Latest / Stuff You Should Know / What's the gig economy?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hello, there, it's me Josh, and I just wanted to
- 0:02Speaker 1: let you know, people living in Minneapolis or with access
- 0:06Speaker 1: to Minneapolis, I'm going to be in your city doing
- 0:09Speaker 1: my solo show, The End of the World or How
- 0:12Speaker 1: I Learned to Start Worrying and Love Humanity. It's a
- 0:15Speaker 1: gas and it's pretty interesting too. So in June I'll
- 0:20Speaker 1: be at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, and the next
- 0:23Speaker 1: night I'll be at the Miracle Theater in Washington, d C.
- 0:27Speaker 1: So come see me. Go to the Miracle Theater dot
- 0:30Speaker 1: com or the Parkway Theater dot com for tickets. Welcome
- 0:37Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five Heart
- 0:40Speaker 1: Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
- 0:48Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant. And
- 0:52Speaker 1: there's our guest producer today, Dylan. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah.
- 0:57Speaker 1: We picked Dylan up by UM Advertising on task Rabbit
- 1:03Speaker 1: saying that we needed a guest producer today, and here
- 1:06Speaker 1: he is. That's not true, but it could be, Chuck,
- 1:10Speaker 1: it could be. It is true. Um. The reason it
- 1:16Speaker 1: could be is because, whether you know this or not, Charles,
- 1:20Speaker 1: we are living smack dab in the middle of what's
- 1:24Speaker 1: called a gig economy. Uh sure, partially, yeah, yeah, And
- 1:30Speaker 1: a lot of people are blaming UM the recession for it,
- 1:34Speaker 1: uh And I think that's definitely part of it. Like
- 1:36Speaker 1: there's a an abundance of people who didn't have jobs
- 1:41Speaker 1: starting in late two early two thousand nine, and it's
- 1:45Speaker 1: kind of become the tradition to give people jobs, but
- 1:50Speaker 1: not give them full time jobs because there's a lot
- 1:52Speaker 1: of things you can get around if you're an employer,
- 1:54Speaker 1: as we'll talk about UM. So the gig economy has
- 1:58Speaker 1: developed as a part of the recession, but it's also
- 2:01Speaker 1: developed because there's been a lot of tech, there's been
- 2:04Speaker 1: a lot of slow pace government playing catch up. There's UM,
- 2:10Speaker 1: there's and there's an abundance of workers, but it's nothing new.
- 2:13Speaker 1: The idea of of um kind of being paid as
- 2:18Speaker 1: an independent contractor working to fulfill a particular task and
- 2:22Speaker 1: just getting paid for the task, which is kind of
- 2:24Speaker 1: the basis of the gig economy. That's that's actually pretty
- 2:27Speaker 1: old from what I read prior to the Industrial Revolution.
- 2:31Speaker 1: That's basically how most people made a living unless you
- 2:35Speaker 1: were like a highly skilled crafts person, right like a brewer,
- 2:39Speaker 1: or a blacksmith or something like that, smithy smithy. Yeah,
- 2:44Speaker 1: I mean things really uh changed at a certain point
- 2:47Speaker 1: where it went from that too. You get a job
- 2:51Speaker 1: for a company, and you work for that company for
- 2:53Speaker 1: forty five years, and then you retire for that company, right,
- 2:57Speaker 1: and they take care of you in retirement and while
- 2:59Speaker 1: you're working for them, And that was that was really
- 3:03Speaker 1: how things went for for a long long time for
- 3:05Speaker 1: like our grandparents generation and even to a certain degree
- 3:08Speaker 1: our parents generation. And things really really changed again, and
- 3:13Speaker 1: now we kind of are back in this place where
- 3:16Speaker 1: you know, the gig economy can mean a lot of
- 3:17Speaker 1: things that can be um, I mean technically any freelancer,
- 3:22Speaker 1: like when I used to work as a film production
- 3:25Speaker 1: freelance U production assistant, Like, that's technically part of the
- 3:29Speaker 1: gig economy. Yeah, because you were paid for the gig.
- 3:33Speaker 1: You weren't like part of a company's You were in
- 3:36Speaker 1: a full time employee with a company, right. Yeah. But
- 3:39Speaker 1: like when I hear gig economy these days, and I
- 3:41Speaker 1: think most people associate the modern two thousand nineteen usage
- 3:48Speaker 1: of it, you kind of think of the tech industry
- 3:50Speaker 1: and you think of being a driver for a ride
- 3:54Speaker 1: share company or UH working or selling stuff on Etsy
- 3:59Speaker 1: or working for scrab it or something like that. Yeah,
- 4:01Speaker 1: I mean it's basically synonymous with with tech platforms that
- 4:05Speaker 1: connect people to consumers directly. That's kind of that's and
- 4:09Speaker 1: gig economy. I think that's a really good point when
- 4:12Speaker 1: you use the term gig economy, Yeah, that basically describes
- 4:15Speaker 1: this modern incarnation of it. But gig work, like you
- 4:18Speaker 1: were just saying, is is it's been around for a
- 4:21Speaker 1: very long time. And like remember all those temp services
- 4:24Speaker 1: like manpower and UM there was Okay, so that's that's
- 4:30Speaker 1: gig work too. Basically, if you're a dog walker and
- 4:34Speaker 1: you go put a sign on a UM street pole
- 4:39Speaker 1: or light a light pole at the corner, and you've
- 4:41Speaker 1: got like the little tearoffs for your phone numbers, that's
- 4:45Speaker 1: basically working in the gig economy. Now, if you took
- 4:48Speaker 1: that street pole with the little flyer that you made
- 4:52Speaker 1: and swapped it out for an app, that's that's basically
- 4:56Speaker 1: what we're living with right now. Yeah. So, UM, here's
- 5:00Speaker 1: a stat for you. There are all kinds of stats
- 5:03Speaker 1: for the gig economy, but here's one UM from UH
- 5:07Speaker 1: in two thousand five. The gig economy was about ten
- 5:13Speaker 1: of the U S workforce, and just ten years later
- 5:16Speaker 1: that had grown to about six and then just one
- 5:21Speaker 1: year later in two thousand sixteen, UM of Americans reported
- 5:27Speaker 1: earning some kind of money from what they called the
- 5:29Speaker 1: digital platform economy. And that's what we're talking about with
- 5:33Speaker 1: like ride share or Airbnb and task grab it and
- 5:36Speaker 1: stuff like that. So that's a lot of people, and
- 5:38Speaker 1: that's you know, we'll get into other sets later about
- 5:41Speaker 1: whether or not these are people that UM are doing
- 5:44Speaker 1: this little thing on the side, like I worked my
- 5:46Speaker 1: day job then a go drive for Uber at night
- 5:49Speaker 1: or uh. Basically, more and more people are doing this
- 5:53Speaker 1: as their full time job without the benefits of being
- 5:56Speaker 1: full time employees. And from the very spare um number
- 6:01Speaker 1: of studies that are actually like conducted on this gig
- 6:04Speaker 1: economy and the ramifications that holds UM those are the
- 6:08Speaker 1: people that people who work full time in gig economy jobs,
- 6:13Speaker 1: especially tech platform jobs, they they tend to be the
- 6:16Speaker 1: most vulnerable as far as workers go. Yeah, so there's
- 6:20Speaker 1: really a few, um, well, there's three parts to this.
- 6:24Speaker 1: There's the the platform companies that are I mean, it's
- 6:29Speaker 1: kind of funny, I guess it's genius in a way.
- 6:31Speaker 1: But all they're doing is connecting people. Yeah, they're they're
- 6:34Speaker 1: replacing those old like temp agencies and there, but you
- 6:38Speaker 1: don't have to go in and fill out stuff. You
- 6:40Speaker 1: just log on, create a profile and start. So that's
- 6:43Speaker 1: a that's one appealing part of it too. Yeah. So
- 6:46Speaker 1: what they do is they they're gonna draw that direct
- 6:49Speaker 1: line between you, between the consumer and the producers. So
- 6:53Speaker 1: they everyone who's ever done a rideshare knows you just
- 6:56Speaker 1: click on the little thing and you can pay through
- 6:59Speaker 1: the website and they get whatever percentage of money they get.
- 7:02Speaker 1: The hindy I think is no, no, no, the technology
- 7:08Speaker 1: platform gets money and obviously the gig worker gets money, right,
- 7:14Speaker 1: And all they're doing is facilitating that connection, right. But
- 7:17Speaker 1: they're also one of the things that that um, these
- 7:20Speaker 1: apps can do that is totally new and revolutionary is
- 7:24Speaker 1: that they can fulfill demand. They can connect supply and
- 7:27Speaker 1: demand in real time, like you know when you when
- 7:31Speaker 1: you hail like a ride app or hail a ride
- 7:35Speaker 1: through an app. I think is the way all the
- 7:37Speaker 1: millennial right, um, you you have you have just entered
- 7:43Speaker 1: like this world where you are saying I need to
- 7:46Speaker 1: ride right now, And they say, oh, we have a
- 7:47Speaker 1: car near you right now, let's send this person over
- 7:50Speaker 1: Like it's real time demand that's being fulfilled. Whereas if
- 7:53Speaker 1: it were just that that person who is in a
- 7:56Speaker 1: car and saying like I could use some extra scratch,
- 7:59Speaker 1: I want to take you some where, what are they
- 8:00Speaker 1: gonna do, like just drive down the sidewalk and be like,
- 8:02Speaker 1: do you need to ride somewhere right now? No? Okay,
- 8:04Speaker 1: do you need to ride? Think about how much time
- 8:07Speaker 1: that takes off of their plate. And that's really the
- 8:09Speaker 1: role that the platform UM performs is connecting consumers with producers. Yeah.
- 8:17Speaker 1: And as far as being a gig worker, UM, there
- 8:19Speaker 1: are a couple of big categories. It's either sort of
- 8:22Speaker 1: the UM if you don't necessarily have a college degree.
- 8:26Speaker 1: You might be on the lower income side of a
- 8:28Speaker 1: gig worker, which could be someone who delivers something to
- 8:31Speaker 1: your home or one of these services where you can
- 8:34Speaker 1: call a handyman to come over and do something like
- 8:36Speaker 1: cut weeds in your front yard, or it can be
- 8:39Speaker 1: on the very very high side. I got a list
- 8:41Speaker 1: of the the highest paying gig rates and the very
- 8:47Speaker 1: top one is uh, something you probably know a little
- 8:49Speaker 1: about about from your into the world research, but deep
- 8:53Speaker 1: learning jobs the a fifteen bucks an hour. Wow. Yeah,
- 8:59Speaker 1: what is that like consulting or something. I think it's
- 9:02Speaker 1: just any kind of AI specialization where you know, that's
- 9:06Speaker 1: the kind of rate you can command on an hourly basis. Yeah,
- 9:10Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Yeah. Blockchain was number two at eighty
- 9:13Speaker 1: seven bucks an hour, robotics seventy seven dollars an hour. Uh.
- 9:18Speaker 1: Number four was penetration testing jobs, which what is that?
- 9:25Speaker 1: Penetration testing jobs? Give me, give me your best guess.
- 9:28Speaker 1: I want to let's let's play a game like allowing
- 9:31Speaker 1: yourself to be punctured by stuff. A shot at and
- 9:34Speaker 1: they like that, that bullet works, that needles sharp. Give
- 9:37Speaker 1: me give me some money. No, it obviously sounds dirty,
- 9:40Speaker 1: but it's all it is. It's like security, to see
- 9:45Speaker 1: if your security can be penetrated. I got to, I
- 9:48Speaker 1: got to that makes sense that that would be a
- 9:50Speaker 1: cool gig. You just get hired on to to just
- 9:53Speaker 1: mess with somebody's cybersecurity. It's fine weaknesses, right, Yeah. But
- 9:57Speaker 1: then it goes all the way down to number ten,
- 9:59Speaker 1: which was Instagram marketing at thirty one bucks an hour. Wow. Wow,
- 10:04Speaker 1: that sounds made up, But wow, it sort of does.
- 10:07Speaker 1: But this is um, I mean, those are the highest
- 10:09Speaker 1: paying gigs. There was one film industry job in their
- 10:13Speaker 1: final cut pro editor thirty seven dollars an hour, So
- 10:17Speaker 1: those are on the high side. But um, I mean,
- 10:19Speaker 1: what what are these drivers making it? This is something
- 10:23Speaker 1: like twelve dollars an hour on average, that's the national
- 10:25Speaker 1: average after expenses, but before whatever taxes they need to pay. UM,
- 10:30Speaker 1: and they do need to pay taxes. This is a
- 10:32Speaker 1: hard lesson that UM. Some some gig workers are finding
- 10:36Speaker 1: is that like, this isn't like tax free money. Just
- 10:39Speaker 1: because the money is not so great doesn't mean there's
- 10:41Speaker 1: it's not tax free. Like you still have to pay
- 10:43Speaker 1: taxes on this. You still have to file like self
- 10:46Speaker 1: employment tax in some areas, some cities, some counties, some states.
- 10:51Speaker 1: You have to have a business license. There's a lot
- 10:53Speaker 1: of hidden costs that a lot of people don't know about.
- 10:56Speaker 1: And because as I was saying before, governments from the
- 10:59Speaker 1: local level up to the federal level have been so
- 11:02Speaker 1: slow to like pivot. I guess in Silicon Valley corporate
- 11:06Speaker 1: speak to this new reality of um of tech platform
- 11:11Speaker 1: apps that that the gig economy functions on um. There's
- 11:16Speaker 1: a lot of people out there who who just are
- 11:17Speaker 1: un licensed, who aren't paying taxes, and who hopefully will
- 11:20Speaker 1: never find out the hard way that they did, but
- 11:23Speaker 1: maybe find out the easy way like through us and
- 11:25Speaker 1: then start and don't have to pay anything for back
- 11:30Speaker 1: there are you know there's certain municipal municipalities and is
- 11:34Speaker 1: that right? Municipalities? Man, you nail municipalities. The only way
- 11:38Speaker 1: it could have been very chuck is if you've done
- 11:40Speaker 1: it with a horribly stereotypical Italian accent. Do it? Do it? No? No, no,
- 11:46Speaker 1: no no. Did you see that guy right in and
- 11:48Speaker 1: said I sound like a cartoon chef on TV? And
- 11:52Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well that's right. Yeah. I was like,
- 11:55Speaker 1: you didn't think I was trying to pull off a
- 11:56Speaker 1: real accident, right, Like that's what I'm going for. I
- 11:59Speaker 1: want of you to know what it sounded like to
- 12:01Speaker 1: hear chef boyer, do you know? Basically? So? Um. A
- 12:05Speaker 1: lot of counties now are getting involved though, because um,
- 12:09Speaker 1: well they say they want to help them transition into
- 12:12Speaker 1: the gig economy and learn to put away money to
- 12:14Speaker 1: pay taxes and stuff. What they're really probably doing is
- 12:17Speaker 1: making sure that they pay their taxes right. And and
- 12:19Speaker 1: it's not just counties that are getting into its. States
- 12:22Speaker 1: are the federal government's kind of but it's it looks
- 12:24Speaker 1: like it's starting to become a patchwork of state regulations.
- 12:27Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that UM in a minute. But first, Chuck,
- 12:30Speaker 1: why don't we take a break, let's do it. Uh So, UM,
- 12:54Speaker 1: we were saying that that there are the governments are
- 12:59Speaker 1: starting to it into this finally years on. Basically, I mean,
- 13:04Speaker 1: the gig economy itself is many many years old by now,
- 13:08Speaker 1: and they're just now starting to pass legislation. UM. But
- 13:12Speaker 1: not all of it is, you know, like on the
- 13:14Speaker 1: county level putting up educational posters saying, hey, you're a
- 13:18Speaker 1: small business, you need a license to do you know,
- 13:20Speaker 1: to drive for uber or whatever here. Um. It's not
- 13:24Speaker 1: just that. There's also a real, um frequently overlooked component
- 13:30Speaker 1: of the tech platforms that connect consumers and producers UM,
- 13:35Speaker 1: and that is that their profit margins are based largely
- 13:40Speaker 1: on getting around labor laws that have been established throughout
- 13:44Speaker 1: the twentieth century UM and that are just outdated. The
- 13:48Speaker 1: the the UM tech platforms, the apps that that connect people. Um,
- 13:53Speaker 1: we're built up around those laws, and they skirt the
- 13:56Speaker 1: law very plainly. I mean there have been court ruling
- 14:00Speaker 1: in UM, federal agency rulings to say, yeah, they're right,
- 14:03Speaker 1: Like these aren't employees, these are independent contractors. And so
- 14:06Speaker 1: they don't they don't get over time, they don't get
- 14:09Speaker 1: unpaid vade or they don't get paid vacation time. UM,
- 14:12Speaker 1: there's all this stuff. Health insurance is a big one.
- 14:16Speaker 1: So that's a huge chunk of revenue or of um
- 14:21Speaker 1: outlay that the companies who who like Uber or test
- 14:24Speaker 1: Grabit or whoever don't have to shell out. That means
- 14:26Speaker 1: that's profits more profits for them, and it's also something
- 14:30Speaker 1: that their competitors, like cab companies, say have to pay.
- 14:34Speaker 1: So it's a one way that the cab companies lose
- 14:36Speaker 1: against the ride hailing apps. But the people who are
- 14:40Speaker 1: out there still need health insurance, they still need healthcare,
- 14:44Speaker 1: they still need food, and so the the the companies
- 14:48Speaker 1: that make these platforms tend to kind of offload the
- 14:52Speaker 1: responsibility that used to be on the company's part onto
- 14:56Speaker 1: local governments. And so what local governments are trying to
- 14:59Speaker 1: figure out to say, like, well, with this influx of
- 15:01Speaker 1: gig economy workers saying like I need Medicare or I
- 15:06Speaker 1: need food stamps or something like that. How can we
- 15:08Speaker 1: deal with this? And there's been some a couple of
- 15:10Speaker 1: interesting proposals at least for how to get um the
- 15:15Speaker 1: companies to pay for benefits that companies traditionally have paid
- 15:19Speaker 1: for but in this new gig economy. Yeah, I thought
- 15:23Speaker 1: this one was really interesting. Portable benefits. So you know,
- 15:27Speaker 1: if you've ever changed jobs, or if you change jobs
- 15:30Speaker 1: a lot, like on a full time basis, you know
- 15:33Speaker 1: that it can be big pain to your benefits are
- 15:36Speaker 1: always changing. Sometimes they're better, sometimes they're worse, but they're
- 15:39Speaker 1: bound to be different, and that's just a hassle. The
- 15:43Speaker 1: idea of portable benefits basically that you own as an employee.
- 15:48Speaker 1: So when you go to a new job as a
- 15:51Speaker 1: gig worker, you take your employee your benefits with you
- 15:55Speaker 1: and basically just plug it into their system and say, well,
- 15:58Speaker 1: you are now going to contribute your your employer portion
- 16:02Speaker 1: to my portable benefits. Yeah. It's kind of like the
- 16:06Speaker 1: difference between a four oh one K and an IRA, right,
- 16:08Speaker 1: The IRA is yours no matter where you go. The
- 16:11Speaker 1: four one k is between you and your employer. Imagine
- 16:14Speaker 1: if all you ever had was an IRA, but your
- 16:17Speaker 1: employer paid into that, but it was for health benefits
- 16:20Speaker 1: rather than retirement, so it was always yours. But just
- 16:23Speaker 1: depending on who you worked for, part of what you
- 16:26Speaker 1: got paid was an additional premium that was a contribution
- 16:30Speaker 1: to your benefits, whether it's a retirement package or dental
- 16:33Speaker 1: or vision or health or whatever. And and it was
- 16:36Speaker 1: always you. It was associated with you the worker, but
- 16:39Speaker 1: everybody from each task paid into that. It's a great
- 16:43Speaker 1: idea and apparently it works too. Yeah, and I'm not
- 16:46Speaker 1: super sure this. The other idea ideas, uh, that of
- 16:50Speaker 1: a dependent contractor rather than an independent contractor. And that's
- 16:54Speaker 1: basically if you receive the majority of your income from
- 16:58Speaker 1: one company, um, then they need to do things like
- 17:01Speaker 1: pay your health or you know, contribute towards your health insurance.
- 17:05Speaker 1: What I don't get is what what's the difference between
- 17:07Speaker 1: that and being a full time employee. There's nothing. It's
- 17:09Speaker 1: basically just calling Uber out on its bs and saying
- 17:12Speaker 1: these are your employees, dude, without having to say, hey,
- 17:16Speaker 1: federal government, you guys need to revise the independent contractor
- 17:19Speaker 1: laws because this is different. These are states or local
- 17:22Speaker 1: governments saying you want to do business here. These people
- 17:25Speaker 1: are dependent contractors and you have to provide them with benefits. Sorry,
- 17:29Speaker 1: that's just the way it goes. And if you get
- 17:30Speaker 1: a big enough county or city or state and the
- 17:34Speaker 1: the app or the platform wants to do business there,
- 17:39Speaker 1: they will do this. And it stinks, and you have
- 17:41Speaker 1: to have different people who are experts in the different
- 17:43Speaker 1: states you're doing business in. But eventually, if enough different
- 17:48Speaker 1: states have slightly different laws that are all to the
- 17:50Speaker 1: same effect, companies like Uber are going to go to
- 17:53Speaker 1: the federal government be like, can you please pass a
- 17:55Speaker 1: law that says that we have to provide benefits for
- 17:57Speaker 1: these people? And maybe they're not the greatest benefit. It's
- 18:00Speaker 1: we don't want to give away the farm. But it
- 18:01Speaker 1: will be more cost effective for us to just have
- 18:05Speaker 1: one standard to adhere to nationwide than it will be
- 18:08Speaker 1: to have fifty different laws that we have to adhere
- 18:11Speaker 1: to nationwide. And how do they do that through lobbyists
- 18:15Speaker 1: paying tons of money? It's true, but in this case
- 18:18Speaker 1: it would benefit people, But it's it's a it's a
- 18:20Speaker 1: ground up push from the local and state government's basically
- 18:24Speaker 1: agitating for the federal government to take action. Yeah, I mean,
- 18:29Speaker 1: Uber certainly had a share of missteps along the way. Um,
- 18:34Speaker 1: and even if you cast those aside and not to
- 18:37Speaker 1: pick on them, let's just talk about any app based um,
- 18:41Speaker 1: gig economy or gig job or whatever. I guess gig
- 18:45Speaker 1: is all you need to say. Really, it's a mouthful,
- 18:48Speaker 1: and um, you can you can't help, but just picture
- 18:52Speaker 1: a back room boardroom in Silicon Valley with these dudes
- 18:58Speaker 1: just saying, like, you know, here's what we'll do. We'll
- 19:02Speaker 1: develop this app that connects people and we take a
- 19:04Speaker 1: cut and we're gonna have tens of thousands of drivers
- 19:08Speaker 1: all over the country working for us. And then the
- 19:11Speaker 1: other person goes, yeah, but man, that you know how
- 19:13Speaker 1: expensive that is with payroll and this and that and
- 19:16Speaker 1: and insurance everything. Oh no, no, no, the best part
- 19:18Speaker 1: is they're not employees, right, Like that was the very
- 19:23Speaker 1: first in the very first meeting. That was the big like,
- 19:27Speaker 1: oh I get it, And they all laughed. Oh, I'm
- 19:30Speaker 1: sure the room went breathless. Yeah, like that's it was
- 19:33Speaker 1: literally world changing. I mean, like that's the state of
- 19:36Speaker 1: affairs now. And yeah, it had to start somewhere. I'm
- 19:39Speaker 1: not sure where it started, but it started somewhere. But
- 19:41Speaker 1: like you said earlier, that is the I mean, and
- 19:43Speaker 1: they've proven it with with financials. We're not just saying
- 19:45Speaker 1: the stuff they that is the reason they are profitable
- 19:49Speaker 1: is because they're not having to pay this dough and unfortunately,
- 19:53Speaker 1: it's also the reason why people who rely on gig
- 19:57Speaker 1: work full time to make ends meet, and who are
- 20:00Speaker 1: not who don't have any kind of uh higher education
- 20:04Speaker 1: and are not skilled workers. That's why they are increasingly
- 20:09Speaker 1: turning to um taxpayer funded public assistance for things like
- 20:13Speaker 1: healthcare and food and basically making the ends meet. Because
- 20:17Speaker 1: from like I said, the few studies that there are
- 20:19Speaker 1: out there, what they're finding is that there's a segment
- 20:23Speaker 1: of people who work in the gig economy who are
- 20:25Speaker 1: who cannot make ends meet with gig work. And it's
- 20:30Speaker 1: not just to pick on the platforms and the apps
- 20:34Speaker 1: that make up the backbone of the gig economy, because
- 20:37Speaker 1: it says a lot that if there are people in
- 20:38Speaker 1: the vast majority of people who do gig work I
- 20:40Speaker 1: think you said earlier, they don't work full time. They
- 20:43Speaker 1: do it to supplement income, but they're not supplementing income.
- 20:46Speaker 1: I saw somewhere, um somebody said they're not supplementing income
- 20:50Speaker 1: to to save up to go to Hawaii. They're doing
- 20:52Speaker 1: it to buy medicine and food and pay utility bills.
- 20:55Speaker 1: So that actually says a lot about the state of
- 20:57Speaker 1: work in general, not just gig work. Because if you
- 21:01Speaker 1: have a regular job, whether it's part time or full time,
- 21:04Speaker 1: and you have to have a side hustle, which by
- 21:07Speaker 1: the way, is a term that's been around since nineteen fifty,
- 21:09Speaker 1: I saw, Yeah, you there's there's a problem with work
- 21:14Speaker 1: in general, you know what I'm saying, where you cannot
- 21:16Speaker 1: make ends meet just with your regular full time job
- 21:19Speaker 1: or even a couple of part time jobs, so you
- 21:20Speaker 1: have to do gig work too. But the people who
- 21:23Speaker 1: just do gig work, those are the people who are
- 21:25Speaker 1: the most vulnerable, and they usually if you're a driver,
- 21:29Speaker 1: you make about eleven ninety that's the national average. Yeah,
- 21:33Speaker 1: here's some stats for you. The Federal Reserve did a
- 21:35Speaker 1: report and from two thousand eighteen, fifty eight percent of
- 21:40Speaker 1: full time gig workers UH said they would have a
- 21:43Speaker 1: hard time coming up with a four hundred dollar emergency bill,
- 21:48Speaker 1: like if they had to go to hospital and pay
- 21:49Speaker 1: four hundred bucks. They couldn't cover that, nearly sixty of them. Yeah,
- 21:53Speaker 1: and that's compared to thirty eight percent of people and
- 21:56Speaker 1: just the regular economy, not the gig economy. Uh. And
- 22:00Speaker 1: they did surveys that said five percent of people said
- 22:05Speaker 1: that gig working. This out of eleven thousand people who
- 22:08Speaker 1: did gig work at all, five percent of them said
- 22:10Speaker 1: it was their main source of income, which is a
- 22:14Speaker 1: pretty small amount, but that's that's growing. I think between
- 22:17Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen and two thousand twenty one, they're projecting
- 22:20Speaker 1: it to grow from like three point two million people
- 22:23Speaker 1: too close to ten million people like working gig economy jobs.
- 22:27Speaker 1: I saw somewhere sixty million. Fast Company predicted something like
- 22:31Speaker 1: sixty million Americans are going to be working in the
- 22:34Speaker 1: gig economy um by, which was far and away the
- 22:38Speaker 1: highest number I saw. Yeah, man, that's crazy, But yeah,
- 22:42Speaker 1: I got another stat for you I saw. I think
- 22:44Speaker 1: in barrens I believe it's barrens um the gig economy.
- 22:49Speaker 1: Gig work accounted for ninety four percent of net employment
- 22:54Speaker 1: growth between two thousand five and two thousand fifteen, So
- 22:57Speaker 1: that means that all the new jobs that came in
- 22:59Speaker 1: and all the old jobs that went away. Of the
- 23:04Speaker 1: jobs that that accounted for the growth of work in
- 23:08Speaker 1: America were gig work. That's astounding. Yeah, I mean I
- 23:15Speaker 1: feel like every time I go to publics, of the
- 23:18Speaker 1: people in there are shopping for other people. Yeah. Yeah,
- 23:22Speaker 1: for sure, you can tell by their T shirts. Yeah,
- 23:24Speaker 1: they wear the shirts. And uh, Emily has done that
- 23:27Speaker 1: a couple of times, you know, a bit too busy
- 23:29Speaker 1: working parents. She's, um, I can't remember the service that
- 23:32Speaker 1: we use, but uh, I don't like it because I
- 23:35Speaker 1: like to chop for my own stuff. I don't want
- 23:38Speaker 1: people picking out my food. Yeah, when they bring the
- 23:40Speaker 1: bag you hold up an orange, You're like, did you
- 23:42Speaker 1: touch this? It's not even that, it's just you know,
- 23:44Speaker 1: you want to pick out your own stuff. Yeah, I'm
- 23:47Speaker 1: just season. I like running errands myself too. Um, and
- 23:51Speaker 1: it's it feels like it's never right too. They'll be like, oh,
- 23:53Speaker 1: well I couldn't find the thing, so I got this.
- 23:57Speaker 1: That's not what I asked for. I saw m quest
- 24:00Speaker 1: love like hadn't had peanut butter, Captain Crunch and like forever,
- 24:05Speaker 1: and he posted something I think on Instagram where he
- 24:08Speaker 1: ordered um some from like task grab it or something,
- 24:11Speaker 1: and the guy brought him a regular Captain crunch and
- 24:14Speaker 1: a jar of peanut butter. He threw it down the
- 24:18Speaker 1: hall of his hotel, which I thought was a little much,
- 24:21Speaker 1: but it was a pretty good ending to the slade.
- 24:23Speaker 1: It might be pretty good though, um I I did. Uh.
- 24:27Speaker 1: I had a very something, very heavy to move in
- 24:31Speaker 1: my home recently that was just sitting there because I
- 24:33Speaker 1: couldn't get a friend over and I had never heard
- 24:35Speaker 1: of task grab it and someone said you should try
- 24:38Speaker 1: task grab it and I did look up and I
- 24:39Speaker 1: was like, you could you get a young strong man
- 24:42Speaker 1: to come over and lift something heavy for you and
- 24:45Speaker 1: like an hour's notice? And I was like, man, I
- 24:48Speaker 1: feel like I should probably just get this done. And
- 24:50Speaker 1: I got distracted and didn't do it, and uh was
- 24:53Speaker 1: able to get friends over. But I didn't even know
- 24:56Speaker 1: it existed and that you could get that kind of work.
- 24:59Speaker 1: I yeah, I think task grabby you can do about anything.
- 25:02Speaker 1: And there's there's something in the UK. There's a site
- 25:05Speaker 1: called five er if I v R. I think I've
- 25:08Speaker 1: heard of that. I think and like every like all
- 25:10Speaker 1: tasks on it are for five bucks or like, whatever
- 25:13Speaker 1: you want the person to do, they'll either do it
- 25:15Speaker 1: or won't do it, but the price you pay is
- 25:16Speaker 1: five bucks. So it's like small, quick, easy tasks. What's
- 25:22Speaker 1: worth five dollars? Um, Like go get my mail, see
- 25:27Speaker 1: if see if this needle is sharp. I want to
- 25:29Speaker 1: do a puncture test on you. Back to that one again. Huh.
- 25:33Speaker 1: I guess we should mention the strike that happened earlier
- 25:36Speaker 1: this month. Uh, we're recording this in May two th nineteen. Um,
- 25:41Speaker 1: just very recently, there was there were thousands of Uber
- 25:44Speaker 1: and Lyft drivers who went on strike. Um, not just
- 25:47Speaker 1: in May, but kind of all year long. This has
- 25:49Speaker 1: sort of been brewing, I think, and uh it's it um.
- 25:56Speaker 1: Uber stock prices down for one dude by two. They
- 26:00Speaker 1: started out with a hundred and twenty billion dollar valuation
- 26:04Speaker 1: and ended up at the end of the day I
- 26:06Speaker 1: think at forty billion. Yeah, And that's where this whole
- 26:09Speaker 1: idea of like is it exploitation um, like, because I
- 26:14Speaker 1: mean the courts have roundly kind of said, like, no,
- 26:16Speaker 1: you can't unionize, you're not employees, right, and these are
- 26:20Speaker 1: in some of the most liberal courts in the land, right,
- 26:22Speaker 1: you're independent contractors, so you don't get over time, you
- 26:25Speaker 1: can't you can't unionize. There's all sorts of stuff that
- 26:28Speaker 1: you just can't do because you're an independent contractor UM,
- 26:31Speaker 1: and that's that's slowly starting to change. Yeah, But the
- 26:36Speaker 1: whole idea of this strike was is there're basically saying
- 26:39Speaker 1: you have intentionally misclassified us as non employees. And I'm
- 26:44Speaker 1: sure they're like, yeah, that that's exactly right right there,
- 26:49Speaker 1: Like was that I think that's like in our terms
- 26:51Speaker 1: of use that we intentionally missclassify you. Well, they probably
- 26:55Speaker 1: say we have intentionally classified you as what you are,
- 26:58Speaker 1: which is a non employee. But the drivers are saying
- 27:01Speaker 1: they're misclassified obviously, right, So there's a big lawsuit. UM.
- 27:05Speaker 1: A few hundred thousand Uber drivers sued Uber and they
- 27:09Speaker 1: very recently settled, I think in March, with like thirteen thousand,
- 27:13Speaker 1: six hundred of them, and they were given twenty million
- 27:16Speaker 1: dollars to split between them, which sounds like a lot,
- 27:18Speaker 1: but it's actually like less than a driver for basically
- 27:22Speaker 1: saying we we have been under paying you. The other
- 27:26Speaker 1: like three hundred something thousand drivers didn't get squat because
- 27:30Speaker 1: they all signed a UM an arbitration clause in their agreement,
- 27:36Speaker 1: which you should never sign if you have any saying
- 27:39Speaker 1: it whatsoever, because it basically says I can't sue and
- 27:42Speaker 1: any time I have a problem with you, we will
- 27:45Speaker 1: go to a mediator who you pay to decide whether
- 27:49Speaker 1: my claim has any value or not. So it's a terrible,
- 27:53Speaker 1: terrible thing to sign. But on top of that, if
- 27:57Speaker 1: you are a full time gig economy worker, you basically
- 28:01Speaker 1: don't have a choice, and the company you're working with
- 28:04Speaker 1: as an independent contractor knows that. So there's almost certainly
- 28:07Speaker 1: going to be an arbitration clause. But that's a really
- 28:09Speaker 1: good example of what happens when you signed an arbitration clause.
- 28:12Speaker 1: You lose out on the settlement because you said that
- 28:14Speaker 1: you are waiving your right to a trial right And
- 28:18Speaker 1: aside from stuff like health insurance, the drivers are angry
- 28:21Speaker 1: because Uber and major cities has been cutting driver pay
- 28:25Speaker 1: rates because they're trying to get their bottom line down
- 28:28Speaker 1: and say, hey, look, everyone, look at our bottom line.
- 28:31Speaker 1: How attractive is this? So, like I was saying, this
- 28:34Speaker 1: is slowly starting to change thanks to regulation, and um,
- 28:38Speaker 1: we'll talk a little more about that after this break
- 29:02Speaker 1: so Chuck Um New York really kind of changed things
- 29:05Speaker 1: recently that that one study or a study, I don't
- 29:08Speaker 1: know if we talked about it yet. The study with
- 29:10Speaker 1: eleven thousand people was conducted by the FED. There's another
- 29:14Speaker 1: study conducted by I think you see Berkeley in the
- 29:17Speaker 1: New School, and they basically found, like most I think
- 29:24Speaker 1: of drivers driving for ride hailing apps in New York City,
- 29:29Speaker 1: not just Uber, but all of them, um, especially the
- 29:32Speaker 1: Big four via Juno Lift in Uber, UM, fifty percent
- 29:38Speaker 1: of them work full time, so they're basically independent cab
- 29:41Speaker 1: drivers who are not licensed cabbies. UM fifty I believe
- 29:47Speaker 1: have families that they're supporting with that they're working for.
- 29:52Speaker 1: About eleven and of them qualified for Medicaid and eighteen
- 29:57Speaker 1: percent qualified for foods amps. Yeah, and this was shocking
- 30:02Speaker 1: enough to the city government of New York that they
- 30:05Speaker 1: passed the country's first and maybe the world's first as
- 30:08Speaker 1: far as I know, minimum wage law for ride hailing
- 30:12Speaker 1: app independent contractors. And it's actually more than the minimum
- 30:16Speaker 1: wage for New York in general. Yeah. I mean, basically,
- 30:21Speaker 1: the New York came out and said, first of all, Ubert,
- 30:23Speaker 1: they could fix this if they just had a very
- 30:27Speaker 1: small fair adjustment that passengers would probably not care about.
- 30:32Speaker 1: Then they could pay them fairly and increase driver pay.
- 30:35Speaker 1: But since they're not gonna do that, we're gonna step in.
- 30:38Speaker 1: And I believe it was was that this past January, uh,
- 30:42Speaker 1: they were required to start paying drivers um after expenses
- 30:46Speaker 1: about seventeen dollars and twenty two cents an hour, which
- 30:49Speaker 1: is about five dollars more per hour than the previous
- 30:53Speaker 1: almost twelve dollars per hour average. Right, So that's a
- 30:57Speaker 1: big deal. And I mean that's that's that was a
- 30:59Speaker 1: huge um win for the independent contractors who work for
- 31:03Speaker 1: ride hailing apps, at least in New York. But also
- 31:06Speaker 1: it's set a precedent across the country basically saying like, yes,
- 31:09Speaker 1: if you are big enough town, you have the clout
- 31:12Speaker 1: to to look out for these these workers who are
- 31:16Speaker 1: being exploited by the tech platforms that they're partnering with
- 31:20Speaker 1: as independent contractors. Yeah. And actually today, as as we
- 31:24Speaker 1: record this, the State Assembly in California past legislation that
- 31:29Speaker 1: required employers to recognize gig workers as employees UM with
- 31:35Speaker 1: sort of what they call the dynamics. It's a uh,
- 31:38Speaker 1: the California State Supreme Court said in May uh um
- 31:43Speaker 1: that this three part test, called the dynamics, would be
- 31:46Speaker 1: used to determine if contractors qualify as employees so to
- 31:50Speaker 1: be exempt um from labor requirements. An employer would be
- 31:54Speaker 1: required to prove that one it's workers have complete control
- 31:59Speaker 1: over how services are provided. So in other words, Uber
- 32:04Speaker 1: can't give a minimum amount of hours that you have
- 32:06Speaker 1: to work or so you have to drive every Tuesday
- 32:09Speaker 1: or whatever. I'm not sure, you know if they even
- 32:11Speaker 1: do that, but no, I don't think they do. And
- 32:13Speaker 1: I think that's part of their argument why they're not employers,
- 32:16Speaker 1: because the workers sets their own schedule, all right. And
- 32:20Speaker 1: number two, uh, the services provided are not related to
- 32:24Speaker 1: the employer's main business. So that's a big one because
- 32:29Speaker 1: that rules out all the I mean, all the ride
- 32:33Speaker 1: chairs unless they say that their main business is app development, right, Yeah,
- 32:40Speaker 1: that is I'm not sure if that's a loophole. Yeah,
- 32:42Speaker 1: I don't know about that one either. And then number three,
- 32:45Speaker 1: the worker is engaged in an independently established role. So
- 32:50Speaker 1: this is a big deal because other states, you know,
- 32:54Speaker 1: a lot of states look to California because this is
- 32:56Speaker 1: where a lot of the gig economy, the modern gig
- 32:59Speaker 1: economy was born, and um, and this is sort of
- 33:03Speaker 1: the first, the first big California legislation that's that's gone
- 33:08Speaker 1: down the road. Yeah, now that is a big deal
- 33:10Speaker 1: because it's like that's their home court making laws against them.
- 33:14Speaker 1: So that definitely kind of indicates like a turning tide.
- 33:18Speaker 1: And again, it's not just like government's looking out for
- 33:21Speaker 1: their citizens, although I'm sure that's part of it, but
- 33:24Speaker 1: it's also government's looking out for their own bottom line
- 33:27Speaker 1: because those citizens are having to comme and say I
- 33:29Speaker 1: need healthcare. Again, it's really important, frequently overlooked point. But
- 33:35Speaker 1: despite all that, and I mean you said it's it's
- 33:37Speaker 1: easy to pick on Uber. They're kind of a model
- 33:39Speaker 1: for this this kind of thing, but they're certainly not
- 33:42Speaker 1: the only ones. But it also, Um, when you just
- 33:47Speaker 1: focus on that, you miss out on the other aspect
- 33:49Speaker 1: of the gig economy, which is that it's a double
- 33:52Speaker 1: edged sword. For some people, uh, freelancing gig economy has
- 33:58Speaker 1: allowed them to basically pursue their dreams and become quite
- 34:02Speaker 1: successful at doing what they want to do on their
- 34:05Speaker 1: own terms, on their own schedule, And there are um,
- 34:10Speaker 1: supposedly a pretty decent amount of people out there who
- 34:13Speaker 1: are doing it that way, but usually they're highly educated
- 34:17Speaker 1: and they work in UM a craft or an artistic
- 34:22Speaker 1: or UM kind of elite field, specialized field like AI
- 34:27Speaker 1: or robotics, sure or UM. If you are a consultant
- 34:32Speaker 1: of some sort and especially very specialized consultant, you don't
- 34:36Speaker 1: have to spend the time and money going out and
- 34:39Speaker 1: drumming up business for yourself. You can go to platforms
- 34:42Speaker 1: like up work UM and find people who are looking
- 34:45Speaker 1: for the stuff that you do way easier than before.
- 34:48Speaker 1: And that's a huge benefit of this gig economy. It's
- 34:51Speaker 1: become way easier to find work, whether it's UM, you know,
- 34:55Speaker 1: driving for a rideheiling app or being a marketing consultant
- 35:00Speaker 1: you know, like you it's from from top to bottom.
- 35:02Speaker 1: It's easier to find work than ever. Yeah, but it's
- 35:06Speaker 1: also UM like the people are in these situations a
- 35:11Speaker 1: lot of times because they were unable to find the
- 35:14Speaker 1: job that they wanted on a full time basis. Uh is.
- 35:18Speaker 1: It is a very tough nut to crack because even
- 35:21Speaker 1: in ride shares, when you get in a car, nine
- 35:24Speaker 1: times out of ten, my driver is very happy doing
- 35:27Speaker 1: what they do. And they always say uh pretty roundly
- 35:31Speaker 1: like yeah, it's great man, it's at my own hours.
- 35:33Speaker 1: And I mean it sounds like I don't know if
- 35:34Speaker 1: they're encouraged to say these things, but it sounds like
- 35:38Speaker 1: an ad for when you sign up, you know, because
- 35:40Speaker 1: they kind of pair it exactly the things that that
- 35:43Speaker 1: they try and entice you with, which is your your
- 35:45Speaker 1: own boss and you set your own hours, you only
- 35:48Speaker 1: drive when you want to. But that is the deal, um,
- 35:51Speaker 1: And no one's forcing them to go do this, and
- 35:54Speaker 1: they you are putting money in their pocket. Um. I
- 35:58Speaker 1: mean I always tip super big. That's that's I think
- 36:00Speaker 1: the only thing within your control or not use these
- 36:04Speaker 1: apps at all if you think they're evil, right, which
- 36:07Speaker 1: is another another way to look at it, for sure.
- 36:10Speaker 1: But then all of a sudden, you know, there's a
- 36:11Speaker 1: lot of people that depend on that money that are
- 36:13Speaker 1: being heard. It's it's tough, right, No, it is for sure.
- 36:16Speaker 1: Like that is another thing about the gig economy too,
- 36:18Speaker 1: as you can say like, well, I mean you're having
- 36:20Speaker 1: trouble making ends meet, I get to like hire you
- 36:24Speaker 1: and like have an impact on you being able to
- 36:27Speaker 1: make ends meet. Um, or it's just it's such a
- 36:32Speaker 1: first world thing to be like, oh, forget all all
- 36:36Speaker 1: you know, platforms and apps because they exploit workers. Well,
- 36:38Speaker 1: they also help people make money where they otherwise couldn't,
- 36:43Speaker 1: So there's it is very much a double edged sort.
- 36:45Speaker 1: There's definitely exploitation, but there's also certainly an uplift of
- 36:49Speaker 1: the middle class that wasn't happening before. There's also been
- 36:53Speaker 1: an uptick in uh New York taxi driver suicides really yeah,
- 36:59Speaker 1: that have um long been blamed on rideshare because it's
- 37:02Speaker 1: put such a dent in taxicab incomes driver incomes. So
- 37:07Speaker 1: I looked into that a little bit and then found
- 37:10Speaker 1: out this whole other world about you know, the whole
- 37:13Speaker 1: deal with the taxi medallions. Yeah, like people buy the
- 37:16Speaker 1: medallions as like an investment and then they like lease
- 37:19Speaker 1: out the license to cabbies. Right. Yeah, we need to
- 37:22Speaker 1: do a full show on that because it is way
- 37:24Speaker 1: more involved than I thought, And I was going to
- 37:26Speaker 1: talk about it some here, but it deserves its own episode.
- 37:30Speaker 1: But they're saying that that is a big part of
- 37:32Speaker 1: the problem for the suicide rate as well. It's sort
- 37:35Speaker 1: of both of those things contributing. Right, so taxi medallions.
- 37:39Speaker 1: Look look for that one. Okay, that's a that's a deal.
- 37:42Speaker 1: There's a two other things in New York that I
- 37:44Speaker 1: want to point out, actually two other UM platforms to
- 37:48Speaker 1: other things you want to point out. The departure date
- 37:50Speaker 1: buildings very nice. Right, that's one UM and take your
- 37:54Speaker 1: ride on the subway. Right. There's a cleaning service called
- 37:58Speaker 1: my Clean. That's get an app where they started out
- 38:03Speaker 1: with UM as with like the normal Silicon Valley model
- 38:07Speaker 1: where they just have independent contractors, and they actually converted
- 38:11Speaker 1: and started hiring their contractors on as employees. And there's
- 38:15Speaker 1: another one called Hello Alfred, which is kind of like
- 38:18Speaker 1: a personal assistant, a team of personal assistance that you
- 38:21Speaker 1: can basically involve in your life as much as little
- 38:25Speaker 1: as you want. Hello Alfred. It's just in New York
- 38:28Speaker 1: and it's only in certain buildings in New York from
- 38:30Speaker 1: what I can tell. But they'll do everything from like
- 38:33Speaker 1: keep your plant alive, to walk your dog, to do
- 38:35Speaker 1: your grocery shopping, to pick out clothes for you, UM,
- 38:38Speaker 1: to have your shoes repaired, whatever, just basically keeping your
- 38:42Speaker 1: life in order for you. But because UM they try
- 38:46Speaker 1: to anticipate the things their customers need. They realize that
- 38:50Speaker 1: they need employees. They need people they can't have turnover
- 38:54Speaker 1: and frequent training and introducing their customers and new people
- 38:57Speaker 1: they need, like people who are going to be there
- 38:59Speaker 1: for long haul. So they started out having employees too,
- 39:03Speaker 1: And that really kind of underscores a big reason why
- 39:07Speaker 1: UM having a full time employment is preferable to gig employment,
- 39:13Speaker 1: and especially if you're a company, because there's less turnover,
- 39:17Speaker 1: there's less training, training involved, and usually the worker is
- 39:22Speaker 1: a lot happier when they have a steady, full time
- 39:25Speaker 1: gig and then that's their only job and they get
- 39:28Speaker 1: two weeks paid vacation every year or more if you're
- 39:31Speaker 1: in Europe UM and that has a benefit for the
- 39:36Speaker 1: company because that's the person who's communicating with the public
- 39:40Speaker 1: or making the stuff, and they don't hate their life
- 39:42Speaker 1: for their job, so they're they're they're just producing better too,
- 39:46Speaker 1: if you want to look at like the ickiest economic terms.
- 39:51Speaker 1: Yeah that's interesting, I thought so too, Alfred. Yeah, I
- 39:56Speaker 1: think he just became their spokesman. You got anything else?
- 40:00Speaker 1: Uh No, I don't know. There. I do have one
- 40:03Speaker 1: more thing, Chuck, you ready, h This whole like puer
- 40:06Speaker 1: to peer platform thing. Reminded me we have a Kiva team,
- 40:10Speaker 1: and I went and checked on it that just the
- 40:12Speaker 1: other day. So you saw what like the big number
- 40:15Speaker 1: we're plashing on on total donations. I think you should
- 40:18Speaker 1: take this one. Well, you had the most recent number.
- 40:20Speaker 1: It was close to six million the other day. Yep. Still,
- 40:23Speaker 1: is this really really creeping up on six million dollars
- 40:27Speaker 1: total loans loaned out? Dude that it had been a
- 40:30Speaker 1: while too. That's so funny. We both had that same thought,
- 40:33Speaker 1: um man, that that's really something else. Yep. So congratulations
- 40:38Speaker 1: to the stuff you should know Kiva team. There are
- 40:40Speaker 1: people joining. I saw people joined yesterday, so there's it's
- 40:44Speaker 1: wide open if you want to learn more about it
- 40:46Speaker 1: to search Kiva, k I v A and stuff you
- 40:49Speaker 1: should know. And not only were our Kiva page come up,
- 40:52Speaker 1: but some blog posts we wrote about it in the
- 40:54Speaker 1: past come up to which is hilarious and quaint. All right, Well,
- 40:58Speaker 1: since I said quaint, Chuck, it's time I think for
- 41:00Speaker 1: listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call this Tin pan
- 41:05Speaker 1: Alley follow up. I enjoyed that episode. Hey guys, if
- 41:09Speaker 1: you asked me what tin pan Alley was. Prior to
- 41:11Speaker 1: listening to this episode, I would have said somewhere in
- 41:13Speaker 1: New York where music started to be popular. And that's
- 41:16Speaker 1: about all I can tell you. And guys, I graduated
- 41:20Speaker 1: with a Bachelor of Music and Music Education. What it's
- 41:23Speaker 1: not that I'm so far out of college either that
- 41:25Speaker 1: I don't remember music history. I'm only twenty five and
- 41:28Speaker 1: I'm finishing up my third year teaching orchestra. At fourth, fifth,
- 41:31Speaker 1: and sixth graders didn't even really know much about Tin Pan.
- 41:34Speaker 1: All I know the last semester of music history in
- 41:36Speaker 1: college had to cover late Romantic to present day, which
- 41:39Speaker 1: is over a century worth of music. Uh. This was
- 41:42Speaker 1: so much more interesting than the one slide in music
- 41:46Speaker 1: history class. At eight am. I am one of many
- 41:50Speaker 1: listeners sitting in the d C Metro traffic. So thank
- 41:53Speaker 1: you for teaching me new things every day. And that
- 41:55Speaker 1: is from Consuelo Civilia, not severe No, it's she wrote
- 42:03Speaker 1: back even two els. Yeah, yeah, she said, this is
- 42:07Speaker 1: the Filipino pronunciation, not the Spanish. Gotcha, So thank you, Consuelo. Yeah,
- 42:12Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Kensuelo. Glad to know we are rounding
- 42:14Speaker 1: out your education even after you graduated. Yeah, well, it's
- 42:18Speaker 1: kind of the purpose of the show, isn't it. I
- 42:21Speaker 1: think so. Well, if you want to let us know
- 42:23Speaker 1: what you think. The purpose of Stuff you Should Know is.
- 42:26Speaker 1: We're amorphous in wide open, so let us have it.
- 42:29Speaker 1: You can go to stuff you Should Know dot com
- 42:31Speaker 1: and check out our social links, or you can send
- 42:34Speaker 1: us a good old fashioned email, wrap it up, spank
- 42:36Speaker 1: it on the bottom, and send it off to stuff
- 42:38Speaker 1: Podcasts at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
- 42:45Speaker 1: Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
- 42:47Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio is at the
- 42:49Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
- 42:52Speaker 1: your favorite shows.