Gals in the Gig Economy

The majority of workers in the “gig economy” will soon be female. Does this leave us empowered - or exploited?

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily, and you're listening to stuff Mom
never told you. Today we're talking about a sort of
phenomenon in today's working world that I find truly fascinating.

(00:27):
It's becoming one of those omnipresent parts of our lives
that's so everywhere that I don't even think we're noticing it.
And what it's really in reference to is the gig economy,
the gig economy. So we're gonna talk through the gals
of the gig economy. What it looks like to be
a woman working for I don't know, a ride share

(00:48):
app or glam squad or any one of those, uh,
you know, sharing economy, gig based work platforms like Fiber
or Etsy, and what it looks like. Is it a
good thing or not? Um? Is it empowering or is
it exploiting women? Workers? So this is something that's really

(01:10):
near and dear to our hearts, right it is. I mean,
we both have a background in labor organizing, and I
know we talk a lot about workers rights and how
women can advocate for them. The workers were down for
the workers, um, but the gig economy feels very new,
very different, and very much like the future of work. Yeah,

(01:30):
I mean part of me. When we were researching this
topic today, I thought like, I'm very uncomfortable with the
idea of like this being the future. But perhaps it's
that like folks who folks who are like diving in
head first. They're like, yeah, I'm just getting to jump
on the future of work, like this is what we're
all gonna be doing. We'll do it now. I'm being
like left behind because I'm like, well, I don't know

(01:51):
if this is good. Well, I think about the fact
that my grandfather worked for the same company for a
bazillion years and they used to send their workers home
with a Thanksgiving turkey, Like that was how a worker
That mutual loyalty that I was expected from a worker
and an employee is like so passe, And how people
don't even want that anymore. Like I think some people

(02:11):
would disagree with that assessment. But that's the conflict here,
is that what you know, are people loving this flexibility
that comes with being a gig economy worker are people
hating it? So I think we should maybe start with
defining economy. I think it's important that we start with
a clarification around that. And yet I'm afraid to disappoint you, Bridget,

(02:33):
because I'm reading straight off of the Bureau of Labor
um that what is it, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
that reports on these measures as it looks, you know,
nationally across the United States, and this is from but
they say listen for the purposes of this article, like
there is no official definition of the gig economy or

(02:54):
for that matter, a gig, but for the purposes of
this article, a gig describes a single project or to
ask for which a worker is hired, often through a
digital marketplace to work on demand. So sometimes these are
short term jobs. Sometimes it's a single deliverable project. But
what it really reminds me of is contract labor totally

(03:15):
um and sort of like mirroring your discomfort around this.
Something that would have pointed out is that because the
gig economy and things like uber and left are relatively new,
there actually aren't that many like conclusive, long term studies
on it, right, Like we have lots of these recently,
and so a lot of the a lot of the
studies and research around it is a little bit new.

(03:37):
Thereforeward kind of getting the lay of the land to
a little bit right. I mean, the stats on this
make my give me whiplash actually, because we're looking really
into how how many women are in this gig economy,
and I frankly believe that it's changing by the minute,
because we've seen that women are on track to be
the majority of the workers in the gig economy. That's
that's pretty clearly repeated through lots of the from publications

(04:01):
that we've been reading. And according to the Harvard Universities
study on so called alternative work, they found that from
two thousand and five, the percentage of women who were
employed in an alternative work arrangement more than doubled, rising
from eight point three percent to seventeen percent. But if
you think about it, that's still not a huge proportion

(04:23):
of the workforce of women are working in an alternative
work arrangement. So I remember I was actually up on
Capitol Hill. Um a few I want to say, like
two years ago, there was a forum, a discussion that
was being hosted by the a f l C. I oh,
Elizabeth Horne was there. They were talking about the economic

(04:44):
platform that must be put forward for women, so about
women's equality through economics, And I saw nothing about anything
relating to contract workers there, and given the fact that
I worked primarily with my millennia els, I think I
have a disproportionate exposure to women in the gig economy.
I raised my hand, uh, and they were like, who

(05:07):
the hell is this? Like bleached blonde, pixie haired, like
casually attired woman on Capitol Hill. Who's asking? Yeah. They
were all like, I was like shoving the free cookies
down my throat, you know what I mean. I was
like there for the food, but also listening, and everyone
was all capital held out. It was like the Khaki
Capital when I won with blazers and all that. And

(05:29):
I'm there and I'm like, why are you doing? Like
where's the conversation around contract workers? That's what I asked.
And these are intelligent people who are at the forefront
of statistics and labor and policy. And I was told
at the time they're not a huge proportion of the
labor force. They make up a very small proportion of them.
And mean what I'm thinking, Well, I've I'm in that,

(05:51):
I'm in that small proportion. So do you not want
to address this at all? So even at the time
when frankly, the underlying assumption at that point was that
here we are preparing for Hillary Clinton's presidency, what should
we be advocating for. The discussion was very much focused
on full time employees rights and how can we help
full time employee employees get paid, parental leave policies and

(06:15):
all the other stuff we discussed on this podcast. Right
and again, I mean, I think that that story illustrates
something so important because yeah, I mean, I've been a
contract worker for a lot of my free I think
people don't necessarily talk about their employments. Dat is like
what their situation is, right, are they working three like gigs?
What are they doing? And so you don't really know,
you know, necessarily an accurate depiction of like how many

(06:38):
folks this actually does account for, and typically almost universally
contract workers gig economy workers do not receive any kind
of benefit and often don't have tax withholding as a
part of the arrangement. Those are two important things I
think definitely worth mentioning. So if you're a contract worker,
I'll speak from experience. The Exchange, the health Care Exchange

(07:01):
opened up the year I started my company, and I
was kicked off my parents insurance, which I was able
to get back onto, you know, thank you Obama, Obamacare
until I was twenty six, Thanks Obama. So I start
my business when I'm twenty six years old because I
was able to get h insurance through my parents. Then

(07:22):
I graduate from that category of age bracket, like it's
like okay, emerging adults, to get your stuff together, and
the exchange, the marketplace opens up the January that I
was churning that year and would have been kicked off.
So I was able to get insurance through the exchange,
so I could have my own company, that my little
fledgling llc UM that enabled me to be a part

(07:45):
of the marketplace, like a part of the small business world.
And that, I mean, that's just one example of what
we're going to come back to you at the end,
which is on like how social safety nets can change
to make the gig economy less risky for workers. Yeah,
I mean, I wish that my story of being in
the gig economy was that sort of like growing up
tails I got lucky. Yeah. I remember the first time

(08:08):
that I worked as a contract employee, I was like,
I'm getting so much money, blah blah blah. Then tax
time came around, and then my story So I've been
going to the same H and R block here in
DC for a very long time. I go there, I'm
like now known as the girl who cried because I
I brought my paperwork and he was like, okay, you
owe the I R S like, and he said, I'm
you know a number that for me? I mean, I

(08:30):
just was like, he may as well said a million dollars,
Like it was the amount I owed was so absurd,
thousands of dollars. And I were thinking, like, but I
make no money, Like how can that be? And even
even now, this was like years ago when I went
to that same H R block to get my taxes
done and the guy I was like, oh, that's right,
you were. You were a girl who cried, And was

(08:50):
like the girl cried. Funny you mentioned it because the
one year that I was making extra money on the
side as a contractor, in addition to still having a
day job, I was out withholding taxes, which is the
thing you have to do as a contract worker. I
wasn't paying quarterly taxes. F y I y'all if you're
a quarterly if you're a if you're getting money on
the side via as a contractor, Google how to pay

(09:13):
quarterly taxes right now, get on it. Don't be a
girl crying. I quit my day job to start bossed
up the first time I quit my day job. Let
me put it that way. And I'm like, I'm rolling
in right now. I've got a sweet nest egg that
I've worked really hard to put aside. And then a
month later, I owed Uncle Sam ten grand taxes and

(09:34):
I was like, I mean, it's my civic duty. I'm not,
of course, but it's bad. And Brad was new in
the picture at the time, and I kept telling him, like,
I've just did my taxes on three different online portals
and I got the same answer. H and R said
the same thing. Like. I was like, maybe I'm doing
this wrong. And then he like I broke it down

(09:55):
for him and he started laughing. He was like, well,
of course, and I'm like, he's like laughing at me.
That was the hardest thing for me to sort of
like make heads or tails up. Was it like, I'm
how do I owe this money? I just didn't make
any sense. So get yourself a financial But I mean,
so it's part of the way in which when you're

(10:16):
a contractor or in the gig economy, you're on your own.
I used to airbnb my apartment here, same management company
airb and be my place. And I tried Postmates because
I don't have a car. But you can do postpaides
from a bike in d C. Which if you're Postmates,
it's like a delivery service to deliver it. You know,
if you want, you know, some specific food item, someone
will bring it to you on a bike. Um. And yeah,

(10:39):
neither of those worked out to pay taxes on your
So for Airbnb, I was like, oh god, I forgot, Like,
oh god, I have to make sure I'm doing this
at the end of the year, whatever taxes my old foe.
There are lots of ways in which being a full
time employee feels kind of simple and wonderful because it's
just great. You're you're not just on your own right

(10:59):
as a car in tractor you are. So I think
the rise of the gig economy feels like a very
um it's classical classic American individualism on display. Right, it's
like pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And the question
becomes is it an opportunity for unlimited earning potential? Right?

(11:22):
Because it's up to you however much you want to
drive to lift however, chu, yes, set your own is
going to do whatever you want? And then or is
it exploitation because no matter how hard you work, you
still might not be earning. Um, we might not be
rolling in it right right. It's like it's this amorphous

(11:42):
way of saying, well, this is on you and employee,
This is on you, gig economy worker, to figure it out.
I'm not going to make these um, I'm not going
to make there be a stable expectation for what a
living wage might be for you. And what's fascinating is that.
And I think we'll talk more about this going forward,
but how this plays out in the marketing for for

(12:03):
these these things where it's like, you know, what would
usually be considered a negative right, like not having labor protections,
it's spun as like, oh, it's on you to decide
how much you make instead of like you know, the
whole boss culture. It's like everybody wants to be their
own boss, isn't it fun? Yeah? And I think we
see that and so like we saw that in an
earlier episode around um women in things like Lubro, where

(12:25):
there's this idea that we have in this country where
like hustle is so good, and like being your own
boss and like having your own thing and setting your
own hours and not being tied to a nine to
five in an office. Right that we definitely, you know, want,
did it become uncool to have a full time job?
Having a full time job is offome and like, no
shade to anybody who doesn't like it's not something we

(12:45):
should be crapping on. And I feel like we are,
So I think it's a good time to take a break.
So when we come back, we'll talk through a couple
of case studies of magical thinking when it comes to
pr and the gig economy will be right back after this.

(13:08):
And we're back, and we've got some troubling examples of
the gig economy glamorizing overwork as being something to aspire to. Yeah,
I think that for me, that really is that one
of the main reasons why I'm a little bit uncomfortable
with this economy work is that we, yeah, we glamorize

(13:29):
things that we shouldn't be glamorizing. And I think this
great example was this ad for a company called fiber
if you don't or a platform called fiber, which basically
anyone can pay you five dollars to do anything or
more money. And it's a it's a platform, like you're saying,
it's like a connecting market place where you can find
all kinds of talented people and enlist their services and

(13:50):
across the country. And this ad appeared in a New
York City subway, which I think is very telling, very
New York. I think maybe only in New York could
you test this to see if it was received? Well,
what is this advocate? Like? The advooks like a beautiful woman? Um,
it's her close up of her face. I'll say she
looks a little she's gorgeous, looks a little gaunt, like

(14:11):
maybe she's been up all night or something like that.
And maybe she's she's definitely got the high high fashion
model cheekbuks slash. Maybe she hasn't eaten in seven or
so that I like that. It's like up to you
to be like, oh, which one is it? Is she
a gorgeous model or just and hair is messed up
on her? She looks like she's been like disheveled, beautiful disheveled.
And so the tagline is you eat a coffee for lunch,

(14:33):
you follow through on your follow through, sleep deprivation is
your drug of choice, you might be a doer And
I hate so Like again, just like we were talking
about how it sounds very they they've found a way
to put something that sounds awful to me to make
it a badge of honor. Burnout culture, girl, that's my thing.
And I turned about how the glamorization of burnout culture

(14:57):
is what's leading to the degradation of the sick a
basic sense of human rights as workers, right, and we
shouldn't be glamorizing, you know, not eating that's not like,
that's not a glamorous thing, or not sleeping, not sleeping,
we shouldn't be glamorizing. Like having followed through was great,
but like, wasn't it The university some university came under
fire for a video ad like this as well. Did

(15:19):
you see that? It was like these poor like parents
who are like on the subway trying to missing dinner
with their family. That's like the subtext of every like
online college profit. It's like, oh, like sit on the
subway floor and like do your paper. Like no, like
you should be normalizing like spending time with your family
and yeah. Basic. Another thing I hated about this ad

(15:43):
and something that I see a lot like food and
sleep are basic human needs, right, Like, if you're not
getting sleep, you can't be at a functional person. Hierarchy
of needs is all about, like I geek out and
things psychology one oh one. If you get the Emily
face so pleased pushing and pushing invisible glass. Actually, yeah,

(16:06):
Maslow's higherarchy needs. Although to be clear, I am aware
of the fact that his theory has come under fire
in recent years. But little whatever, Like moral of the
story is you need a foundation of basic human needs,
things like shelter, safety, food, sleep, you know, rest, comfort,
and then another layer on top of that to achieve
a higher order of thinking. My COGSAI professors would be

(16:29):
so proud of me now, But like, to actually achieve
your full potential, you need love, connection, belonging, and then
you can actually work it. So like the idea of
like martyr yourself, don't by your job, don't sleep. It's
really pervasive. And they say. The whole campaign was called
in Doers We Trust and it was about glamorizing the

(16:50):
sort of burnout that is that is often delivered hand
in hand with the gig economy often but not always,
but I think it's important to say often. The other
thing that really bothers me about the women in the
gig economy is that these sharing economy jobs are increasingly
being presented as a work life balance solution, particularly to

(17:13):
women and particularly to moms, who can supposedly achieve that
sort of what l magazine calls the holy grail of
true work life balance by punctuating childcare or domestic labor
with the more flexible work offered by sharing services and apps.
And again, it's that's so that doubtails so nicely with
this idea that like everybody wants this dream scenario where

(17:37):
they can take care of their kids, that can be
at home, it can make money. Like really, what it
comes down to is that I think that why we
we prized that so much is that we just need
to live in a society that like allows for people
to you knows. Isn't it funny how so many of
our episodes are coming back to that same solution, Like
that's why pyramid schemes are having a renaissance or MLM, sorry, lady,

(18:00):
that's why sharing economy is taking off. Like we're all
in this quest for work life balance, and I get it.
I'm an entrepreneur. I'm in it for the same reasons.
And it doesn't always look very pretty um and it
doesn't you know, you're you're gonna have days like that,
but we shouldn't aspire to being overwhelmed and busy. And yeah,

(18:20):
I mean I had a I had a moment of
that pretty recently where I had been um in Australia
for a long time and I had to fly back
to the United States and then like have like a
day and then go to a big festival to speak.
Please go ahead and name it. I mean name Bridget
flew back internationally from Australia to speak on a handle

(18:41):
at south By Southwest, which has been like a dream
of mine, and I was like, there's no way I'm
not doing it. I'm in good company, felt amazing. I
didn't have company with folks like Emily and C and C.
But it happened to fall on my birthday and so
I remember when I was getting out my travel off
to like get my flight, the t S a agent

(19:02):
or whoever took my ticket was like, oh, happy birthday,
and I was like, happy birthday. What? And then I
was like, oh wait, no, where is my word? My birthday?
And I had been so like even, and so I thought, like,
g On the one hand, if I told that story,
you could frame it as like, oh my god, like
what a huffler like, go you work ethic, But actually

(19:23):
it was like really sad. It was sad to me
that like my birthday was spent, you know, really like
realizing it like that. On the one hand, and so
I think it's interesting how these um, how these companies
have found a way to sort of play on that
duality of like is it, you know, is the gig
economy this free, this free thing for women and blah

(19:44):
blah blah, or is it like not so glamorous? I know.
It's like, even if you do agree that burnout culture
isn't glamorous, the question still becomes You've got unlimited earning
potential in a sharing economy, so it's up to you.
Is that kind of free market capitalism on steroids good
I mean? Or is it? So? I remember one of

(20:05):
my mentors in the entrepreneurship space was giving me some
real talk when I was calling or saying, I've been
doing this for a year and I'm really not making money,
like I've been doing bust up on the side while
I was working full time for the first year or two.
And I remember just saying, like, at what point should
I give up on this? Like at what point should
I pivot or admit failure defeat? And she she sort

(20:28):
of sat me down and said, listen, just because you
have unlimited earning potential doesn't mean you have unlimited earnings.
And so I think that that's opportunity is not the
same as um stability. And no matter how much of
a capitalist you are, like I am, okay, I'm all

(20:49):
about it. I'm I'm all about it, and I'm a
progressive capitalist. I think we should come up with a
metal capital. Yeah, I mean, I do my best, right,
but but it can be ugly. And also there's a
difference between the sharing economy worker, the gig economy worker
like us who we might have been earning bigger checks

(21:09):
from our day jobs and air ben being for frenzies,
and the people who are doing gig economy work full time.
And I want to tell a quick story that went
very viral um from Lift, the ride share app Lift,
which I know on former episodes we've talked about how
much we love Lift as opposed to Uber, because Uber

(21:30):
is pretty much as evil. I actually remember saying like Lift,
call us, call us Yeah, sorry, we're going to take
that back. Um. But here's the thing of the lesser
of two evil situation, Like, maybe there's a third y'all.
If you have another ride trap we should be using,
let us know. But here's what we've got. We've got
this really messed up story um of from last July

(21:51):
that chronicled the details of a ride share driver named Mary. Um.
Mary's the Chicago driver who who I'm quoting here happened
to me no. One months pregnant when she began experiencing
contractions while on her nightly route. Eventually, when it became
clear that she was in labor, Mary decided to drive
herself to the hospital. Now here's the double speak that

(22:13):
came out of lifts pr shop. Okay, somebody I hope
got canned over this. Um. Since she didn't believe she
was going into labor yet, she stayed in driver mode
and sure enough, ping she received a ride request en
route to the hospital. She took the customer and Lift
posted this story proudly as an example of mary Stellar

(22:35):
work ethic rather than you know, evidence that perhaps she
had to keep working while she should have been going
to the hospital, right. And I what I hate so
much about the way that Lift framed this is that
they framed this as like she had this choice, like
she could go to the hospital or keep working. And
it's like, if those are your choices, I bet it's
not actually the kind of choice they are suggesting. It

(22:57):
is like, I bet that you are you, Like you
don't actually have a choice that you need to, like
you need to keep working for financial reasons, and that's
not that's not a choice we should be celebrating, like, oh,
isn't it great? Like she continued to drive even though
she was in labor ultimate multitasker and some people want
to celebrate that. And then there are lots of examples

(23:19):
of like should we applaud this or should we gasp
at this? Here's the thing, we don't actually know what
Mary was thinking at the same because we haven't she
hasn't gone on the record, um at least from what
I've seen. But there's other there's other examples. Yeah, there
was a really great example, um locally here in d C,
where there was I love to ride bikes and so
I'm a member of like half a dozen cyclist groups.

(23:40):
And there was an image day of a woman here
in d C and you street riding a bike share
bike while you know, dressed for work, wearing high heels
and carrying her dry cleaning and like a briefcase and
like a grocery bag or something, and there was a
lot She's got a lot going on. And the caption
was like, oh what a hustler like you know, doesn't
people were like applauding herself. That photo went viral. This

(24:00):
is the epitome of epitome, epitome. This is the epitome.
You never let anyone pronounca like that. Wait, I think
I've heard something. I think that might be a different word.
Oh jeez, I'm sure we'll get emails about that. One
email her and at me a person that is it's epitome. Okay,
oh god, okay. But she's they said, like Twitter went

(24:20):
people were like, oh my god, she's such a a hustler,
Like that's when you get things done. And then what
I loved was that this woman happened to be like
a writer or an editor for the Washington Post and
she wrote down and she basically was like, I'm not
comfortable being the poster child of overwork and burnout. Yeah,
that day, I did have a million things going on,
and like it actually wasn't super safe to be writing

(24:41):
down a busy street holding my groceries helmets no helmet,
which I'm sure she heard a lot about that. You
know what about cycling that is a but yeah, like
she said, like, it wasn't What I was doing was
not a safe choice. And I do not want to
be the face that it's advocating we're making those kinds
of choices were not safe or healthy. And so I

(25:03):
just loved that. I love that too, And speaking of
safe or healthy and the fact that this might not
be a free choice, this is a constrained choice when
it comes to like barely making minimum wage after eleven
hours a day in your car driving people around the city. Um,
the other layer on top of this for women, which
L Magazine did a really great job sort of breaking

(25:25):
down how women are not necessarily coming out on top
in the gig economy as that as all the wages
and that stuff is, it's worse for women who are
subject to more directly violent forms of workplace discrimination. So
talking about like safety, several women who work for rideshare
services have reported sexual assault or harassment from their clients.

(25:47):
This woman in Atlanta was told um was she brought
a man to the strip club. Way to go? First
of all, like you way to take a ride share
card to the strip club's like have questions? So then
he asks her if she wants to make some extra
money by coming into the strip club, and it escalated

(26:08):
to like grabbing her breasts and face trying to force
her to kiss him. You like, yeah, I mean like
in most like in most situations in our society, women
are already more marginalized. And like, you know, it's like
if we if we if the idea of this like
new you know, new work economy, new gig economy, means
that protections are taken away. It's women who are already marginalized.

(26:30):
We're going to be more disenfranchised by that than than
we already are. And to the deregulating Republican party, who's
all about government and regulations getting out of the way
so that people can have direct exchange of goods and services,
this is like, uh, libertarians, wet dream. I'm sorry to
like go there, but it totally is. I can just

(26:52):
see the capitalism like boners that people over the hashtag
capism bonus because it's true, like this is direct like
getting out of the way so that individuals can make
quote unquote choices to exchange goods and services. The less protections,
the less red tape, the better, says you know, a

(27:13):
total libertarian. But what they forget and fail to factor
in is that people who are more likely to be
harassed or assaulted are the ones that lose in this situation.
So women are becoming the majority of economy workers, and
women larger people across the spectrum are more and more
turning to get economy work as a full time solution.

(27:37):
Is this really safe? And I think you even see
that in you know, traditional work. It's like where I
think that work where women are becoming more and more,
you know, the people who do that kind of work
more and more, those are the kinds of jobs where
we just expect that they're they're going to get screwed.
I look at like being a server in a restaurant,
Like women are more likely to be servers and restaurants,
and they are the ones who are harassed on the

(27:59):
job more and we, you know, are are Our system
of compensating them is totally right. It's like insane how
America has decided that minimum wage doesn't apply to service exactly.
And so I think it really gig economy or not.
It really comes down to when women enter these these
work raiments where there are is a lack of protections,

(28:21):
a lack of regulations. It's women who are the ones
who are more likely to be abused or have that
system exploit them. Right, all right, when we come back
from a break, we're going to talk about whether this
is just about growing pains as we enter this new
era of work, or if this is exploitation what we
can do about it. Will be right back in just

(28:41):
a second. So bridget okay. I know we like to
get a little riled up, we get feisty, and we
can talk about how the world is going to hell
in a handbasket on occasion, and I wouldn't say that
we're wrong all the time. However, I've got good news.

(29:04):
It's not all bad news. It's concerning how often we
say that though. Um. The good news here is I
think we are I really do think we are at
this historical sort of choice moment when it comes to
how Americans make a living and with the I mean,
if you look at mass automation and what the death

(29:26):
of the trucking industry is going to do. It also
actually gives me hope that the more that we're all
in this together and we realize this is not a
women's issue, this is this is a everybody should be
able to make a living and be in the middle
the very shrinking middle class that is here in America.
I think it requires leadership that's willing to look at
the big picture and not put certain Americans against other

(29:48):
Americans in this very competitive marketplace. And the good news
is that I think employers are becoming more aware of
the importance of employee engagement and retention, right because I mean,
if you are and if you have an organization or
a company and your employees don't care about you at all,

(30:11):
that you're just a you know, an act to them,
or that you might have any kind of loyalty to you, right,
that's not good for you. I mean right, and think
about how much is lost in terms of like, um,
you know, historical knowledge and an organization if people are
just like we're not loyal to each other and like
a piece out of any time and not think two
things about it. I've been asked to be the token
millennial and more than one stage to talk about employee loyalty.

(30:32):
And my question is what's in it for me? Like
what's in it for me the millennial? If you're not
going to treat me like a worker who actually is
deserving of WO it takes this two way social contract.
But according to UM this survey for that Time actually
time to to survey on the future of work. That's fascinating.
They found that of companies that use independent contractors say

(30:56):
that they do so because they can quickly adjust the
size that their work force, save money on benefits, and
tailor the worker to a specific task. But more than
half of the firm's polled said that contingent workers are
not as invested or loyal as employees and that they're
not always around when needed near we half say that

(31:16):
they're hard to retain. So seventy percent of employers, according
to the TIME survey, says that the social contract or quote,
whereby health, retirement and other benefits are generally tied to
traditional full time W two based employment end quote, should
be reformed as more people move to making a living

(31:39):
through alternative arrangements, and that's really the future that we're
really talking about it, right, and things like like the
idea that your health insurance and health care should be
tied to your employment at all, or should be tied
to your job at all. Right, Like, if we're moving
to a place where more people are going to be
in situations where they are moving towards alternative employment situations,
then doesn't it make sense to have all the other

(32:01):
things that we need in life, you know, benefits, all
of that sort of move along with a social contract
or like a social safety net. I should say, that's
government run and that's where everyone loses their minds. Everyone
loses their minds when we talk about that, and it's
like government takeover. But it's healthcare. I mean, like that's why.

(32:21):
And it's like if yeah, if we're going to say
like this is just the future of work and that
this is where things are headed and the folks who
are you know, these doers as five or would say,
are just ahead of the game, then we need to
nature those folks are still taken care of and are
not you know, are not. But why bridget I have
a w two. Why should I care about you know,
about Mary the contractor, because our society is better when

(32:43):
Mary is not having to make a really tough choice
about whether to go to the hospital or pick up
that seven you know lived fair right. And I think
the the other thing that I think President Obama on
the stump during Healthcare Day is made very clear is
that when people use the emergency room for their health
like for their merry care, primary healthcare, that drives up
costs for somebody. So we want workers, especially you baby

(33:07):
boomers who are going to retire, and the whole Medicare
and Medicaid or not Medicaid, but Medicare and like retirement
funding is nightmarishly messed up right now. Like we want
to make sure everybody is taken care of because mass
poverty and mass homelessness and mass you know, bad health
from the masses is really destabilizing and quite dangerous for

(33:30):
our society period totally. And I think, you know, if
if they're if there are things that can be done
to prevent this, If these things are avoidable, we should
try to avoid them. I think who was it, It's
Um the head of the set of for American Progress,
A tandem. Yes, James, there a tangent says you shouldn't

(33:51):
have to win the boss lottery to get benefits like
basic benefits. And we find so compelling because sure you
could it yourself to w to employment. But if we want,
if we're capitalistic, you know, country market, free market enterprise, folks,
should I think see the value in if we really
want unlike, if we want choice for the marketplace, if

(34:15):
we want you to be feeling free to take a
job as a contractor or as a full time employee,
because that's that mobility across the employment spectrum is good
for choice and good for the marketplace, then we shouldn't
tie your benefits to a specific high delivering boss. Right,
it shouldn't be based on your boss. Is decision around

(34:37):
parental leave, your boss is feelings around healthcare exactly, then
we need That's where the government comes in, right, But
the question always becomes how much regulation is good and
necessary for maintaining free market and how much we forget that.
Sometimes regulation is what keeps our markets free and prevents

(34:57):
monopolies and things like that. But we've we've been there before.
It was called the Great Depression. I don't think we
have to go back there. I would figure this out.
I would strongly encourage not figuring it out that way.
So it does feel like this is the future of work,
but I believe it cannot be the solution to work
life balance, and I don't think it should be sold,

(35:17):
particularly to women, as the solution to like these sort
of traps that we can't escape of things like you
know how we care for our children and working, you know,
we we can't hustle our way out of that. Right.
If there's not enough life hecks in the world to
figure out how to make enough money in some of
these gig economy jobs, totally not you. It's a systemic problem.

(35:38):
So sminty listeners, we want to hear from you. How
are you making this gig economy work for you? Are
you doing it full time? Are you doing it a
little here, a little there, like E and I were.
Either way, we want to hear from you. You can
get at us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, hit
us up old fashioned email style at mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com, or tag us in a

(35:58):
pick on a gram mom Never told You on Instagram.
M