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