Latest / Trumponomics / 40: How to Earn $250/Hour in the Gig Economy

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40: How to Earn $250/Hour in the Gig Economy · Trumponomics

0:00
Speaker 1: Did you say you were unemployed for a little bit. Yes,
0:02
Speaker 1: I quit the job where I would call around to
0:05
Speaker 1: medical offices. I just hated it so much. I just
0:07
Speaker 1: couldn't send it anymore. Yeah, like I didn't have a plan.
0:10
Speaker 1: I just said goodbye and no two week notice, just goodbye.
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm not proud of that, but actually I'm kind of
0:15
Speaker 1: proud of that. Um. Hello, and welcome back to Bloomberg Benchmark,
0:26
Speaker 1: a podcast about the global economy. It's Thursday, May second.
0:30
Speaker 1: I'm Ako Bloomberg, joining from San Francisco. Tori today is
0:34
Speaker 1: on our way to Korea in China right now to
0:36
Speaker 1: chase after Treasury Secretary Jack lou and Dan is on vacation.
0:41
Speaker 1: But I'm joined by a very special co host, Slea
0:44
Speaker 1: Molson who's joining us from d C. Hey, Selea, Hi hockey. Hey.
0:49
Speaker 1: So our longtime loyal listeners might remember you, Selea from
0:53
Speaker 1: an episode we did back a few months ago about
0:56
Speaker 1: how Norway is just this incredible place for women, how
0:58
Speaker 1: it's gone further than any other country in the world
1:01
Speaker 1: when it comes to gender equality, and back when we
1:04
Speaker 1: recorded that show, you were living in Oslo. You are
1:07
Speaker 1: our economics correspondent there. Since then, you've decided to leave
1:12
Speaker 1: that perfect utopia and come back to the States to
1:15
Speaker 1: be our Treasury Department reporter. Celeia. How's it been back
1:19
Speaker 1: in the States so far? It's been really great, Ockey,
1:21
Speaker 1: It's nice to be back home. Although I do have
1:24
Speaker 1: to say that the US has changed a lot in
1:26
Speaker 1: the eight years that I was away. Today's topic is
1:29
Speaker 1: something that was unheard of back in two thousand eight. Oh, awesome.
1:33
Speaker 1: Do you think it's changed for the better for the worst.
1:36
Speaker 1: I think we'll know the answer to that at the
1:38
Speaker 1: end of this year. Awesome, we'll welcome back today we're
1:42
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about a whole new way of working,
1:45
Speaker 1: not just in the US, but across the world, in
1:48
Speaker 1: what's known as the gig economy. So, you know, you
1:51
Speaker 1: might be a driver for Uber, you might tutor on
1:53
Speaker 1: task Rabbit, maybe you'll be a web developer on up work,
1:57
Speaker 1: And basically the Internet has just made it so much
2:00
Speaker 1: easier to connect employers with contractors um without kind of
2:04
Speaker 1: this forty hours a week, going to the office every day,
2:07
Speaker 1: slowly build up your four one K thing that solea
2:10
Speaker 1: you and I do kind of the vestige of the
2:12
Speaker 1: old economy. Yeah, and I've got some stats for you.
2:16
Speaker 1: But the first thing to point out is that there's
2:18
Speaker 1: really no established metrics to count independent workers. So the
2:22
Speaker 1: size of the gig economy and its impact is actually
2:26
Speaker 1: hard to measure. There's not a lot of data on
2:29
Speaker 1: things such as how people combine jobs in the gig
2:32
Speaker 1: economy with traditional ones, or even how they view their
2:36
Speaker 1: own participation in things like task Rabbit and Uber. So
2:39
Speaker 1: do they see it as a hobby, is a full
2:41
Speaker 1: time or just an extra source of income before they
2:43
Speaker 1: go on vacation or before Christmas. So with that in mind,
2:47
Speaker 1: I've got some wildly different figures to throw at you.
2:50
Speaker 1: So calculations from data from Uber show that those participating
2:56
Speaker 1: in the gig economy make up just zero point four
2:59
Speaker 1: percent of the labor force, which is about six hundred
3:02
Speaker 1: thousand people. But of course it all depends on how
3:05
Speaker 1: you define these workers. So research that was sponsored by
3:08
Speaker 1: up Works and Freelancers Union shows that about fifty four
3:11
Speaker 1: million Americans have done freelance work in the last year.
3:16
Speaker 1: So those are two very different measures of what we're
3:19
Speaker 1: talking about, and that that latter number that includes like
3:22
Speaker 1: traditional freelancers to right, um, you know, I think with
3:26
Speaker 1: all new things, it's really difficult to measure. Uh, this
3:29
Speaker 1: is a brave new world. I think both its benefits
3:32
Speaker 1: and its drawbacks are really interesting. Here, so we decided
3:36
Speaker 1: to invite a freelancer to join us and give us
3:40
Speaker 1: a peek into his everyday life. Danny Margalis is joining
3:44
Speaker 1: us here in our San Francisco studio. Danny, how's it
3:47
Speaker 1: going good? Thanks, It's great to be here. Danny tell
3:50
Speaker 1: us what you do? So? I am a freelancer. I
3:54
Speaker 1: started out on up work uh in two thousand and twelve.
3:58
Speaker 1: I had never heard a freelancer before. H it seemed
4:01
Speaker 1: like a cool thing to do, and uh, so I
4:04
Speaker 1: just started applying to some jobs and then I ended
4:06
Speaker 1: up building a career out of this. So today I'm
4:09
Speaker 1: a freelance copywriter, and I've also started my own website
4:13
Speaker 1: and my own business, so I'm a client as well. Now,
4:16
Speaker 1: Danny tell us what up work is for our listeners
4:19
Speaker 1: who have never heard it before. Yeah, up work is
4:21
Speaker 1: a platform where a freelancer, you know, whether you're a
4:26
Speaker 1: new freelancer or season freelancer, you can log in, create
4:29
Speaker 1: an account for free, and you can go ahead and
4:32
Speaker 1: connect with clients so it's almost like you know, if
4:36
Speaker 1: you think of like Craigslist meets eBay or something like
4:39
Speaker 1: that for lack of a better analogy. Um, you know,
4:43
Speaker 1: you see these jobs, they're posted and a client might say, Hey,
4:46
Speaker 1: I want somebody to rewrite my homepage, or I need
4:50
Speaker 1: somebody to write five emails that we're going to send
4:52
Speaker 1: out to customers, or I need someone to design a logo.
4:55
Speaker 1: And you can apply to that job in a very
4:58
Speaker 1: quick fashion without a lot of at tape. So here
5:01
Speaker 1: are some of your clients. So my clients are primarily
5:06
Speaker 1: um business people, business people, entrepreneurs, uh, some people with
5:11
Speaker 1: small businesses, growing businesses. Just about of my clients have
5:16
Speaker 1: been some kind of business or entrepreneur. Awesome, and you
5:20
Speaker 1: just write anything that they need to be written. Yeah.
5:25
Speaker 1: I try and keep it pretty general to where if
5:28
Speaker 1: if a business needs something written, whether it be a
5:31
Speaker 1: brochure or something for their website, or in certain cases
5:34
Speaker 1: it could be a slogan, or in some cases they
5:37
Speaker 1: might want help with some kind of marketing strategy. I've
5:40
Speaker 1: built up those skills as well, so I can help
5:42
Speaker 1: with that too. So before you got started in this,
5:46
Speaker 1: you know new economy, so to speak. What were you
5:49
Speaker 1: doing before that? Before that, I had the worst job
5:53
Speaker 1: on earth. I would go to an office every day
5:56
Speaker 1: and I would pick up the phone and I would
5:58
Speaker 1: call around to medical facilities and I would request medical
6:03
Speaker 1: records for uh, someone who'd applied for life insurance. Uh.
6:08
Speaker 1: It was extremely boring. It did not pay particularly well. Yeah,
6:13
Speaker 1: And I had a few kind of uh, non career
6:16
Speaker 1: kind of jobs before that and the years before that,
6:18
Speaker 1: I was a telephone interviewer at the Gallup Organization. Again
6:22
Speaker 1: kind of my numbing work. Great company, but my numbing work, nonetheless.
6:26
Speaker 1: And I worked at a car dealership for like eight months.
6:29
Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, so just a bunch of kind of
6:31
Speaker 1: non career jobs before that. Really didn't have much of
6:34
Speaker 1: a career path. And up Upward kind of helped me
6:36
Speaker 1: focus that. So before two thousand twelve, you are kind
6:39
Speaker 1: of in these traditional jobs. And then in two thousand twelve,
6:43
Speaker 1: did you say you were unemployed for a little bit. Yes,
6:45
Speaker 1: I quit the job where I would call around to
6:48
Speaker 1: medical offices. I just hated it so much I just
6:50
Speaker 1: couldn't send it anymore. Yeah, Like I didn't have a plan.
6:53
Speaker 1: I just said goodbye and no two week notice. Just
6:56
Speaker 1: goodbye and not proud of that. But actually I'm kind
6:58
Speaker 1: of proud of that. Um. And I went home and
7:01
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I said to myself, like, there's
7:03
Speaker 1: gotta be something else out there. I took my laptop,
7:07
Speaker 1: I pointed it away from my wife, and I googled
7:09
Speaker 1: how to make money writing because I knew she was
7:11
Speaker 1: going to think that I was crazy because I had
7:12
Speaker 1: never written anything before. And then you know, I found
7:15
Speaker 1: up work and one thing led to another. Cool. So
7:17
Speaker 1: where do you you know, where do you usually work from? You?
7:19
Speaker 1: When you came into our San Francisco studio today, you
7:22
Speaker 1: saw our office here, you know, or open, open desk layout,
7:26
Speaker 1: you walk through our snack pantry. Um, where do you
7:29
Speaker 1: usually work from? I usually work from a home office.
7:33
Speaker 1: So when I first started, my wife and I had
7:35
Speaker 1: just a two bedroom apartment and I would work in
7:38
Speaker 1: like a corner of the corner of our dining room.
7:41
Speaker 1: And then that was fine when I first started, and
7:44
Speaker 1: then once it became obvious that this was going to
7:45
Speaker 1: be a really viable income source, we just decided to
7:48
Speaker 1: move to bigger place. Now I have a home office
7:50
Speaker 1: that I work out of. Awesome, And what's a typical
7:53
Speaker 1: day look like for you. So I wake up, um,
7:56
Speaker 1: you know, check my email. Usually get a lot of
7:57
Speaker 1: emails these days from freelancers or hiring freelancers who have
8:01
Speaker 1: questions and they're trying to you know, look for tips
8:03
Speaker 1: on how to get started. Um. And then you know,
8:05
Speaker 1: of course, uh, when I'm working with clients these days,
8:08
Speaker 1: I don't work with clients as much as I did
8:11
Speaker 1: several years ago, but I still do. So I'll check
8:13
Speaker 1: all my emails, check all my messages, um. You know,
8:16
Speaker 1: usually just sort of plan my day out pretty quickly.
8:18
Speaker 1: You know, if you're writing for a living, it's not
8:21
Speaker 1: something that you can do for like eight or ten
8:23
Speaker 1: or twelve hours a day. So I need to do
8:25
Speaker 1: that in the morning. Um, you know, while my creative
8:28
Speaker 1: energy is kind of at its peak, and you know
8:30
Speaker 1: that's when you're billing. Yeah, yeah, doing billable work. I'll
8:33
Speaker 1: always do billable work in the morning, especially because you know,
8:36
Speaker 1: I believe in giving clients my best time. And then
8:40
Speaker 1: once that's done, then I'll go ahead and move to
8:43
Speaker 1: my blog, um, or my online course, you know, customer
8:46
Speaker 1: service emails. You know, I kind of wear a lot
8:48
Speaker 1: of different hats. But yeah, I'll usually spend um, you know,
8:52
Speaker 1: anywhere from two to four hours doing work with clients
8:56
Speaker 1: if I'm doing work with clients in that period, and
8:58
Speaker 1: then I'll move to my blog after of that, so
9:00
Speaker 1: you know, try and keep things mixed up and fresh.
9:02
Speaker 1: Can you give us a sense of how much you earn,
9:05
Speaker 1: either how much you charge per hour or on a
9:08
Speaker 1: monthly or annual basis? Sure? Absolutely so. My first year
9:12
Speaker 1: on upwork, I earned about fifty thou dollars in my
9:16
Speaker 1: first full year, so that would be UM two thousand thirteen.
9:20
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand fourteen, just from my upwork earnings,
9:24
Speaker 1: I managed to earn just about a hundred and fifteen
9:27
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in revenue. And then I added another income
9:32
Speaker 1: source at that point, which is my online business. So
9:35
Speaker 1: I have a course and a blog, so that takes
9:37
Speaker 1: up some of my time there, and that business in
9:40
Speaker 1: the past twelve months has has brought in uh, just
9:44
Speaker 1: just about a quarter million dollars in revenue. And I
9:48
Speaker 1: feel like I would not have had that opportunity without
9:50
Speaker 1: upwork because I was learning all the skills I use
9:53
Speaker 1: in my business I learned as a freelancer. So it's
9:56
Speaker 1: really been this kind of you know, awesome kind of progression.
9:59
Speaker 1: That's great. And you I think you said that you
10:01
Speaker 1: were billing around a hundred fifty dollars an hour, Is
10:04
Speaker 1: that right? Yeah? So I actually just took I just
10:07
Speaker 1: took on a new client at actually two fifty an hour, yeah,
10:11
Speaker 1: which is to me just yeah, it's awesome. But um,
10:14
Speaker 1: for the just about the entire two thousand fourteen and
10:17
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen period, every client I build was around
10:21
Speaker 1: the hut an hour range. Amazing. Well, Danny, clearly you've
10:27
Speaker 1: got a great thing going here. We're going to take
10:29
Speaker 1: a short break and then we're going to launch into
10:32
Speaker 1: kind of the pros and the cons of this kind
10:35
Speaker 1: of freelancing work for both you and the broader labor market.
10:38
Speaker 1: Sounds great. Can't wait. So, Danny, you are clearly doing
10:58
Speaker 1: something that you are good at, that you enjoy, and
11:01
Speaker 1: from what I have heard, you also teach people how
11:03
Speaker 1: to be successful as freelancers. But I have to ask
11:07
Speaker 1: if a company came to you and said, we will
11:10
Speaker 1: give you as much as you're earning now come work
11:12
Speaker 1: for us, would you go for a more traditional full
11:16
Speaker 1: time job. That's a great question. I want to point
11:19
Speaker 1: out that that has happened several times. So I've worked
11:22
Speaker 1: with well over eighty clients throughout my kind of quote
11:26
Speaker 1: unquote online freelancing career, and many of them have come
11:30
Speaker 1: to me, especially as they've grown, They've come to me
11:32
Speaker 1: and said, hey, would you consider working for us full time? Um,
11:36
Speaker 1: you know, will compensate you relative to what you're earning
11:38
Speaker 1: now and etcetera, etcetera. And I've had to turn them
11:42
Speaker 1: down every time. And the main reason why, I mean,
11:45
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons. Number One, I'm really enjoying it.
11:48
Speaker 1: Get to work with a diverse you know, diverse clientele,
11:51
Speaker 1: different businesses, keeps you really fresh. Um. You know, one
11:54
Speaker 1: day I might be writing about a consumer product. The
11:56
Speaker 1: next day I might be helping someone with strategy on
11:59
Speaker 1: a business to business product or service. So that's one thing.
12:03
Speaker 1: The other thing is the security. So when most people
12:06
Speaker 1: think of freelancing, they think of something not secure, right,
12:09
Speaker 1: because you don't have a job and you don't go
12:11
Speaker 1: to an office every day. It kind of maybe doesn't
12:13
Speaker 1: feel secure or look secure to the untrained eye, But
12:17
Speaker 1: once you get into it, it's actually more secure. Because
12:20
Speaker 1: if I'm working with ten clients, which is not unheard
12:24
Speaker 1: of or unrealistic, and one of them goes out of
12:27
Speaker 1: business or even fires me, or you know, outgrows me
12:31
Speaker 1: or what have you. That's only a ten percent income
12:34
Speaker 1: hit that I take that day, and ninety of my
12:37
Speaker 1: income remains intact. And not only that, but it's actually
12:41
Speaker 1: relatively easy thanks to sides like upwork, fire up my
12:44
Speaker 1: laptop and go and find a new client. I could
12:46
Speaker 1: replace them in a matter of days or you know,
12:49
Speaker 1: maybe a week or so. Versus if you lose your
12:52
Speaker 1: job at a traditional job, I lose if Bloomberg decides
12:56
Speaker 1: to fire um, Yeah, and then it's a percent of
13:02
Speaker 1: my income in that in that case would be gone.
13:04
Speaker 1: And it's it could be really hard to find a
13:06
Speaker 1: new job, especially if someone earning a significant amount of money.
13:09
Speaker 1: That could be a week's or months or even longer
13:11
Speaker 1: job search. So I feel like, to me, it's a
13:13
Speaker 1: no brainer to continue freelancing. Yeah. And and Danny, you
13:17
Speaker 1: have two kids, is that right? Yeah? I have a
13:18
Speaker 1: six year old boy and a three year old boy. Yeah,
13:21
Speaker 1: it sounds like a handful, Yeah, it is, so, I
13:24
Speaker 1: bet it's it's a good thing that you get to
13:26
Speaker 1: kind of structure your own work day too. Have this flexibility.
13:30
Speaker 1: It's amazing, yeah, because there's never a time, you know,
13:33
Speaker 1: like if you know with kids, things are always changing
13:35
Speaker 1: and there's always some activity to go to. And there's
13:38
Speaker 1: never a time when I have to say, or I
13:41
Speaker 1: would say very rarely a time when I would have
13:44
Speaker 1: to say, sorry, I can't be there to go to
13:46
Speaker 1: a soccer game, or uh, you know, sorry, I have
13:48
Speaker 1: to work all day Saturday. We can't hang out. It
13:50
Speaker 1: does happen, uh, you know, just like anything else. Things
13:53
Speaker 1: come up in freelancing, but for the most part, I'm
13:56
Speaker 1: able to. It helps me be a great dad. Yeah.
13:59
Speaker 1: And connecting this to the broader labor market, one of
14:02
Speaker 1: the things that's really amazing to me is that you
14:04
Speaker 1: don't have to be in the same location as your employers.
14:07
Speaker 1: So for example, San Francisco, here the tech boom is
14:10
Speaker 1: generating tons and tons of jobs, but you're not seeing
14:13
Speaker 1: that in most other cities, let's say, like Detroit. But
14:16
Speaker 1: a lot of people can't just pack up their whole
14:18
Speaker 1: house and drive across the country and find a new
14:22
Speaker 1: place to live and find a new school for their kids,
14:24
Speaker 1: especially in as expensive of a place like the bayerry here,
14:29
Speaker 1: So they end up, you know, they stay unemployed for
14:31
Speaker 1: a while because they can't find any local jobs. And
14:34
Speaker 1: in the meantime, these companies that do need workers, their
14:37
Speaker 1: openings go unfilled. No one wins. Yeah, but when there's
14:41
Speaker 1: work that you can do remotely, companies all of a
14:43
Speaker 1: sudden aren't restricted by location, so they can find the
14:47
Speaker 1: best workers for the job. And I have to say
14:49
Speaker 1: that that's probably more productive for an economy, right, And
14:52
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's why your story, Danny, is
14:54
Speaker 1: so amazing. You know, you were unemployed back in two
14:56
Speaker 1: thousand twelve. You could have just stayed there, you know,
14:58
Speaker 1: but instead you went on the internet, and now you
15:01
Speaker 1: have clients across the country, maybe even across the world. Yeah.
15:04
Speaker 1: I have clients on six continents, and uh many of
15:07
Speaker 1: my clients are actually from the Bay Area, including one
15:10
Speaker 1: very well known VC funded education company. Um, you know.
15:14
Speaker 1: And so so they're they're looking around too, you know,
15:16
Speaker 1: and they, like you said, they don't want to be
15:18
Speaker 1: restricted by location. They just want someone who's a good fit,
15:22
Speaker 1: and a site like up work really allows them to,
15:25
Speaker 1: you know, just very quickly get exposed to a lot
15:27
Speaker 1: of different talent an you might have convinced some of
15:29
Speaker 1: our listeners to quit their full time jobs and become
15:32
Speaker 1: their own bosses. But I have to ask, do you
15:35
Speaker 1: have any warnings or words of wisdom about the potential
15:38
Speaker 1: pitfalls of this kind of on demand work? Sure? Yeah,
15:42
Speaker 1: I mean just like anything else, Um, you know, there's
15:45
Speaker 1: there's uh, there's pros and cons to everything, and the
15:49
Speaker 1: to me, the good and the bad in uh this
15:52
Speaker 1: online freelancing world. If you're a freelancer or an aspiring freelancer,
15:56
Speaker 1: the good in the bad or kind of mixed together.
15:58
Speaker 1: So for example, uh, there's not a lot of structure.
16:02
Speaker 1: So that's great because you can be a great dad
16:05
Speaker 1: or enjoy your free time. Some people travel while they're working.
16:08
Speaker 1: But it's also kind of one of the challenges as
16:11
Speaker 1: well is that there's no structure, so you have to
16:13
Speaker 1: learn how to create some structure, because nobody can work
16:16
Speaker 1: without structure. Another thing is you're the boss. So when
16:21
Speaker 1: you go to work, generally you know, as an employee,
16:24
Speaker 1: you're generally unemployed, and you can run things by somebody
16:27
Speaker 1: and get help and get all kinds of feedback. You
16:30
Speaker 1: can do that from your clients. As a freelancer. I
16:32
Speaker 1: can go to my client and say, hey, I have
16:34
Speaker 1: this idea and you know, I want to run it
16:36
Speaker 1: by you get some quick feedback on it, and that's
16:38
Speaker 1: a great way to work. But there's usually often nobody
16:42
Speaker 1: giving you direct orders. You know, you have to take
16:45
Speaker 1: a leadership role because you're your own boss. So you know,
16:49
Speaker 1: you don't have co workers either, exactly, and I mean
16:52
Speaker 1: and in some cases a client will hire me and
16:54
Speaker 1: they'll hire other freelancers and will work a bit as
16:56
Speaker 1: a team. But you really just have to get good
16:58
Speaker 1: at understanding it. You are the boss and the employee,
17:02
Speaker 1: and the client is the customer. The client is not
17:05
Speaker 1: the boss. It's not the person you can go to
17:07
Speaker 1: and say, give me my marching orders. In some cases
17:09
Speaker 1: it might work that way, but you always have to
17:11
Speaker 1: be prepared to take the reins, take a leadership role,
17:14
Speaker 1: be an expert, and say to the client, here's what
17:16
Speaker 1: I recommend, which is often a one eighty from you know,
17:20
Speaker 1: some of us coming from the corporate world, what we're
17:22
Speaker 1: used to write. And you have to pay for your
17:24
Speaker 1: own healthcare rate out of pocket? Yeah I I and
17:27
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, and I do fortunately, uh, you know, thanks
17:30
Speaker 1: to upwork. I've really we've been you know, I've been
17:33
Speaker 1: able to find so many clients where my income is
17:35
Speaker 1: healthy and so I'm able to purchase my own health insurance.
17:38
Speaker 1: And I urge people who are listening to this, who
17:40
Speaker 1: may be considering freelancing, think about how much you're charging.
17:43
Speaker 1: You know, you might make twenty an hour at work,
17:46
Speaker 1: but you want to aim for at least twice that
17:49
Speaker 1: as a freelancer. It doesn't have to be on your
17:51
Speaker 1: first day, but you want to. You want to be
17:53
Speaker 1: able to say okay, as a freelancer, I have to
17:54
Speaker 1: charge at least two times and in many cases more
17:58
Speaker 1: to be able to cover all your expenses. That's something
18:01
Speaker 1: people should keep in mind. But what are you doing
18:02
Speaker 1: for retirement? I mean at Bloomberg Hockey and I get
18:06
Speaker 1: matched for a one k, right, so um, Fortunately, there
18:10
Speaker 1: are great options for retirement accounts for self employed individuals,
18:15
Speaker 1: and you know, if you especially for people over a
18:17
Speaker 1: certain income threshold, there's opportunities to put very large sums
18:21
Speaker 1: of money into four oh one k. But you're a percent, right,
18:24
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody's going to match my four oh one
18:26
Speaker 1: k because there's nobody to match it, right, and generally
18:29
Speaker 1: when you're classified as a contractor and not an employee,
18:33
Speaker 1: you're not entitled to all kinds of things. You know, healthcare, retirement,
18:36
Speaker 1: that's like some of the benefits. But you know, you're
18:38
Speaker 1: also not entitled to like overtime pay, you're not guaranteed
18:41
Speaker 1: a minimum wage, you don't get unemployment benefits, meal breaks,
18:46
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um so Uber just in April
18:49
Speaker 1: settled a pair of class action lawsuits um and the
18:52
Speaker 1: company is going to end up paying as much as
18:54
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars. But it was kind of a
18:57
Speaker 1: victory for them because they're going to be able to
18:58
Speaker 1: retain the right to continue classifying its drivers as contractors
19:03
Speaker 1: and not employees, So that means they're going to be
19:05
Speaker 1: able to continue to keep costs pretty low. So Tori,
19:09
Speaker 1: who is our co host, who is now on her
19:12
Speaker 1: way to South Korea, she wrote a great story about
19:16
Speaker 1: how the gig economy is growing, the chasm between winners
19:20
Speaker 1: and losers. Yeah, and she spoke to Larry Katz, who's
19:25
Speaker 1: probably one of the best known labor economists in the
19:27
Speaker 1: world who's been doing some research in this topic. So, Leah,
19:31
Speaker 1: what did h what did Larry cats tell Tori. So,
19:34
Speaker 1: Larry is an economics professor at Harvard, and he teamed
19:37
Speaker 1: up with Princeton University's Alan krueger Um. What Larry pointed
19:41
Speaker 1: out was that there used to be more integration at
19:44
Speaker 1: companies like General Motors and Old banks, and they not
19:49
Speaker 1: only gave good pay to their managers and engineers and
19:53
Speaker 1: skilled workers, but they also paid a premium to other
19:56
Speaker 1: support staff like janitors and clerical workers who were just
19:59
Speaker 1: as important. But now those jobs are actually being outsourced
20:03
Speaker 1: to temporary agencies that don't offer employment benefits for decent wages.
20:09
Speaker 1: So all of this has contributed to the widening inequality,
20:13
Speaker 1: which you could say is feeling vote voter anxiety and
20:16
Speaker 1: an already pretty wild election year. Yeah, and so basically,
20:20
Speaker 1: like people like you, Danny, You're fine, you know, probably
20:23
Speaker 1: doing even better than you would otherwise because you know
20:25
Speaker 1: your skills as a copywriter are very much in high demand.
20:29
Speaker 1: But you really do hear these horror stories of people
20:32
Speaker 1: working for a lot less than you do in these
20:34
Speaker 1: unskilled jobs. For example, these uber drivers getting their rates
20:38
Speaker 1: cut more and more. I was gonna say, this is
20:41
Speaker 1: one thing I love about a sitelite up work is
20:44
Speaker 1: they're not restricting you to charging a certain amount. So
20:47
Speaker 1: if your costs are a certain amount, your cost of
20:49
Speaker 1: living is a certain amount. If you have an in
20:51
Speaker 1: demand skill. You know, And what I always encourage people
20:54
Speaker 1: to do is we you know, I always say we.
20:56
Speaker 1: We can't control the market right as an individual, I
20:59
Speaker 1: can't roll labor trends that are bigger than any one
21:03
Speaker 1: of us, bigger than even a company like this. What
21:06
Speaker 1: we can control is, hey, what's in demand right now?
21:09
Speaker 1: Can I learn it? Sites like you to me. There's
21:12
Speaker 1: all kinds of education, sites like you to me, even
21:15
Speaker 1: on YouTube, um, even on blogs. In many cases, you
21:19
Speaker 1: can go and learn skills. If you take the skill
21:21
Speaker 1: of copyrighting. A janitor can learn that skill. That's one
21:24
Speaker 1: of the things I love about it. Anyone can learn
21:26
Speaker 1: this skill, and it doesn't have to take very long.
21:28
Speaker 1: It took me two days to break in because we've
21:31
Speaker 1: all been writing since we were in grade school. Again,
21:34
Speaker 1: the good is mixed with the bad. You know, everything
21:36
Speaker 1: you're saying about the trends and displacing people in certain roles,
21:40
Speaker 1: that's that's obviously true. The good news is these opportunities
21:45
Speaker 1: are open to anyone if they're willing to learn, and
21:47
Speaker 1: but you do have to have like a base skill.
21:50
Speaker 1: I mean when we first started talking, you were incredibly organized,
21:53
Speaker 1: or like one of those organized people I've ever talked to.
21:56
Speaker 1: You know, you're clear, you're a good communicator, obviously, have
22:00
Speaker 1: good writing skills, and not everyone has those those high
22:04
Speaker 1: skills that are very much in demand in today's um
22:07
Speaker 1: labor market. I think so that's true. I will urge
22:09
Speaker 1: you to keep in mind I'm a college dropout. I
22:11
Speaker 1: went to college for two weeks. I went to work
22:13
Speaker 1: as a waiter in a restaurant after that. Throughout my thirties,
22:17
Speaker 1: I was just it was like between dead end jobs
22:20
Speaker 1: and unemployed. I mean, people had me counted out right.
22:23
Speaker 1: People would say, oh, Danny, he's that sad story. He
22:25
Speaker 1: had a lot of potential, but he never educated himself.
22:28
Speaker 1: He didn't do anything. I learned everything that I know
22:31
Speaker 1: on the job, on on the freelancing side, because that's
22:35
Speaker 1: when you're you know, kind was kind of thrown into
22:37
Speaker 1: the deep end. And it was the first time I realized, hey,
22:39
Speaker 1: I can control my destiny. I don't have to worry
22:42
Speaker 1: about college. I don't have to raise my hand and
22:44
Speaker 1: wait to be picked by a publisher. If I want
22:46
Speaker 1: to write something, I can just start a blog and
22:48
Speaker 1: promote it. So a lot of this was really just
22:50
Speaker 1: developed in the last four years. I don't think you
22:53
Speaker 1: would have been quite as impressed if you and I
22:55
Speaker 1: had met in about two thousand ten. It seems they've
22:59
Speaker 1: worked out pretty well for you. But I'm a little
23:01
Speaker 1: bit of a cynic, so I have to wonder whether
23:03
Speaker 1: these bigger companies that a lot of non traditional workers
23:07
Speaker 1: were for, including yourself, they are trying to avoid paying
23:11
Speaker 1: workers and sidestepping healthcare and training and office space. I
23:16
Speaker 1: wonder if platforms like upworks are actually feeding into this
23:19
Speaker 1: and working paying for workers only when they need them. Yeah,
23:23
Speaker 1: And it definitely kind of feels like just one more
23:26
Speaker 1: stage in this very very long trend of you know,
23:30
Speaker 1: risk shifting more and more from companies to workers, from
23:34
Speaker 1: you know, the government individuals. And I'm just say the
23:38
Speaker 1: backdrop of this whole concept is interesting to policymakers all
23:41
Speaker 1: away from the Fed and the White House across the
23:44
Speaker 1: country have fought hard to get unemployment down over the
23:47
Speaker 1: last ten years. And you can see in election campaigns
23:50
Speaker 1: that people want job creation, but they also want jobs
23:54
Speaker 1: with flexibility. But what do you make of all this?
23:57
Speaker 1: What's our conclusion? Then? Okay, so you know, first of all,
24:00
Speaker 1: I think that clearly these you know platforms are providing
24:05
Speaker 1: a very valuable service to both employers and workers. Um,
24:09
Speaker 1: you know, Danny's case, I think is a really good
24:12
Speaker 1: example of someone succeeding when they weren't succeeding in the
24:15
Speaker 1: traditional labor market. And these platforms wouldn't be as big
24:19
Speaker 1: as they are now if they weren't successful in providing
24:22
Speaker 1: that service. At the same time, I am really glad
24:25
Speaker 1: that a lot of smart economists are starting to look
24:28
Speaker 1: into this because it does feel like a very big
24:30
Speaker 1: shift and there can be a lot of unintended consequences
24:33
Speaker 1: when you're seeing um, the labor market change so quickly,
24:37
Speaker 1: And I really hope that their research feeds into helps
24:42
Speaker 1: inform these uh labor regulations that we have set up now,
24:47
Speaker 1: because it does feel like the current regulations are set
24:50
Speaker 1: up for the old economy instead of um, you know,
24:54
Speaker 1: for the new economy that we're starting to see now. Well, Danny,
24:58
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you for
25:00
Speaker 1: having me. Is great being here. Thanks again for listening
25:03
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Benchmark. We're going to be back again next week.
25:05
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25:40
Speaker 1: we buy and what that says about us. Thanks for listening,
25:43
Speaker 1: See you next week.