Hacker News Reader

Comment by danjac | Hacker News Reader

Social security systems in European countries tend to be based around people earning a regular salary losing their jobs, rather than consultants having occasional dry spells between projects. This is a problem with the gig economy in general - our social security nets aren't very well designed for it (perhaps an argument in favour of UBI, or at least some different thinking into how social security should work for the growing precariat).

View on HN

You can't expect society to pay for you regularly if you choose to become a consultant. You need to charge more and keep a buffer.

If someone pays the same taxes and contributions into society as others, then surely they are entitled to something in return? I get there's no easy answer here but gig workers are also "consultants" who may not be earning enough to build a buffer.

Well yes, they do get something in return for their taxes, don't they?

As far as gig workers, they do get something in return for the instability, which is (in theory) higher hourly pay and more flexible achedules. If they aren't getting this, they aren't really gig workers and should be labelled as employees, but if they are, they get a benefit for the risk they take.

Personally I think that many gig workers should be simply classified as normal employees.

Another issue is that gig workers and consultants don't pay for unemployment insurance at all, so they're actually not paying the same contributions as others.

What about all the people with other responsibilities like single parents or caregivers or people with disabilities who can't commit to a regular 9-5 job? They're not getting high paid gig jobs, just flexible hours.

Exactly. Generally consultants can reduce their tax liability in various ways.

Gig workers who not earning enough would be better off with a permie low paid job, if they were able to get one. Unfortunately, a lot of people are not useful enough to society to contribute and live in some places - I think the solution is to send them somewhere else where they can be useful and find a job.

> Unfortunately, a lot of people are not useful enough to society to contribute and live in some places

That would include such socially useless people like school teachers and nurses, I guess.

The answer to this is "charge more". You should be pulling in _at least_ 2 hours worth of payroll costs (note: not 2 hours of pay) for each worked hour. This give you a buffer for lulls.

Could you elaborate? What's payroll costs?

They mean the costs a company would bear for you if you were a full-time employee. This includes your theoretical employment salary plus extra costs an employer pays for having that employee on their books, for example in the UK there is employers national insurance (tax), as well as other overheads like a fractional contribution to office space and software licenses.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com