Why Is Washington Ignoring the Freelance Economy? | Hacker News Reader

Why Is Washington Ignoring the Freelance Economy?

theatlantic.com

38 pointsaarghh16 comments

Self-employment tax is annoying enough already without being asked to bankroll the benefits of journalism majors who have less than 25 days of salary in the bank. By the way, our retirement options are the best available that aren't backstopped by the good citizens of California. Check out SEP-IRAs or even just plain old Roth IRAs, the terms are fantastic.

You're exactly right. As a sole proprietor, I can save WAY more in my own 401k than I could at any previous employer. I think about 3x more. It's known as a "Solo 401k", adapted to suit the needs of one person's (or a married couple's) needs. It mostly means less administrative hassle. But the contribution limits are much higher.

Unemployment insurance? Nope.

Is she F'ing kidding me? What, is the public at large supposed to pay into a pool so she can collect unemployment between gigs? Why doesn't her Freelancers Guild setup up its own unemployment fund? Members can pay into it, and then collect when they are out of work. We'll see how well that works for them.

It actually works pretty good. That's how it works in Switzerland. Everyone pays around 1% of their salary and people who lose their job draw 80% of salary up to around 8k/mo for around a year and a half. This goes for contractors as well as permanent employees.

I think we spend more time and money worrying about people abusing the system then what the abusers themselves actually cost. Most people want to work if they can because you get more money that way.

How do you define a freelancer losing a job? How do you define unemployment for a freelancer?

You should not be downvoted! A freelancer's job, between jobs, is to find another job or brush up on their skills (or pick up some new ones) or to take a vacation so that they're good and fresh when that next job comes around.

In almost every important system in our economy, self employment is consistently overlooked or treated as an afterthought.

Its not just the federal government, its pretty much everything. Taxation, business licenses, bank accounts, legal protection, insurance, unemployment, mortgages, etc etc. Its infuriating how few bureaucracies that involve your employment status adequately adapt to self-employment as an option.

Many of these protections and benefits that "traditional" employees have, unemployment insurance, we don't actually need. Why do you need to insure against the possibility that you may fail to get work? Is this not what savings are for?

Health insurance in traditional employment is subsidized and this should end. along with the distortions it creates.

But seriously, protect me from discrimination? How the hell would you do that? Companies may discriminate against workers but no one protects companies from arbitrary crap like that. Either you have a good reputation and offer value or you don't. How does the writer propose to micromanage these relationships? Will we all have to explain why we change babysitters in the future?

Part of the reason you can make more when you crawl out of the quicksand of corporate America is because you're free of a lot of crap imposed on traditional employers.

You raise reasonable objections, and in a rational discourse it your objections are extreemly prudent.

But if we are to solve the few real problems that freelancers face (not getting paid, getting sticked by the government on health care, etc) it helps to have a few things that you are willing to give up in order to reach a compromise.

so in the face of the 2 injustices you mention, you suggest that we give up more rather than try to correct the injustices. then I guess to extract further things from us, all someone need do is come up with some new injustice

actually, the two problems you mention are not that big a deal.

you can already deduct money spent on health insurance and if you're healthy, you'll probably spend less than an employer would have to pay for your insurance. When you're independent, you don't subsidize the expensive health issues and pregnancies of others.

and we have the legal system to deal with people who don't pay their bills and ways of screening them out to begin. why do I need more costly intervention from the government?

The reason why this is the case is obvious: the moneyed interests run the government as well as the economy. And it isn't in their best interest for 'freelancers' to have the types of benefits proposed in the article. Also, a nation of self-employed individuals is contrary to the desires of a spendthrift federal government. Anything that reduces dependence of people upon large organizations and/or the government itself makes those individuals more of a threat to the status quo.

Sorry Chomsky, you're ascribing way too grand and malicious an intent than is necessary.

Freelancers are not an organized political group. Nobody has figured out yet how to make freelancer issues sexy enough to yell over on the news. This is not a good thing for the political situation of freelancers, and this is not a bad thing for the political situation of freelancers. No entity representing freelancers is making campaign donations on their behalf. Freelancers are a political nonentity.

The author has a point, but she has it exactly backwards.

While yes, I would like more goodies, (wouldn't we all?) the real problem is that all the laws are made with the assumption that folks are working a 9-5 job. Stuff like deductible health insurance, unemployment insurance, or whatever the latest definition of rich or poor is. All these laws and policies are made with the assumption that folks fit inside these little boxes called "workers". In a highly-fluid economy, for a large segment of the population just doesn't work like that. The abstraction is so leaky tens of millions of folks are falling out.

For years and years I've heard politicians of all parties talk about doing this, that, or the other with jobs, but nobody seems to have figured out that their definitions from the 1930s just don't apply to the world we live in any more. So from where I sit, if you could simply fix the regulatory nightmare that freelancing and small self-employed folks face, it would be great. Fix the bugs. No new features needed.

How many 'freelancers' are really just temps who would take a permanent job the moment one came along? There's a huge difference between the few true freelancers with the skills and hustle to build an independent career, and the majority of semi-skilled workers bouncing between whatever gigs the temp agency gives them that week. Their biggest concern is getting out of the temporary labor market and into a permanent job with benefits. It's difficult to create solidarity when the number one goal of group members is to eliminate the group.

We'll be focusing on ways to deal with the day to day aspects of freelancing/self-employment at http://indieconf.com, despite the majority of the US seeming to ignore our contributions. :)

Perhaps Sara Horowitz can come and present?

And meanwhile, in other news, Paul Krugman is predicting a certain political party is bent on dismantling portions of said social support system(s):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/opinion/24krugman.html?_r=...

</snark>

I do hope that this does not come to pass, and would rather see options change with the times. Having transitioned from sole proprietor to LLC corporate member, I am just now finally trying to figure out how to take advantage of some of the benefits of larger corporations in regards to taxation and asset accumulation... It sure does seem like an up-hill battle, right now.

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