'These People Are Evil': Drivers Speak Out Against Uber's New Coronavirus Sick Leave Fund (medium.com) 179
Countless Uber drivers are now being pushed to the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, transporting humans, food, supplies, and maybe soon Covid-19 testing kits as shelter-in-place rules cause demand for delivery services to spike. Yet despite their exposure to infection, gig workers lack paid sick leave, health benefits, or unemployment insurance because of their status as independent contractors. From a report: Earlier this month, Uber, Lyft, and Amazon drivers protested the exclusion of gig workers from Silicon Valley's monumental heave to protect itself from the coronavirus. As technology employees go remote, contractors are burdened with extra demands and no additional support. Uber, Lyft, and Amazon eventually agreed to compensate gig workers through ad hoc funds, but OneZero spoke to Uber drivers who say this is hardly a safety net. "I think I'm going to fall through the cracks," said Kimberly James, a 46-year-old driver for Uber Eats in Atlanta, Georgia. After a series of devastating hardships, including losing her house in a fire, James has come to rely on food delivery platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash to survive.
In 2012, James was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, and her weekly income of $400 means she cannot afford to get sick. Health officials have warned that the coronavirus is especially dangerous for immunocompromised people, so today James has no choice but to isolate indoors. One-time payouts are based on a person's average daily earnings for the past six months. Someone making $28.57 per day is eligible for a payment of $400, the equivalent of 14 days of average pay, while someone earning $121.42 per day can receive $1,700, Uber says on its website. To qualify, drivers must have completed one trip in the 30 days before March 6, 2020, when the global program was first announced.
In 2012, James was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, and her weekly income of $400 means she cannot afford to get sick. Health officials have warned that the coronavirus is especially dangerous for immunocompromised people, so today James has no choice but to isolate indoors. One-time payouts are based on a person's average daily earnings for the past six months. Someone making $28.57 per day is eligible for a payment of $400, the equivalent of 14 days of average pay, while someone earning $121.42 per day can receive $1,700, Uber says on its website. To qualify, drivers must have completed one trip in the 30 days before March 6, 2020, when the global program was first announced.
Gig economy must be stopped (Score:5, Insightful)
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not trying to shoot your point down, just mentioning that the effort to tie this back to IT/CS seems strained
Re:Gig economy must be stopped (Score:4, Insightful)
I incorporated myself, have a nice S-Corp to save on employment taxes I have to pay, and it has worked out nicely.
There's been contracting in IT for a VERY long time and it has worked out quite well for many people.
You do have to put on your "Big Boy" pants and know how to budget, how to negotiate for the bill rate that you require (required pay, retirement savings, for insurance, vacation time and time in-between gigs).....and do paperwork.
But it is to many, a fantastic trade off for your independence, and in many cases to keep more of your hard earned $$ for yourself and not give it to the tax man....and I'm talking legally, not cutting any corners at all.
It is nice not to have to "earn" vacation or sick time...you just figure that into your bill rate.
Is it for everyone?
No.
Should we do away with this paradigm that has been around for many decades that has served those well who enjoy it?
NO.
There's nothing wrong with preserving CHOICE and letting adults decide how they want to run their own lives and how they wish to earn their living.
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There's nothing wrong with preserving CHOICE and letting adults decide how they want to run their own lives and how they wish to earn their living.
What's wrong is that some people, after having made the choice to do things one way and enjoyed the upside, now want to also have the upside of the choice they haven't made. Essentially wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
If people refuse to be responsible for the choice they made, they forfeited their right to make that choice in the first place.
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There were lots of environments where it was unusual. And lots where it was common. And I think that's true all the way back to the 1940's (though, of course, both environments shrink as you head back...and at the start the terms were tenured and assistant professor).
That said, I think the proportion of contract IT workers has been rapidly increasing over the last decade. So the point is not invalid. But in my personal experience a successful contract worker in IT is more likely to be a good salesman th
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There's always been plenty of real contract work (Score:2)
The difference now is that support staff. They're contractors too. So is Operations in general. e.g. the people responsible for day to day keeping computer systems running. All those used to be FTEs with benefits, pensions and careers. Now they're throw away contractors with no rights.
If you've been doing contract work a long
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Those IT gig workers are job security for me. As long as they don't bother learning how the existing environment works and keep pushing cookie-cutter one size fits all solutions to my clients corporate IT problems, I'll have plenty of work to do cleaning up the messes they leave behind.
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You get what you pay for.
It's always this way (Score:3)
Sad but labor supply (Score:3)
Re:Sad but labor supply (Score:4, Insightful)
Uber will start offering insurance, paid sick leave, etc. when they start losing drivers.
If driver benefits are important to you, then if you're an Uber driver, stop driving. If you're an Uber customer, stop using it. Uber is supremely sensitive to supply and demand. Alter the curve to alter their behavior.
Of course, almost nobody will do this. Uber drivers like the extra income and flexible hours. Uber customers like the cheap rates.
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So what you effectively said is: It should work itself out, but it won't.
However society will still have to pay this in an expensive & unplanned fashion via ER visits & further spreading the diseases as our society encourages these kinds of risk takings. Why not just have the adult conversation and provide basic universal insurance and set standards for paternaty leave, sick leave, and vacation days? We don't need to go to the extent that some EU countries have done, but we shouldn't be the one of
The other side of the coin (Score:4, Insightful)
We didn't like paying $25-$45 (+ tip) per cab ride (n.b. - I live in Dallas-Fort Worth where taxis aren't a constant sight, outside of city centers). But those expensive cab rides were supporting companies who generally were expected to pay health insurance, unemployment tax, and other benefits.
Now, we've gotten spoiled by $12-$20 (+ tip) Uber/Lyft rides. And we'll end up paying more at the doctor's office, and for our insurance, because the hospitals have to care for indigent, out-of-work gig workers.
And we'll have to pay more in taxes when we inevitably have to provide support for the gig workers who can't work, or who've gotten sick.
And we'll have to pay more to provide support for their families.
And we'll have to pay even more in taxes when we inevitably have to bail out Uber and Lyft, because something something "essential services."
Sooner or later, someone has to get paid. All the shortcuts we've been trying to take as a society are just pulling blocks out of the tower and stacking them somewhere else; the whole structure becomes less stable as a result.
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Uber's just another example of a company whose business model is "novel" only in that they've come up with a new wrinkle on externalising costs.
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Or you know, those gig workers could be smarter business people and charge the $25-45 that it ACTUALLY costs to have someone drive you around. It's like those people that expect quality work by going on Fiver to get a basic design or logo made. Sure you can get design for $25, but if you want quality work $500 is still the going rate.
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You know, those people could ALL get different, better paying jobs, no?
The Uber/Lyft things was never meant to be a full time, make a living job.
It is a side job thing you might do for extra $$.
Not every single job is a career.....not every job out there is meant to for someone to
Re:The other side of the coin (Score:4, Insightful)
"But those expensive cab rides were supporting companies who generally were expected to pay health insurance, unemployment tax, and other benefits."
I think that's a strawman.
What people objected to was the colossal BULLSHIT corrupt crap behind city taxi licensure. In 2013, NY taxi medallions peaked at OVER $1 million.
Now - thanks to Uber, Lyft, etc - it's down to around $150k.
I still think that's a RIDICULOUS price to pay to simply drive a cab. But hey, it's the nearest thing to legalized graft a city can get away with so until competition (!) there was no incentive to price them reasonably.
Re: The other side of the coin (Score:2)
Re: The other side of the coin (Score:2)
Because they arenâ(TM)t doing it in their spare time, itâ(TM)s become their primary job.
The Pep Boys near me has a car rental for Uber drivers with a waiting line every morning. This is a predatory employment system.
Re:The other side of the coin (Score:5, Informative)
"Free" Market (Score:3)
This is what happens when you don't regulate and you don't provide anything approaching universal healthcare. The US economy is going to collapse, and/or there will be an armed revolution. There are simply too many people being left to literally die to make ends meet, and they can't do it.
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Funny, plenty of countries with universal healthcare have ownership of guns. Plenty of Democrat good ol' boys are armed to the teeth. Did Obama take your guns away, or did he sign a law allowing guns in luggage on Amtrak and allow them in National Parks? You're conflating apples and tennis balls.
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We have universal healthcare [healthcare.gov]. You have to sign up for it, and you may have to pay for it (if you earn enough) - but we have it.
Heck, in California, if you don't have health insurance (either from a job or personally purchased) you will be fined [latimes.com] (EXEMPTION for illegal immigrants; they get free healthcare [npr.org] without penalty; yes, citizen, you ARE a second class citizen!)
Universal healthcare is here, but you still have to take action (sign up and potentially pay a little) to get it.
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He's actually correct, however, even though he posted it in an inflamatory form.
To put it in a more complete form "People complain. Fix the complaint, and they'll complain about something else."
Do note this says nothing about the seriousness of the complaint, or of its validity. Corporate executives complain about being underpaid. So do street sweepers. I know which I think is more valid, but the fact of the complaint is true in both cases.
Uber is not lacking drivers (Score:4, Insightful)
With all the industries shutting down, Uber is one of the few companies allowed to operate during the outbreak so unskilled labor will flock to Uber.
BTW if AB5 was in place and these folks were classified as employees, Uber could classify them as essential employees and force them to drive. As contractors they are free to self isolate without permission. Flip side of the freedom of being an independent contractor is that you have no safety net.
The only problem with the Uber model is that Uber gets to set the price. If instead the Uber App was more like eBay where drivers can bid on a ride and riders can accept bids than in times of high demand like now prices could go up to reflect the danger the drivers are taking on. Instead if Uber does a surge now they will get pushback from the media for exploiting Covid
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What happened to ride sharing? (Score:3)
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Come here to say exactly this.
Aren't you people always insisted that you are only "ride sharing", "Uber is not taxi"? Aren't you just picking up people going somewhere along the same way, just making a few bucks along the way?
Next, people renting out rooms in Airbnb will be asking for govt bailout due to tourist ban.
They aren't employees (Score:2)
This will make Uber=Taxi (Score:2)
If you give all the benefits to a Uber driver, then what do you have? A Taxi service. Which will now need special licenses, and cost more, and be less flexible.
Isn't this the reason companies like Uber became popular?
Then from the "gig worker" side. You will need special licenses which the gig worker will have to pay for. (Notice the government ALWAYS gets payed, coming and going) They can't just work when they want to, which is a huge draw for gig workers, they will have to follow a schedule.
I'm not sur
I'm driving for Uber too .... (Score:2)
I started it after I lost my regular job, thanks to the Coronavirus epidemic. (My employer was directly involved in planning of corporate events and travel; two industries temporarily decimated by all of this. It didn't help that they were already scaling back the size and scope of their office in the area I was doing the computer support for them.)
Honestly? My experience with Uber is that they have pretty nice software for the drivers. It's easy to see exactly what you've earned and it's pretty easy to u
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I don't know if they've changed things, but a few years ago if you drove for them, and you included gas and depreciation on your vehicle in the costs, you were making less than minimum wage.
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If you didn't make all job
Everybody is going to ignore that? I won't! (Score:2)
If you have an autoimmune disorder, your name is James and you're a woman, you have two problems.
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If you make incorrect assumptions, your name is DontBeAMoran and you post on Slashdot, you have three problems.
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In my defense, I only skimmed the summary as any real Slashdotter is supposed to do.
I'm doing my part! /StarshipTrooper
You're an independent contractor, act like one (Score:2)
I have little sympathy for an independent contractor who hasn't purchased unemployment and health insurance. If this is your primary income, then be professional about it.
The fact that these contractors aren't being professional is skewing the whole market in damaging ways. It's similar to when people working under the table illegally leads to lower wages for legitimate workers.
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You think uber drivers are independent contractor? that's a trick uber pulls so they don't have to pay benefits. and you think on their meager income of $8.50 to $11 an hour they can afford health insurance?
Asshole.
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I thought Obamacare was already providing for these people. Clearly not. Obamacare is clearly a failure in this.
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But it was, then Trumpcare came along and:
1. Removed any penalty for electing not to have insurance
2. Removed Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) requirements so that you'd have to investigate practically every detail of every supposed low cost plan to see what was thrown out
3. Defunded the annual enrollment advertising and sign-up processes for the exchanges so that you'd forget that they exist,
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In my opinion they both failed when it comes to the low income workers that need it most. When you're making near minimum wage you end up paying a significant portion of your income for health insurance, which is why some people chose to pay the penalty at tax time rather than have insurance.
If you cant afford immediate needs like food and shelter, health insurance becomes a luxury in the hierarchy of needs.
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Exhibit #1 of the consequences of defunding advertising and sign-up processes, people forget that the ACA subsidies exist. [financialsamurai.com]
If you're making near minimum wage, you're not paying a significant portion of your income for he
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Obamacare, which should have been called Romneycare, was blatantly insufficient even before it started getting cut. That said, it *was* an improvement over what had been in place, but was designed with funneling money to the insurance companies as the primary goal rather than delivering a basic level of health care to everyone as it's goal.
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Hey, if you want a public option or even Medicare for All, I'll take those too. The political options were more limited in '08-10, and current events are probably going to eliminate even more of those limitations.
Re: Medicare for all and other socialized services (Score:2)
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Obamacare is an utter failure in many ways. It cast the worst possible healthcare system in stone and made it more expensive for those who still had "good" healthcare under the corporate system.
It has some decent bits like the ban on pre-existing conditions, but Obama is really to blame for caving into the corporate health care industry to score the political points of passing his so-called healthcare reform.
If we manage to come out of this disaster without resembling some banana republic dictatorship, I s
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Barring revolution things have to be negotiated often against people benefiting greatly economically from the status quo, those that oppose anything for partisan reasons and those that just want the world to burn (aka fuck you I got mine). Obamacare was the result of realpolitik which given the political and (medical) economical establishment in the US meant it had to be a shitty thing in general. Still improved things. Kinda.
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I thought Obamacare was already providing for these people. Clearly not. Obamacare is clearly a failure in this.
Obamacare AKA "The affordable care act" is a failure because it failed to do anything about the cost side of health care. The costs are just out of control. Last two times I had reason to visit an ER the costs billed were in the thousands. Then the "network cost" to my insurer was about 80% lower. It seems very scammy.
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Umm... do we have to look on?
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force companies like uber and lyft to pay for them through revenue and profit taxes.
Do you think businesses voluntarily eat losses without raising prices on consumers or lower wages for employees?
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On the other hand, if direct costs to businesses simply pass through to consumers, why do businesses expend resources to fight these costs?
Decreased demand and substitute products. Even if Uber had the same profit margin it's obvious that if prices were higher people would use Uber less. Even if it applied to all their competitors too they'd still lose market share to public transport, bicycles, bumming rides from friends, having a designated driver, drunk driving etc. and in some cases maybe abstaining from travel altogether. It's simply not possible to exact the same value from a market where the cost-benefit ratio just went down.
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force companies like uber and lyft to pay for them through revenue and profit taxes.
Do you think businesses voluntarily eat losses without raising prices on consumers or lower wages for employees?
For businesses like Uber, the answer is yes. Their current goal is not immediate profitability but a combination of stock price appreciation and future profitability.
Re:Medicare for all and other socialized services (Score:5, Insightful)
Gig worker is another word for self-employed. Having been self-employed on and off for the last decade or so, there are both risks and benefits with self-employment. The risk is off course you can't pay yourself a living wage and your business fails, the reward is that you don't get half or more of the value you provide to another business taken by a middle man like a contracting agency or an employer.
People make their decision, if you start a small taxi driver company and decide to work for Uber, then make the calculations whether or not you can afford to do it or if you need to supplement your business with additional clients. Relying on a single client is dangerous for any business.
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Or, work on society to provide base services. I'm for this approach myself.
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Want more than the base? Have at it! Or are you complaining that by trying to achieve base services for everybody (especially those who can't tailor their situation as you describe) that I'm somehow infringing on your ability to want less? No, not buying that fleece of an argument.
Re:Medicare for all and other socialized services (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is a good idea, which is probably why its not yet implemented.
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Fellow mainly-self-employed geek here (also run a small business and employ a few other people). We should also open up the unemployment and disability insurance plans to self-employed people, so they can pay (voluntarily) when working, so if they do lose employment or are disabled, they can collect like a "normal" employee. I don't know of a State that allows self-employed people to pay in and collect unemployment. Make that one change, and most of this problem will go away...
Hear, hear! What's the one organization in the world which doesn't care that I'm not working? A company which isn't employing me. It's nuts to expect that companies participate in unemployment insurance.
Do the same for health insurance (with equivalent tax treatment), to start creating a viable market for non-employer-provided health insurance.
When that's launched, we can start easing employers out of the position of being intermediaries for these very useful functions. I'm quite certain this is a much bett
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Gig worker and self-employed are not the same thing at all. Gig workers work for a company, it's just the company has structured things so they can completely screw the worker. If you are a gig worker for Uber for example, you do not control anything except when you work. You don't set prices. You do not set any rules. You don't do anything except decide when you work. If the business does well, you do not reap any benefits (and if the business does poorly, you may not suffer direct consequences but you wil
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You're confusing two things. Gig workers are self-employed as contractors. While they don't get to "set the rates" they get to choose to "accept or reject" contracts. While they don't pick the customer the get to choose to "accept or reject" customers.
They set when they work and when they don't work. That's not an employee, and it's not a direct contractor... it's a self employed (or unemployed) person only who can set his/her own hours, choose not to work on a whim, reject individuals, etc.
There are ad
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People make their decision, if you start a small taxi driver company and decide to work for Uber, then make the calculations whether or not you can afford to do it or if you need to supplement your business with additional clients.
This is basically the problem with american politics (maybe humanity as a whole) in a nutshell. People have all kinds of fantasies about how others live, but it's generally not in line with reality. Then we vote based on our own little fantasy worlds.
Do you really think all these uber drivers started by sitting down with a calculator, excited by the prospect of owning their own business? They're low-skilled labor and desperate for a source of income. They heard you can download an app that gives you mone
Supply and demand (Score:5, Insightful)
The Uber and Lyft drivers don't have a specialized skill set. Driving is a very common skill, nearly everyone can do it. That means there is a higher supply of potential drivers than there is demand. That means that the social and economic value supplied by any individual driver is relatively low. THAT is why these drivers are not paid very much nor given very many benefits. The service they have chosen to perform does not merit a high salary and expensive benefits package.
If one chooses an easy job, one should expect low compensation. If one wants high compensation, one needs to choose a different line of work. Specifically, a line of work in which the labor supply does not outweigh the demand. This will probably require specialized training and skills. You know, work.
I agree that it sucks to be poor and I think it is appropriate that compassion should motivate us to help the poor out. But I do not agree that people have an intrinsic right to receive the fruits of others' labor. If you give people all the benefits of valuable labor, without requiring equivalently valuable labor from them, then your economy becomes lopsided; all consumers and no producers. And that road always leads to a bad place.
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You say "chooses" in a way which shows a profound ignorance of how the majority of people in the WORLD much less the US live.
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Well in this case I was speaking specifically of the US.
And, apart from something like a debilitating disease, people have an abundance of opportunity in the US. We get public education and then we can borrow the money for trade schooling or further education, providing a means of upward social mobility.
To fail to take advantage of these educational resources is absolutely a choice. Those who insist "I have no choice, I have no choice!" are, for the most part, lying to themselves. It is far easier to pro
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> Driving is a very common skill, nearly everyone can do it.
You sure of that? Have you been on any roads in the last 20 years.
And I am sure it is much worse over there with your lower testing requirterments of both drivers and cars.
Not that I am saying the uber etc can drive well. Just not many people can, so it does seems driving is a specialised skill set.
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They SHOULD charge more for rights. Currently they're charging below-market anyway which makes competition impossible.
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rights/rides
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" just make it so that gig workers have to pay"
Wrong. Enforce labor laws that mandate that labor that is directed by anyone, is an employer of the laborers. Make the business pay the normal cost of business, fair share of FICA, UI and benefits. Just because you direct EMPLOYEES via an "app" doesn't relieve the employer from normal responsibility (and yes if you collect the money, you're a fucking employer).
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So what you're saying is there can no longer be any self-employed individuals. When I contract - I am hired to do a specific task or job. That person is directing me. Thus I am their employee? When you go to McDonald's and order a Big Mac and fries, you're directing them - they are now your employee.
Thinking like yours is what led to the AB5 bill in California that has crushed the creative arts (no more commissioned artwork or spot-acting gigs) and service industries (no more barbers, or others who rent
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Or at the very least, stop breaking up the trade unions. The free market does not work when the two parties in a transaction have vastly unequal power.
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"If they don't want to work they are not required to ."
Except for the fact that when the do work, they are required and directed by a company. They are told how, when and where to do the work action, therefore they are employees.
That company directing "independent contractors" is not only fucking their employees, they're also fucking us by not participating in tax, insurance and FICA. The later being the biggie.
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Gimme money or you're evil
Oh joy, another corporate executive whining for a bailout.
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Re:Fuck you (Score:5, Insightful)
Will be soon: Gimme money or I'll revolt... if we let it go your way. Good luck then!
I pay about a third of my income in taxes and social security (I earn about 2/3 of a median income - 22K euro/yr taxable after rebates, which is about 24K US) and I'm glad to. I enjoy 'universal' healthcare, unemployment and disability securities, a generally decent state pension in ~25 years and live in a country where government has managed to save enough to now be able to -justify- 90 bln in emergency spending due to the Corona virus outbreak... and not break the debt brackets.
There is something said for paying taxes. It buys me civilization. And naked capitalism is anything but civilized. Naked corporatism is even worse.
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You have fun with that.
$24K/yr salary?
So, you're making pretty much what a starter job (real job) salary is in the US and you're happy with that? And you're happy to give 1/3 of that to the government because they know better how to spend your money than you do?
Hey, whatever floats your boat.....if it makes you happy, stay there and enjoy it.
I p
Re: Fuck you (Score:2)
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Could you get yourself all of the benefits that he receives with that same amount of money? You imply he must be a moron to be happy having someone else do it.
Not to mention we really arent that far behind in taxes in the US. I currently pay about 1/4 of my income in taxes and after health insurance might as well be paying 1/3.
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Well ... it's all about what you can do with the money where you live, what the conditions are for earning it, what your common expenses are and what you have to pay for when things go south.
Some more facts:
I'm definitely debt-free, except for the mortgage on my house, which currently is decently less than the house is worth.
I work 80% full-time by choice. The spare time I create with that is used for hobbies and various hobby and community related volunteering jobs.
I save 2K annually for a small extra pens
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Given that you're not a US citizen, why do you give a fuck and bother to comment at all on this then?
Enjoy where you are, but you can kindly stay the fuck out of our business how we wish to govern ourselves.
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Perhaps you're not aware of the US tax system. Start with this data [taxfoundation.org]. In the US, if you were making $24K, your Federal income tax load would probably be around 3% - not 33%. That's true for half the taxpayers in the US. Yes, you read that right - HALF the people in the US pay, on average, 3% Federal income tax.
So where does all the tax money come from? Look at the other end. The top 25% pay 86% of all Federal income taxes; the top 10% pay nearly 70%. And their average Federal income tax rates are 6-7
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Of course we don't have state income taxes here. We do have provinces and provincial government but they get their 'tax' money mostly from the central government. We do have some municipal taxes and, typically Dutch, water systems levies, but they are based on the value of your property and family size and not really worthy to note financially.
So if you say you have 3% federal income taxes, how much tax on average does the state add to that? And do you have any percentage for social security? Because here t
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Then you really should choose some other 'management'. I don't envy you guys because what I've seen in news from your two major parties, largely shit flies in two ways and there are only a few that both want to change things and can properly fact-support their reasoning. I wish you luck. The US has managed a couple of times to amaze the world, even if the country is as young as it is. Maybe it can do so again.
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Well, Ronald Regan said (essentially) "Greed is good", so why are you objecting? You think only the wealthy are allowed to be good?
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Our taxes are almost as high in parts of the US and we get shit government services. We refuse to pay more for more shit.
You get what you vote for. If the people you are voting for give you crap services, help primary them or vote for somebody else in elections. If you are the kind of person who doesn't vote, your situation is kind of your own damn fault. Good things happen to people who help themselves.
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Then get a better government.
Re: Socialist handouts from Trump (Score:2)
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Now guess how much of that will end up with the large corporations. If you don't limit large to "mega corporations", but include "family corporations" like Trump owns, I'd wager more than half.