
and especially if you're a company, because there's less turnover,
(39:17):
there's less training, training involved, and usually the worker is
a lot happier when they have a steady, full time
gig and then that's their only job and they get
two weeks paid vacation every year or more if you're
in Europe UM and that has a benefit for the
company because that's the person who's communicating with the public
(39:40):
or making the stuff, and they don't hate their life
for their job, so they're they're they're just producing better too,
if you want to look at like the ickiest economic terms.
Yeah that's interesting, I thought so too, Alfred. Yeah, I
think he just became their spokesman. You got anything else?
(40:00):
Uh No, I don't know. There. I do have one
more thing, Chuck, you ready, h This whole like puer
to peer platform thing. Reminded me we have a Kiva team,
and I went and checked on it that just the
other day. So you saw what like the big number
we're plashing on on total donations. I think you should
take this one. Well, you had the most recent number.
(40:20):
It was close to six million the other day. Yep. Still,
is this really really creeping up on six million dollars
total loans loaned out? Dude that it had been a
while too. That's so funny. We both had that same thought,
um man, that that's really something else. Yep. So congratulations
to the stuff you should know Kiva team. There are
people joining. I saw people joined yesterday, so there's it's
(40:44):
wide open if you want to learn more about it
to search Kiva, k I v A and stuff you
should know. And not only were our Kiva page come up,
but some blog posts we wrote about it in the
past come up to which is hilarious and quaint. All right, Well,
since I said quaint, Chuck, it's time I think for
listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call this Tin pan
(41:05):
Alley follow up. I enjoyed that episode. Hey guys, if
you asked me what tin pan Alley was. Prior to
listening to this episode, I would have said somewhere in
New York where music started to be popular. And that's
about all I can tell you. And guys, I graduated
with a Bachelor of Music and Music Education. What it's
not that I'm so far out of college either that
(41:25):
I don't remember music history. I'm only twenty five and
I'm finishing up my third year teaching orchestra. At fourth, fifth,
and sixth graders didn't even really know much about Tin Pan.
All I know the last semester of music history in
college had to cover late Romantic to present day, which
is over a century worth of music. Uh. This was
so much more interesting than the one slide in music
(41:46):
history class. At eight am. I am one of many
listeners sitting in the d C Metro traffic. So thank
you for teaching me new things every day. And that
is from Consuelo Civilia, not severe No, it's she wrote
back even two els. Yeah, yeah, she said, this is
(42:07):
the Filipino pronunciation, not the Spanish. Gotcha, So thank you, Consuelo. Yeah,
thanks a lot, Kensuelo. Glad to know we are rounding
out your education even after you graduated. Yeah, well, it's
kind of the purpose of the show, isn't it. I
think so. Well, if you want to let us know
what you think. The purpose of Stuff you Should Know is.
We're amorphous in wide open, so let us have it.
(42:29):
You can go to stuff you Should Know dot com
and check out our social links, or you can send
us a good old fashioned email, wrap it up, spank
it on the bottom, and send it off to stuff
Podcasts at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio is at the
(42:49):
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hello, there, it's me Josh, and I just wanted to
let you know, people living in Minneapolis or with access
to Minneapolis, I'm going to be in your city doing
my solo show, The End of the World or How
I Learned to Start Worrying and Love Humanity. It's a
gas and it's pretty interesting too. So in June I'll
be at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, and the next
(00:23):
night I'll be at the Miracle Theater in Washington, d C.
So come see me. Go to the Miracle Theater dot
com or the Parkway Theater dot com for tickets. Welcome
to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five Heart
Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:48):
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant. And
there's our guest producer today, Dylan. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah.
We picked Dylan up by UM Advertising on task Rabbit
saying that we needed a guest producer today, and here
he is. That's not true, but it could be, Chuck,
(01:10):
it could be. It is true. Um. The reason it
could be is because, whether you know this or not, Charles,
we are living smack dab in the middle of what's
called a gig economy. Uh sure, partially, yeah, yeah, And
a lot of people are blaming UM the recession for it,
(01:34):
uh And I think that's definitely part of it. Like
there's a an abundance of people who didn't have jobs
starting in late two early two thousand nine, and it's
kind of become the tradition to give people jobs, but
not give them full time jobs because there's a lot
of things you can get around if you're an employer,
as we'll talk about UM. So the gig economy has
(01:58):
developed as a part of the recession, but it's also
developed because there's been a lot of tech, there's been
a lot of slow pace government playing catch up. There's UM,
there's and there's an abundance of workers, but it's nothing new.
The idea of of um kind of being paid as
(02:18):
an independent contractor working to fulfill a particular task and
just getting paid for the task, which is kind of
the basis of the gig economy. That's that's actually pretty
old from what I read prior to the Industrial Revolution.
That's basically how most people made a living unless you
were like a highly skilled crafts person, right like a brewer,
(02:39):
or a blacksmith or something like that, smithy smithy. Yeah,
I mean things really uh changed at a certain point
where it went from that too. You get a job
for a company, and you work for that company for
forty five years, and then you retire for that company, right,
and they take care of you in retirement and while
(02:59):
you're working for them, And that was that was really
how things went for for a long long time for
like our grandparents generation and even to a certain degree
our parents generation. And things really really changed again, and
now we kind of are back in this place where
you know, the gig economy can mean a lot of
things that can be um, I mean technically any freelancer,
(03:22):
like when I used to work as a film production
freelance U production assistant, Like, that's technically part of the
gig economy. Yeah, because you were paid for the gig.
You weren't like part of a company's You were in
a full time employee with a company, right. Yeah. But
like when I hear gig economy these days, and I
think most people associate the modern two thousand nineteen usage
(03:48):
of it, you kind of think of the tech industry
and you think of being a driver for a ride
share company or UH working or selling stuff on Etsy
or working for scrab it or something like that. Yeah,
I mean it's basically synonymous with with tech platforms that
connect people to consumers directly. That's kind of that's and
(04:09):
gig economy. I think that's a really good point when
you use the term gig economy, Yeah, that basically describes
this modern incarnation of it. But gig work, like you
were just saying, is is it's been around for a
very long time. And like remember all those temp services
like manpower and UM there was Okay, so that's that's
(04:30):
gig work too. Basically, if you're a dog walker and
you go put a sign on a UM street pole
or light a light pole at the corner, and you've
got like the little tearoffs for your phone numbers, that's
basically working in the gig economy. Now, if you took
that street pole with the little flyer that you made
(04:52):
and swapped it out for an app, that's that's basically
what we're living with right now. Yeah. So, UM, here's
a stat for you. There are all kinds of stats
for the gig economy, but here's one UM from UH
in two thousand five. The gig economy was about ten
(05:13):
of the U S workforce, and just ten years later
that had grown to about six and then just one
year later in two thousand sixteen, UM of Americans reported
earning some kind of money from what they called the
digital platform economy. And that's what we're talking about with
like ride share or Airbnb and task grab it and
(05:36):
stuff like that. So that's a lot of people, and
that's you know, we'll get into other sets later about
whether or not these are people that UM are doing
this little thing on the side, like I worked my
day job then a go drive for Uber at night
or uh. Basically, more and more people are doing this
as their full time job without the benefits of being
(05:56):
full time employees. And from the very spare um number
of studies that are actually like conducted on this gig
economy and the ramifications that holds UM those are the
people that people who work full time in gig economy jobs,
especially tech platform jobs, they they tend to be the
(06:16):
most vulnerable as far as workers go. Yeah, so there's
really a few, um, well, there's three parts to this.
There's the the platform companies that are I mean, it's
kind of funny, I guess it's genius in a way.
But all they're doing is connecting people. Yeah, they're they're
replacing those old like temp agencies and there, but you
(06:38):
don't have to go in and fill out stuff. You
just log on, create a profile and start. So that's
a that's one appealing part of it too. Yeah. So
what they do is they they're gonna draw that direct
line between you, between the consumer and the producers. So
they everyone who's ever done a rideshare knows you just
click on the little thing and you can pay through
(06:59):
the website and they get whatever percentage of money they get.
The hindy I think is no, no, no, the technology
platform gets money and obviously the gig worker gets money, right,
And all they're doing is facilitating that connection, right. But
they're also one of the things that that um, these
(07:20):
apps can do that is totally new and revolutionary is
that they can fulfill demand. They can connect supply and
demand in real time, like you know when you when
you hail like a ride app or hail a ride
through an app. I think is the way all the
millennial right, um, you you have you have just entered
(07:43):
like this world where you are saying I need to
ride right now, And they say, oh, we have a
car near you right now, let's send this person over
Like it's real time demand that's being fulfilled. Whereas if
it were just that that person who is in a
car and saying like I could use some extra scratch,
I want to take you some where, what are they
gonna do, like just drive down the sidewalk and be like,
do you need to ride somewhere right now? No? Okay,
(08:04):
do you need to ride? Think about how much time
that takes off of their plate. And that's really the
role that the platform UM performs is connecting consumers with producers. Yeah.
And as far as being a gig worker, UM, there
are a couple of big categories. It's either sort of
the UM if you don't necessarily have a college degree.
(08:26):
You might be on the lower income side of a
gig worker, which could be someone who delivers something to
your home or one of these services where you can
call a handyman to come over and do something like
cut weeds in your front yard, or it can be
on the very very high side. I got a list
of the the highest paying gig rates and the very
(08:47):
top one is uh, something you probably know a little
about about from your into the world research, but deep
learning jobs the a fifteen bucks an hour. Wow. Yeah,
what is that like consulting or something. I think it's
just any kind of AI specialization where you know, that's
the kind of rate you can command on an hourly basis. Yeah,
(09:10):
that's pretty good. Yeah. Blockchain was number two at eighty
seven bucks an hour, robotics seventy seven dollars an hour. Uh.
Number four was penetration testing jobs, which what is that?
Penetration testing jobs? Give me, give me your best guess.
I want to let's let's play a game like allowing
(09:31):
yourself to be punctured by stuff. A shot at and
they like that, that bullet works, that needles sharp. Give
me give me some money. No, it obviously sounds dirty,
but it's all it is. It's like security, to see
if your security can be penetrated. I got to, I
got to that makes sense that that would be a
cool gig. You just get hired on to to just
(09:53):
mess with somebody's cybersecurity. It's fine weaknesses, right, Yeah. But
then it goes all the way down to number ten,
which was Instagram marketing at thirty one bucks an hour. Wow. Wow,
that sounds made up, But wow, it sort of does.
But this is um, I mean, those are the highest
paying gigs. There was one film industry job in their
(10:13):
final cut pro editor thirty seven dollars an hour, So
those are on the high side. But um, I mean,
what what are these drivers making it? This is something
like twelve dollars an hour on average, that's the national
average after expenses, but before whatever taxes they need to pay. UM,
and they do need to pay taxes. This is a
hard lesson that UM. Some some gig workers are finding
(10:36):
is that like, this isn't like tax free money. Just
because the money is not so great doesn't mean there's
it's not tax free. Like you still have to pay
taxes on this. You still have to file like self
employment tax in some areas, some cities, some counties, some states.
You have to have a business license. There's a lot
of hidden costs that a lot of people don't know about.
And because as I was saying before, governments from the
(10:59):
local level up to the federal level have been so
slow to like pivot. I guess in Silicon Valley corporate
speak to this new reality of um of tech platform
apps that that the gig economy functions on um. There's
a lot of people out there who who just are
un licensed, who aren't paying taxes, and who hopefully will
(11:20):
never find out the hard way that they did, but
maybe find out the easy way like through us and
then start and don't have to pay anything for back
there are you know there's certain municipal municipalities and is
that right? Municipalities? Man, you nail municipalities. The only way
it could have been very chuck is if you've done
it with a horribly stereotypical Italian accent. Do it? Do it? No? No, no,
(11:46):
no no. Did you see that guy right in and
said I sound like a cartoon chef on TV? And
I was like, oh, well that's right. Yeah. I was like,
you didn't think I was trying to pull off a
real accident, right, Like that's what I'm going for. I
want of you to know what it sounded like to
hear chef boyer, do you know? Basically? So? Um. A
lot of counties now are getting involved though, because um,
(12:09):
well they say they want to help them transition into
the gig economy and learn to put away money to
pay taxes and stuff. What they're really probably doing is
making sure that they pay their taxes right. And and
it's not just counties that are getting into its. States
are the federal government's kind of but it's it looks
like it's starting to become a patchwork of state regulations.
And we'll talk about that UM in a minute. But first, Chuck,
(12:30):
why don't we take a break, let's do it. Uh So, UM,
(12:54):
we were saying that that there are the governments are
starting to it into this finally years on. Basically, I mean,
the gig economy itself is many many years old by now,
and they're just now starting to pass legislation. UM. But
not all of it is, you know, like on the
(13:14):
county level putting up educational posters saying, hey, you're a
small business, you need a license to do you know,
to drive for uber or whatever here. Um. It's not
just that. There's also a real, um frequently overlooked component
of the tech platforms that connect consumers and producers UM,
(13:35):
and that is that their profit margins are based largely
on getting around labor laws that have been established throughout
the twentieth century UM and that are just outdated. The
the the UM tech platforms, the apps that that connect people. Um,
we're built up around those laws, and they skirt the
(13:56):
law very plainly. I mean there have been court ruling
in UM, federal agency rulings to say, yeah, they're right,
Like these aren't employees, these are independent contractors. And so
they don't they don't get over time, they don't get
unpaid vade or they don't get paid vacation time. UM,
there's all this stuff. Health insurance is a big one.
So that's a huge chunk of revenue or of um
(14:21):
outlay that the companies who who like Uber or test
Grabit or whoever don't have to shell out. That means
that's profits more profits for them, and it's also something
that their competitors, like cab companies, say have to pay.
So it's a one way that the cab companies lose
against the ride hailing apps. But the people who are
out there still need health insurance, they still need healthcare,
(14:44):
they still need food, and so the the the companies
that make these platforms tend to kind of offload the
responsibility that used to be on the company's part onto
local governments. And so what local governments are trying to
figure out to say, like, well, with this influx of
gig economy workers saying like I need Medicare or I
(15:06):
need food stamps or something like that. How can we
deal with this? And there's been some a couple of
interesting proposals at least for how to get um the
companies to pay for benefits that companies traditionally have paid
for but in this new gig economy. Yeah, I thought
this one was really interesting. Portable benefits. So you know,
(15:27):
if you've ever changed jobs, or if you change jobs
a lot, like on a full time basis, you know
that it can be big pain to your benefits are
always changing. Sometimes they're better, sometimes they're worse, but they're
bound to be different, and that's just a hassle. The
idea of portable benefits basically that you own as an employee.
(15:48):
So when you go to a new job as a
gig worker, you take your employee your benefits with you
and basically just plug it into their system and say, well,
you are now going to contribute your your employer portion
to my portable benefits. Yeah. It's kind of like the
difference between a four oh one K and an IRA, right,
(16:08):
The IRA is yours no matter where you go. The
four one k is between you and your employer. Imagine
if all you ever had was an IRA, but your
employer paid into that, but it was for health benefits
rather than retirement, so it was always yours. But just
depending on who you worked for, part of what you
got paid was an additional premium that was a contribution
(16:30):
to your benefits, whether it's a retirement package or dental
or vision or health or whatever. And and it was
always you. It was associated with you the worker, but
everybody from each task paid into that. It's a great
idea and apparently it works too. Yeah, and I'm not
super sure this. The other idea ideas, uh, that of
(16:50):
a dependent contractor rather than an independent contractor. And that's
basically if you receive the majority of your income from
one company, um, then they need to do things like
pay your health or you know, contribute towards your health insurance.
What I don't get is what what's the difference between
that and being a full time employee. There's nothing. It's
basically just calling Uber out on its bs and saying
(17:12):
these are your employees, dude, without having to say, hey,
federal government, you guys need to revise the independent contractor
laws because this is different. These are states or local
governments saying you want to do business here. These people
are dependent contractors and you have to provide them with benefits. Sorry,
that's just the way it goes. And if you get
a big enough county or city or state and the
(17:34):
the app or the platform wants to do business there,
they will do this. And it stinks, and you have
to have different people who are experts in the different
states you're doing business in. But eventually, if enough different
states have slightly different laws that are all to the
same effect, companies like Uber are going to go to
the federal government be like, can you please pass a
(17:55):
law that says that we have to provide benefits for
these people? And maybe they're not the greatest benefit. It's
we don't want to give away the farm. But it
will be more cost effective for us to just have
one standard to adhere to nationwide than it will be
to have fifty different laws that we have to adhere
to nationwide. And how do they do that through lobbyists
(18:15):
paying tons of money? It's true, but in this case
it would benefit people, But it's it's a it's a
ground up push from the local and state government's basically
agitating for the federal government to take action. Yeah, I mean,
Uber certainly had a share of missteps along the way. Um,
and even if you cast those aside and not to
(18:37):
pick on them, let's just talk about any app based um,
gig economy or gig job or whatever. I guess gig
is all you need to say. Really, it's a mouthful,
and um, you can you can't help, but just picture
a back room boardroom in Silicon Valley with these dudes
(18:58):
just saying, like, you know, here's what we'll do. We'll
develop this app that connects people and we take a
cut and we're gonna have tens of thousands of drivers
all over the country working for us. And then the
other person goes, yeah, but man, that you know how
expensive that is with payroll and this and that and
and insurance everything. Oh no, no, no, the best part
(19:18):
is they're not employees, right, Like that was the very
first in the very first meeting. That was the big like,
oh I get it, And they all laughed. Oh, I'm
sure the room went breathless. Yeah, like that's it was
literally world changing. I mean, like that's the state of
affairs now. And yeah, it had to start somewhere. I'm
(19:39):
not sure where it started, but it started somewhere. But
like you said earlier, that is the I mean, and
they've proven it with with financials. We're not just saying
the stuff they that is the reason they are profitable
is because they're not having to pay this dough and unfortunately,
it's also the reason why people who rely on gig
work full time to make ends meet, and who are
(20:00):
not who don't have any kind of uh higher education
and are not skilled workers. That's why they are increasingly
turning to um taxpayer funded public assistance for things like
healthcare and food and basically making the ends meet. Because
from like I said, the few studies that there are
out there, what they're finding is that there's a segment
(20:23):
of people who work in the gig economy who are
who cannot make ends meet with gig work. And it's
not just to pick on the platforms and the apps
that make up the backbone of the gig economy, because
it says a lot that if there are people in
the vast majority of people who do gig work I
think you said earlier, they don't work full time. They
(20:43):
do it to supplement income, but they're not supplementing income.
I saw somewhere, um somebody said they're not supplementing income
to to save up to go to Hawaii. They're doing
it to buy medicine and food and pay utility bills.
So that actually says a lot about the state of
work in general, not just gig work. Because if you
have a regular job, whether it's part time or full time,
(21:04):
and you have to have a side hustle, which by
the way, is a term that's been around since nineteen fifty,
I saw, Yeah, you there's there's a problem with work
in general, you know what I'm saying, where you cannot
make ends meet just with your regular full time job
or even a couple of part time jobs, so you
have to do gig work too. But the people who
just do gig work, those are the people who are
(21:25):
the most vulnerable, and they usually if you're a driver,
you make about eleven ninety that's the national average. Yeah,
here's some stats for you. The Federal Reserve did a
report and from two thousand eighteen, fifty eight percent of
full time gig workers UH said they would have a
hard time coming up with a four hundred dollar emergency bill,
(21:48):
like if they had to go to hospital and pay
four hundred bucks. They couldn't cover that, nearly sixty of them. Yeah,
and that's compared to thirty eight percent of people and
just the regular economy, not the gig economy. Uh. And
they did surveys that said five percent of people said
that gig working. This out of eleven thousand people who
(22:08):
did gig work at all, five percent of them said
it was their main source of income, which is a
pretty small amount, but that's that's growing. I think between
two thousand sixteen and two thousand twenty one, they're projecting
it to grow from like three point two million people
too close to ten million people like working gig economy jobs.
I saw somewhere sixty million. Fast Company predicted something like
(22:31):
sixty million Americans are going to be working in the
gig economy um by, which was far and away the
highest number I saw. Yeah, man, that's crazy, But yeah,
I got another stat for you I saw. I think
in barrens I believe it's barrens um the gig economy.
Gig work accounted for ninety four percent of net employment
(22:54):
growth between two thousand five and two thousand fifteen, So
that means that all the new jobs that came in
and all the old jobs that went away. Of the
jobs that that accounted for the growth of work in
America were gig work. That's astounding. Yeah, I mean I
(23:15):
feel like every time I go to publics, of the
people in there are shopping for other people. Yeah. Yeah,
for sure, you can tell by their T shirts. Yeah,
they wear the shirts. And uh, Emily has done that
a couple of times, you know, a bit too busy
working parents. She's, um, I can't remember the service that
we use, but uh, I don't like it because I
(23:35):
like to chop for my own stuff. I don't want
people picking out my food. Yeah, when they bring the
bag you hold up an orange, You're like, did you
touch this? It's not even that, it's just you know,
you want to pick out your own stuff. Yeah, I'm
just season. I like running errands myself too. Um, and
it's it feels like it's never right too. They'll be like, oh,
well I couldn't find the thing, so I got this.
(23:57):
That's not what I asked for. I saw m quest
love like hadn't had peanut butter, Captain Crunch and like forever,
and he posted something I think on Instagram where he
ordered um some from like task grab it or something,
and the guy brought him a regular Captain crunch and
a jar of peanut butter. He threw it down the
(24:18):
hall of his hotel, which I thought was a little much,
but it was a pretty good ending to the slade.
It might be pretty good though, um I I did. Uh.
I had a very something, very heavy to move in
my home recently that was just sitting there because I
couldn't get a friend over and I had never heard
of task grab it and someone said you should try
task grab it and I did look up and I
(24:39):
was like, you could you get a young strong man
to come over and lift something heavy for you and
like an hour's notice? And I was like, man, I
feel like I should probably just get this done. And
I got distracted and didn't do it, and uh was
able to get friends over. But I didn't even know
it existed and that you could get that kind of work.
(24:59):
I yeah, I think task grabby you can do about anything.
And there's there's something in the UK. There's a site
called five er if I v R. I think I've
heard of that. I think and like every like all
tasks on it are for five bucks or like, whatever
you want the person to do, they'll either do it
or won't do it, but the price you pay is
five bucks. So it's like small, quick, easy tasks. What's
(25:22):
worth five dollars? Um, Like go get my mail, see
if see if this needle is sharp. I want to
do a puncture test on you. Back to that one again. Huh.
I guess we should mention the strike that happened earlier
this month. Uh, we're recording this in May two th nineteen. Um,
just very recently, there was there were thousands of Uber
(25:44):
and Lyft drivers who went on strike. Um, not just
in May, but kind of all year long. This has
sort of been brewing, I think, and uh it's it um.
Uber stock prices down for one dude by two. They
started out with a hundred and twenty billion dollar valuation
and ended up at the end of the day I
(26:06):
think at forty billion. Yeah, And that's where this whole
idea of like is it exploitation um, like, because I
mean the courts have roundly kind of said, like, no,
you can't unionize, you're not employees, right, and these are
in some of the most liberal courts in the land, right,
you're independent contractors, so you don't get over time, you
can't you can't unionize. There's all sorts of stuff that
(26:28):
you just can't do because you're an independent contractor UM,
and that's that's slowly starting to change. Yeah, But the
whole idea of this strike was is there're basically saying
you have intentionally misclassified us as non employees. And I'm
sure they're like, yeah, that that's exactly right right there,
(26:49):
Like was that I think that's like in our terms
of use that we intentionally missclassify you. Well, they probably
say we have intentionally classified you as what you are,
which is a non employee. But the drivers are saying
they're misclassified obviously, right, So there's a big lawsuit. UM.
A few hundred thousand Uber drivers sued Uber and they
(27:09):
very recently settled, I think in March, with like thirteen thousand,
six hundred of them, and they were given twenty million
dollars to split between them, which sounds like a lot,
but it's actually like less than a driver for basically
saying we we have been under paying you. The other
like three hundred something thousand drivers didn't get squat because
(27:30):
they all signed a UM an arbitration clause in their agreement,
which you should never sign if you have any saying
it whatsoever, because it basically says I can't sue and
any time I have a problem with you, we will
go to a mediator who you pay to decide whether
my claim has any value or not. So it's a terrible,
(27:53):
terrible thing to sign. But on top of that, if
you are a full time gig economy worker, you basically
don't have a choice, and the company you're working with
as an independent contractor knows that. So there's almost certainly
going to be an arbitration clause. But that's a really
good example of what happens when you signed an arbitration clause.
You lose out on the settlement because you said that
(28:14):
you are waiving your right to a trial right And
aside from stuff like health insurance, the drivers are angry
because Uber and major cities has been cutting driver pay
rates because they're trying to get their bottom line down
and say, hey, look, everyone, look at our bottom line.
How attractive is this? So, like I was saying, this
is slowly starting to change thanks to regulation, and um,
(28:38):
we'll talk a little more about that after this break
(29:02):
so Chuck Um New York really kind of changed things
recently that that one study or a study, I don't
know if we talked about it yet. The study with
eleven thousand people was conducted by the FED. There's another
study conducted by I think you see Berkeley in the
New School, and they basically found, like most I think
(29:24):
of drivers driving for ride hailing apps in New York City,
not just Uber, but all of them, um, especially the
Big four via Juno Lift in Uber, UM, fifty percent
of them work full time, so they're basically independent cab
drivers who are not licensed cabbies. UM fifty I believe
(29:47):
have families that they're supporting with that they're working for.
About eleven and of them qualified for Medicaid and eighteen
percent qualified for foods amps. Yeah, and this was shocking
enough to the city government of New York that they
passed the country's first and maybe the world's first as
(30:08):
far as I know, minimum wage law for ride hailing
app independent contractors. And it's actually more than the minimum
wage for New York in general. Yeah. I mean, basically,
the New York came out and said, first of all, Ubert,
they could fix this if they just had a very
small fair adjustment that passengers would probably not care about.
(30:32):
Then they could pay them fairly and increase driver pay.
But since they're not gonna do that, we're gonna step in.
And I believe it was was that this past January, uh,
they were required to start paying drivers um after expenses
about seventeen dollars and twenty two cents an hour, which
is about five dollars more per hour than the previous
(30:53):
almost twelve dollars per hour average. Right, So that's a
big deal. And I mean that's that's that was a
huge um win for the independent contractors who work for
ride hailing apps, at least in New York. But also
it's set a precedent across the country basically saying like, yes,
if you are big enough town, you have the clout
to to look out for these these workers who are
(31:16):
being exploited by the tech platforms that they're partnering with
as independent contractors. Yeah. And actually today, as as we
record this, the State Assembly in California past legislation that
required employers to recognize gig workers as employees UM with
sort of what they call the dynamics. It's a uh,
(31:38):
the California State Supreme Court said in May uh um
that this three part test, called the dynamics, would be
used to determine if contractors qualify as employees so to
be exempt um from labor requirements. An employer would be
required to prove that one it's workers have complete control
(31:59):
over how services are provided. So in other words, Uber
can't give a minimum amount of hours that you have
to work or so you have to drive every Tuesday
or whatever. I'm not sure, you know if they even
do that, but no, I don't think they do. And
I think that's part of their argument why they're not employers,
because the workers sets their own schedule, all right. And
(32:20):
number two, uh, the services provided are not related to
the employer's main business. So that's a big one because
that rules out all the I mean, all the ride
chairs unless they say that their main business is app development, right, Yeah,
that is I'm not sure if that's a loophole. Yeah,
(32:42):
I don't know about that one either. And then number three,
the worker is engaged in an independently established role. So
this is a big deal because other states, you know,
a lot of states look to California because this is
where a lot of the gig economy, the modern gig
economy was born, and um, and this is sort of
(33:03):
the first, the first big California legislation that's that's gone
down the road. Yeah, now that is a big deal
because it's like that's their home court making laws against them.
So that definitely kind of indicates like a turning tide.
And again, it's not just like government's looking out for
their citizens, although I'm sure that's part of it, but
(33:24):
it's also government's looking out for their own bottom line
because those citizens are having to comme and say I
need healthcare. Again, it's really important, frequently overlooked point. But
despite all that, and I mean you said it's it's
easy to pick on Uber. They're kind of a model
for this this kind of thing, but they're certainly not
the only ones. But it also, Um, when you just
(33:47):
focus on that, you miss out on the other aspect
of the gig economy, which is that it's a double
edged sword. For some people, uh, freelancing gig economy has
allowed them to basically pursue their dreams and become quite
successful at doing what they want to do on their
own terms, on their own schedule, And there are um,
(34:10):
supposedly a pretty decent amount of people out there who
are doing it that way, but usually they're highly educated
and they work in UM a craft or an artistic
or UM kind of elite field, specialized field like AI
or robotics, sure or UM. If you are a consultant
(34:32):
of some sort and especially very specialized consultant, you don't
have to spend the time and money going out and
drumming up business for yourself. You can go to platforms
like up work UM and find people who are looking
for the stuff that you do way easier than before.
And that's a huge benefit of this gig economy. It's
become way easier to find work, whether it's UM, you know,
(34:55):
driving for a rideheiling app or being a marketing consultant
you know, like you it's from from top to bottom.
It's easier to find work than ever. Yeah, but it's
also UM like the people are in these situations a
lot of times because they were unable to find the
job that they wanted on a full time basis. Uh is.
(35:18):
It is a very tough nut to crack because even
in ride shares, when you get in a car, nine
times out of ten, my driver is very happy doing
what they do. And they always say uh pretty roundly
like yeah, it's great man, it's at my own hours.
And I mean it sounds like I don't know if
they're encouraged to say these things, but it sounds like
(35:38):
an ad for when you sign up, you know, because
they kind of pair it exactly the things that that
they try and entice you with, which is your your
own boss and you set your own hours, you only
drive when you want to. But that is the deal, um,
And no one's forcing them to go do this, and
they you are putting money in their pocket. Um. I
mean I always tip super big. That's that's I think
(36:00):
the only thing within your control or not use these
apps at all if you think they're evil, right, which
is another another way to look at it, for sure.
But then all of a sudden, you know, there's a
lot of people that depend on that money that are
being heard. It's it's tough, right, No, it is for sure.
Like that is another thing about the gig economy too,
as you can say like, well, I mean you're having
(36:20):
trouble making ends meet, I get to like hire you
and like have an impact on you being able to
make ends meet. Um, or it's just it's such a
first world thing to be like, oh, forget all all
you know, platforms and apps because they exploit workers. Well,
they also help people make money where they otherwise couldn't,
(36:43):
So there's it is very much a double edged sort.
There's definitely exploitation, but there's also certainly an uplift of
the middle class that wasn't happening before. There's also been
an uptick in uh New York taxi driver suicides really yeah,
that have um long been blamed on rideshare because it's
put such a dent in taxicab incomes driver incomes. So
(37:07):
I looked into that a little bit and then found
out this whole other world about you know, the whole
deal with the taxi medallions. Yeah, like people buy the
medallions as like an investment and then they like lease
out the license to cabbies. Right. Yeah, we need to
do a full show on that because it is way
more involved than I thought, And I was going to
talk about it some here, but it deserves its own episode.
(37:30):
But they're saying that that is a big part of
the problem for the suicide rate as well. It's sort
of both of those things contributing. Right, so taxi medallions.
Look look for that one. Okay, that's a that's a deal.
There's a two other things in New York that I
want to point out, actually two other UM platforms to
other things you want to point out. The departure date
(37:50):
buildings very nice. Right, that's one UM and take your
ride on the subway. Right. There's a cleaning service called
my Clean. That's get an app where they started out
with UM as with like the normal Silicon Valley model
where they just have independent contractors, and they actually converted
(38:11):
and started hiring their contractors on as employees. And there's
another one called Hello Alfred, which is kind of like
a personal assistant, a team of personal assistance that you
can basically involve in your life as much as little
as you want. Hello Alfred. It's just in New York
and it's only in certain buildings in New York from
what I can tell. But they'll do everything from like
(38:33):
keep your plant alive, to walk your dog, to do
your grocery shopping, to pick out clothes for you, UM,
to have your shoes repaired, whatever, just basically keeping your
life in order for you. But because UM they try
to anticipate the things their customers need. They realize that
they need employees. They need people they can't have turnover
(38:54):
and frequent training and introducing their customers and new people
they need, like people who are going to be there
for long haul. So they started out having employees too,
And that really kind of underscores a big reason why
UM having a full time employment is preferable to gig employment,
and especially if you're a company, because there's less turnover,
(39:17):
there's less training, training involved, and usually the worker is
a lot happier when they have a steady, full time
gig and then that's their only job and they get
two weeks paid vacation every year or more if you're
in Europe UM and that has a benefit for the
company because that's the person who's communicating with the public
(39:40):
or making the stuff, and they don't hate their life
for their job, so they're they're they're just producing better too,
if you want to look at like the ickiest economic terms.
Yeah that's interesting, I thought so too, Alfred. Yeah, I
think he just became their spokesman. You got anything else?
(40:00):
Uh No, I don't know. There. I do have one
more thing, Chuck, you ready, h This whole like puer
to peer platform thing. Reminded me we have a Kiva team,
and I went and checked on it that just the
other day. So you saw what like the big number
we're plashing on on total donations. I think you should
take this one. Well, you had the most recent number.
(40:20):
It was close to six million the other day. Yep. Still,
is this really really creeping up on six million dollars
total loans loaned out? Dude that it had been a
while too. That's so funny. We both had that same thought,
um man, that that's really something else. Yep. So congratulations
to the stuff you should know Kiva team. There are
people joining. I saw people joined yesterday, so there's it's
(40:44):
wide open if you want to learn more about it
to search Kiva, k I v A and stuff you
should know. And not only were our Kiva page come up,
but some blog posts we wrote about it in the
past come up to which is hilarious and quaint. All right, Well,
since I said quaint, Chuck, it's time I think for
listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call this Tin pan
(41:05):
Alley follow up. I enjoyed that episode. Hey guys, if
you asked me what tin pan Alley was. Prior to
listening to this episode, I would have said somewhere in
New York where music started to be popular. And that's
about all I can tell you. And guys, I graduated
with a Bachelor of Music and Music Education. What it's
not that I'm so far out of college either that
(41:25):
I don't remember music history. I'm only twenty five and
I'm finishing up my third year teaching orchestra. At fourth, fifth,
and sixth graders didn't even really know much about Tin Pan.
All I know the last semester of music history in
college had to cover late Romantic to present day, which
is over a century worth of music. Uh. This was
so much more interesting than the one slide in music
(41:46):
history class. At eight am. I am one of many
listeners sitting in the d C Metro traffic. So thank
you for teaching me new things every day. And that
is from Consuelo Civilia, not severe No, it's she wrote
back even two els. Yeah, yeah, she said, this is
(42:07):
the Filipino pronunciation, not the Spanish. Gotcha, So thank you, Consuelo. Yeah,
thanks a lot, Kensuelo. Glad to know we are rounding
out your education even after you graduated. Yeah, well, it's
kind of the purpose of the show, isn't it. I
think so. Well, if you want to let us know
what you think. The purpose of Stuff you Should Know is.
We're amorphous in wide open, so let us have it.
(42:29):
You can go to stuff you Should Know dot com
and check out our social links, or you can send
us a good old fashioned email, wrap it up, spank
it on the bottom, and send it off to stuff
Podcasts at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio is at the
(42:49):
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
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