WEBVTT - What's the gig economy? 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:02.760 Hello, there, it's me Josh, and I just wanted to 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:06.760 let you know, people living in Minneapolis or with access 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:09.440 to Minneapolis, I'm going to be in your city doing 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.320 my solo show, The End of the World or How 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.640 I Learned to Start Worrying and Love Humanity. It's a 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:20.200 gas and it's pretty interesting too. So in June I'll 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.400 be at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, and the next 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.520 night I'll be at the Miracle Theater in Washington, d C. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.520 So come see me. Go to the Miracle Theater dot 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:37.920 com or the Parkway Theater dot com for tickets. Welcome 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:40.200 to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five Heart 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:48.880 Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.120 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant. And 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:57.400 there's our guest producer today, Dylan. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah. 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:02.400 We picked Dylan up by UM Advertising on task Rabbit 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.400 saying that we needed a guest producer today, and here 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.479 he is. That's not true, but it could be, Chuck, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:16.840 it could be. It is true. Um. The reason it 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.160 could be is because, whether you know this or not, Charles, 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.280 we are living smack dab in the middle of what's 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:30.200 called a gig economy. Uh sure, partially, yeah, yeah, And 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.959 a lot of people are blaming UM the recession for it, 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.920 uh And I think that's definitely part of it. Like 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.880 there's a an abundance of people who didn't have jobs 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.200 starting in late two early two thousand nine, and it's 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:49.800 kind of become the tradition to give people jobs, but 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.560 not give them full time jobs because there's a lot 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:54.600 of things you can get around if you're an employer, 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.040 as we'll talk about UM. So the gig economy has 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.760 developed as a part of the recession, but it's also 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.760 developed because there's been a lot of tech, there's been 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:10.760 a lot of slow pace government playing catch up. There's UM, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.720 there's and there's an abundance of workers, but it's nothing new. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:18.200 The idea of of um kind of being paid as 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.280 an independent contractor working to fulfill a particular task and 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:24.400 just getting paid for the task, which is kind of 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.720 the basis of the gig economy. That's that's actually pretty 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.520 old from what I read prior to the Industrial Revolution. 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.280 That's basically how most people made a living unless you 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:39.040 were like a highly skilled crafts person, right like a brewer, 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:44.679 or a blacksmith or something like that, smithy smithy. Yeah, 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.960 I mean things really uh changed at a certain point 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.960 where it went from that too. You get a job 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.399 for a company, and you work for that company for 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:57.680 forty five years, and then you retire for that company, right, 0:02:57.720 --> 0:02:59.760 and they take care of you in retirement and while 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.040 you're working for them, And that was that was really 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.680 how things went for for a long long time for 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.640 like our grandparents generation and even to a certain degree 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:13.280 our parents generation. And things really really changed again, and 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.520 now we kind of are back in this place where 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:17.720 you know, the gig economy can mean a lot of 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.440 things that can be um, I mean technically any freelancer, 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.200 like when I used to work as a film production 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.679 freelance U production assistant, Like, that's technically part of the 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.560 gig economy. Yeah, because you were paid for the gig. 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.400 You weren't like part of a company's You were in 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.440 a full time employee with a company, right. Yeah. But 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.560 like when I hear gig economy these days, and I 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:48.440 think most people associate the modern two thousand nineteen usage 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:50.920 of it, you kind of think of the tech industry 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.080 and you think of being a driver for a ride 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.920 share company or UH working or selling stuff on Etsy 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.800 or working for scrab it or something like that. Yeah, 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.040 I mean it's basically synonymous with with tech platforms that 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:09.760 connect people to consumers directly. That's kind of that's and 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.000 gig economy. I think that's a really good point when 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.400 you use the term gig economy, Yeah, that basically describes 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.800 this modern incarnation of it. But gig work, like you 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.080 were just saying, is is it's been around for a 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.720 very long time. And like remember all those temp services 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:30.480 like manpower and UM there was Okay, so that's that's 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.120 gig work too. Basically, if you're a dog walker and 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:39.080 you go put a sign on a UM street pole 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.840 or light a light pole at the corner, and you've 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.320 got like the little tearoffs for your phone numbers, that's 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.080 basically working in the gig economy. Now, if you took 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.880 that street pole with the little flyer that you made 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.800 and swapped it out for an app, that's that's basically 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.919 what we're living with right now. Yeah. So, UM, here's 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.239 a stat for you. There are all kinds of stats 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:07.480 for the gig economy, but here's one UM from UH 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:12.480 in two thousand five. The gig economy was about ten 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.880 of the U S workforce, and just ten years later 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:21.240 that had grown to about six and then just one 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:27.039 year later in two thousand sixteen, UM of Americans reported 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.800 earning some kind of money from what they called the 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.160 digital platform economy. And that's what we're talking about with 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.479 like ride share or Airbnb and task grab it and 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:38.760 stuff like that. So that's a lot of people, and 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.320 that's you know, we'll get into other sets later about 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.800 whether or not these are people that UM are doing 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:46.720 this little thing on the side, like I worked my 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.840 day job then a go drive for Uber at night 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.640 or uh. Basically, more and more people are doing this 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.680 as their full time job without the benefits of being 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:01.119 full time employees. And from the very spare um number 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.640 of studies that are actually like conducted on this gig 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.480 economy and the ramifications that holds UM those are the 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:13.400 people that people who work full time in gig economy jobs, 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.760 especially tech platform jobs, they they tend to be the 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.440 most vulnerable as far as workers go. Yeah, so there's 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.520 really a few, um, well, there's three parts to this. 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:29.760 There's the the platform companies that are I mean, it's 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:31.760 kind of funny, I guess it's genius in a way. 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.560 But all they're doing is connecting people. Yeah, they're they're 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.560 replacing those old like temp agencies and there, but you 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.159 don't have to go in and fill out stuff. You 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.840 just log on, create a profile and start. So that's 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.520 a that's one appealing part of it too. Yeah. So 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.080 what they do is they they're gonna draw that direct 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.040 line between you, between the consumer and the producers. So 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.479 they everyone who's ever done a rideshare knows you just 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:58.960 click on the little thing and you can pay through 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.200 the website and they get whatever percentage of money they get. 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:08.360 The hindy I think is no, no, no, the technology 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:13.880 platform gets money and obviously the gig worker gets money, right, 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.640 And all they're doing is facilitating that connection, right. But 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.240 they're also one of the things that that um, these 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:24.160 apps can do that is totally new and revolutionary is 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.400 that they can fulfill demand. They can connect supply and 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.040 demand in real time, like you know when you when 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:35.480 you hail like a ride app or hail a ride 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.880 through an app. I think is the way all the 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:43.679 millennial right, um, you you have you have just entered 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:45.960 like this world where you are saying I need to 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:47.760 ride right now, And they say, oh, we have a 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:49.960 car near you right now, let's send this person over 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.000 Like it's real time demand that's being fulfilled. Whereas if 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.560 it were just that that person who is in a 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.240 car and saying like I could use some extra scratch, 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:00.680 I want to take you some where, what are they 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:02.600 gonna do, like just drive down the sidewalk and be like, 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:04.720 do you need to ride somewhere right now? No? Okay, 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:06.720 do you need to ride? Think about how much time 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:09.360 that takes off of their plate. And that's really the 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:17.000 role that the platform UM performs is connecting consumers with producers. Yeah. 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.280 And as far as being a gig worker, UM, there 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.600 are a couple of big categories. It's either sort of 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.440 the UM if you don't necessarily have a college degree. 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:28.520 You might be on the lower income side of a 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.200 gig worker, which could be someone who delivers something to 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.480 your home or one of these services where you can 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.360 call a handyman to come over and do something like 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.640 cut weeds in your front yard, or it can be 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:41.920 on the very very high side. I got a list 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:47.000 of the the highest paying gig rates and the very 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.880 top one is uh, something you probably know a little 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.240 about about from your into the world research, but deep 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:59.200 learning jobs the a fifteen bucks an hour. Wow. Yeah, 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.120 what is that like consulting or something. I think it's 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.760 just any kind of AI specialization where you know, that's 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.679 the kind of rate you can command on an hourly basis. Yeah, 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.679 that's pretty good. Yeah. Blockchain was number two at eighty 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:18.800 seven bucks an hour, robotics seventy seven dollars an hour. Uh. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:24.360 Number four was penetration testing jobs, which what is that? 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:28.600 Penetration testing jobs? Give me, give me your best guess. 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.800 I want to let's let's play a game like allowing 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.800 yourself to be punctured by stuff. A shot at and 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.719 they like that, that bullet works, that needles sharp. Give 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.920 me give me some money. No, it obviously sounds dirty, 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.000 but it's all it is. It's like security, to see 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.440 if your security can be penetrated. I got to, I 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.200 got to that makes sense that that would be a 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.320 cool gig. You just get hired on to to just 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:57.480 mess with somebody's cybersecurity. It's fine weaknesses, right, Yeah. But 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.000 then it goes all the way down to number ten, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:04.840 which was Instagram marketing at thirty one bucks an hour. Wow. Wow, 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.360 that sounds made up, But wow, it sort of does. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.840 But this is um, I mean, those are the highest 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.480 paying gigs. There was one film industry job in their 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.200 final cut pro editor thirty seven dollars an hour, So 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.960 those are on the high side. But um, I mean, 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.280 what what are these drivers making it? This is something 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.920 like twelve dollars an hour on average, that's the national 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.320 average after expenses, but before whatever taxes they need to pay. UM, 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.320 and they do need to pay taxes. This is a 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:36.760 hard lesson that UM. Some some gig workers are finding 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.640 is that like, this isn't like tax free money. Just 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:41.760 because the money is not so great doesn't mean there's 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:43.880 it's not tax free. Like you still have to pay 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.400 taxes on this. You still have to file like self 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.640 employment tax in some areas, some cities, some counties, some states. 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.319 You have to have a business license. There's a lot 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.640 of hidden costs that a lot of people don't know about. 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.680 And because as I was saying before, governments from the 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.120 local level up to the federal level have been so 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.480 slow to like pivot. I guess in Silicon Valley corporate 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:11.600 speak to this new reality of um of tech platform 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:16.000 apps that that the gig economy functions on um. There's 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:17.800 a lot of people out there who who just are 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.920 un licensed, who aren't paying taxes, and who hopefully will 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:22.960 never find out the hard way that they did, but 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:25.320 maybe find out the easy way like through us and 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.720 then start and don't have to pay anything for back 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.920 there are you know there's certain municipal municipalities and is 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.920 that right? Municipalities? Man, you nail municipalities. The only way 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:40.520 it could have been very chuck is if you've done 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:46.880 it with a horribly stereotypical Italian accent. Do it? Do it? No? No, no, 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:48.920 no no. Did you see that guy right in and 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.439 said I sound like a cartoon chef on TV? And 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:54.920 I was like, oh, well that's right. Yeah. I was like, 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:56.560 you didn't think I was trying to pull off a 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.760 real accident, right, Like that's what I'm going for. I 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:01.760 want of you to know what it sounded like to 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.200 hear chef boyer, do you know? Basically? So? Um. A 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:09.040 lot of counties now are getting involved though, because um, 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:12.000 well they say they want to help them transition into 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.319 the gig economy and learn to put away money to 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.920 pay taxes and stuff. What they're really probably doing is 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.840 making sure that they pay their taxes right. And and 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.200 it's not just counties that are getting into its. States 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.800 are the federal government's kind of but it's it looks 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.240 like it's starting to become a patchwork of state regulations. 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.319 And we'll talk about that UM in a minute. But first, Chuck, 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:54.320 why don't we take a break, let's do it. Uh So, UM, 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:59.120 we were saying that that there are the governments are 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:04.079 starting to it into this finally years on. Basically, I mean, 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.200 the gig economy itself is many many years old by now, 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.000 and they're just now starting to pass legislation. UM. But 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.480 not all of it is, you know, like on the 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:18.320 county level putting up educational posters saying, hey, you're a 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.560 small business, you need a license to do you know, 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:24.120 to drive for uber or whatever here. Um. It's not 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:30.040 just that. There's also a real, um frequently overlooked component 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:35.320 of the tech platforms that connect consumers and producers UM, 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:39.960 and that is that their profit margins are based largely 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:44.040 on getting around labor laws that have been established throughout 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:48.400 the twentieth century UM and that are just outdated. The 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:53.679 the the UM tech platforms, the apps that that connect people. Um, 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.160 we're built up around those laws, and they skirt the 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.800 law very plainly. I mean there have been court ruling 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.120 in UM, federal agency rulings to say, yeah, they're right, 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.440 Like these aren't employees, these are independent contractors. And so 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.080 they don't they don't get over time, they don't get 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.280 unpaid vade or they don't get paid vacation time. UM, 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.400 there's all this stuff. Health insurance is a big one. 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:20.840 So that's a huge chunk of revenue or of um 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.120 outlay that the companies who who like Uber or test 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:26.800 Grabit or whoever don't have to shell out. That means 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.000 that's profits more profits for them, and it's also something 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:34.040 that their competitors, like cab companies, say have to pay. 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.520 So it's a one way that the cab companies lose 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.600 against the ride hailing apps. But the people who are 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.800 out there still need health insurance, they still need healthcare, 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:48.160 they still need food, and so the the the companies 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:52.240 that make these platforms tend to kind of offload the 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.480 responsibility that used to be on the company's part onto 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.000 local governments. And so what local governments are trying to 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.560 figure out to say, like, well, with this influx of 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:06.080 gig economy workers saying like I need Medicare or I 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.720 need food stamps or something like that. How can we 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:10.880 deal with this? And there's been some a couple of 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.000 interesting proposals at least for how to get um the 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.600 companies to pay for benefits that companies traditionally have paid 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.720 for but in this new gig economy. Yeah, I thought 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:27.760 this one was really interesting. Portable benefits. So you know, 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.880 if you've ever changed jobs, or if you change jobs 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:33.880 a lot, like on a full time basis, you know 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.400 that it can be big pain to your benefits are 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.680 always changing. Sometimes they're better, sometimes they're worse, but they're 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.960 bound to be different, and that's just a hassle. The 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:47.280 idea of portable benefits basically that you own as an employee. 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.120 So when you go to a new job as a 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.480 gig worker, you take your employee your benefits with you 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.400 and basically just plug it into their system and say, well, 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.760 you are now going to contribute your your employer portion 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.120 to my portable benefits. Yeah. It's kind of like the 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.600 difference between a four oh one K and an IRA, right, 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.400 The IRA is yours no matter where you go. The 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.280 four one k is between you and your employer. Imagine 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.359 if all you ever had was an IRA, but your 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.240 employer paid into that, but it was for health benefits 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:23.520 rather than retirement, so it was always yours. But just 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:26.400 depending on who you worked for, part of what you 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.040 got paid was an additional premium that was a contribution 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.520 to your benefits, whether it's a retirement package or dental 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.680 or vision or health or whatever. And and it was 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:38.920 always you. It was associated with you the worker, but 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:43.600 everybody from each task paid into that. It's a great 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.760 idea and apparently it works too. Yeah, and I'm not 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:50.200 super sure this. The other idea ideas, uh, that of 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:54.760 a dependent contractor rather than an independent contractor. And that's 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.520 basically if you receive the majority of your income from 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.760 one company, um, then they need to do things like 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.879 pay your health or you know, contribute towards your health insurance. 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:07.560 What I don't get is what what's the difference between 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.840 that and being a full time employee. There's nothing. It's 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.680 basically just calling Uber out on its bs and saying 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.280 these are your employees, dude, without having to say, hey, 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.640 federal government, you guys need to revise the independent contractor 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.520 laws because this is different. These are states or local 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.280 governments saying you want to do business here. These people 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.919 are dependent contractors and you have to provide them with benefits. Sorry, 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:30.840 that's just the way it goes. And if you get 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.760 a big enough county or city or state and the 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.600 the app or the platform wants to do business there, 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.040 they will do this. And it stinks, and you have 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.800 to have different people who are experts in the different 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.119 states you're doing business in. But eventually, if enough different 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.679 states have slightly different laws that are all to the 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.159 same effect, companies like Uber are going to go to 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.200 the federal government be like, can you please pass a 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.520 law that says that we have to provide benefits for 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.160 these people? And maybe they're not the greatest benefit. It's 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:01.679 we don't want to give away the farm. But it 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.840 will be more cost effective for us to just have 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.600 one standard to adhere to nationwide than it will be 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.399 to have fifty different laws that we have to adhere 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.439 to nationwide. And how do they do that through lobbyists 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.200 paying tons of money? It's true, but in this case 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.879 it would benefit people, But it's it's a it's a 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.760 ground up push from the local and state government's basically 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.440 agitating for the federal government to take action. Yeah, I mean, 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:33.920 Uber certainly had a share of missteps along the way. Um, 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.000 and even if you cast those aside and not to 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:41.480 pick on them, let's just talk about any app based um, 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.920 gig economy or gig job or whatever. I guess gig 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.000 is all you need to say. Really, it's a mouthful, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.480 and um, you can you can't help, but just picture 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:58.280 a back room boardroom in Silicon Valley with these dudes 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.879 just saying, like, you know, here's what we'll do. We'll 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.560 develop this app that connects people and we take a 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.800 cut and we're gonna have tens of thousands of drivers 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.600 all over the country working for us. And then the 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.920 other person goes, yeah, but man, that you know how 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.280 expensive that is with payroll and this and that and 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.760 and insurance everything. Oh no, no, no, the best part 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.160 is they're not employees, right, Like that was the very 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.360 first in the very first meeting. That was the big like, 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.240 oh I get it, And they all laughed. Oh, I'm 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.800 sure the room went breathless. Yeah, like that's it was 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.679 literally world changing. I mean, like that's the state of 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.120 affairs now. And yeah, it had to start somewhere. I'm 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.399 not sure where it started, but it started somewhere. But 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:43.560 like you said earlier, that is the I mean, and 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:45.920 they've proven it with with financials. We're not just saying 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.520 the stuff they that is the reason they are profitable 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:53.560 is because they're not having to pay this dough and unfortunately, 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.600 it's also the reason why people who rely on gig 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.480 work full time to make ends meet, and who are 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.800 not who don't have any kind of uh higher education 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:09.120 and are not skilled workers. That's why they are increasingly 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:13.240 turning to um taxpayer funded public assistance for things like 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.480 healthcare and food and basically making the ends meet. Because 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:19.960 from like I said, the few studies that there are 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:23.280 out there, what they're finding is that there's a segment 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.840 of people who work in the gig economy who are 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:30.560 who cannot make ends meet with gig work. And it's 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:34.080 not just to pick on the platforms and the apps 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.080 that make up the backbone of the gig economy, because 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:38.800 it says a lot that if there are people in 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:40.800 the vast majority of people who do gig work I 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.600 think you said earlier, they don't work full time. They 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.520 do it to supplement income, but they're not supplementing income. 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.200 I saw somewhere, um somebody said they're not supplementing income 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.520 to to save up to go to Hawaii. They're doing 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.600 it to buy medicine and food and pay utility bills. 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:57.639 So that actually says a lot about the state of 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.560 work in general, not just gig work. Because if you 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.440 have a regular job, whether it's part time or full time, 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.080 and you have to have a side hustle, which by 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.520 the way, is a term that's been around since nineteen fifty, 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:13.840 I saw, Yeah, you there's there's a problem with work 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:16.480 in general, you know what I'm saying, where you cannot 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.000 make ends meet just with your regular full time job 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:20.919 or even a couple of part time jobs, so you 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:23.320 have to do gig work too. But the people who 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:25.919 just do gig work, those are the people who are 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.520 the most vulnerable, and they usually if you're a driver, 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.920 you make about eleven ninety that's the national average. Yeah, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.680 here's some stats for you. The Federal Reserve did a 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:40.720 report and from two thousand eighteen, fifty eight percent of 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.960 full time gig workers UH said they would have a 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:47.640 hard time coming up with a four hundred dollar emergency bill, 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:49.560 like if they had to go to hospital and pay 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.720 four hundred bucks. They couldn't cover that, nearly sixty of them. Yeah, 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.280 and that's compared to thirty eight percent of people and 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:00.280 just the regular economy, not the gig economy. Uh. And 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:05.760 they did surveys that said five percent of people said 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.640 that gig working. This out of eleven thousand people who 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:10.680 did gig work at all, five percent of them said 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:14.040 it was their main source of income, which is a 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.119 pretty small amount, but that's that's growing. I think between 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.760 two thousand sixteen and two thousand twenty one, they're projecting 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:23.840 it to grow from like three point two million people 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.520 too close to ten million people like working gig economy jobs. 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.479 I saw somewhere sixty million. Fast Company predicted something like 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:34.080 sixty million Americans are going to be working in the 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:38.639 gig economy um by, which was far and away the 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:42.000 highest number I saw. Yeah, man, that's crazy, But yeah, 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:44.200 I got another stat for you I saw. I think 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:49.160 in barrens I believe it's barrens um the gig economy. 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:54.439 Gig work accounted for ninety four percent of net employment 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:57.399 growth between two thousand five and two thousand fifteen, So 0:22:57.440 --> 0:22:59.280 that means that all the new jobs that came in 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:04.320 and all the old jobs that went away. Of the 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:08.040 jobs that that accounted for the growth of work in 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:15.159 America were gig work. That's astounding. Yeah, I mean I 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.399 feel like every time I go to publics, of the 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:22.200