General Discussion

ffr

(22,669 posts) Mon Jan 7, 2019, 11:39 AM Jan 2019

The government has no idea how many gig workers there are, and that's a problem

Antoinette Kunda wasn’t always rushing to make deliveries for strangers and pick up riders. Prior to the Great Recession, she worked as an executive administrative assistant at American Express AXP, +0.19% where she earned $80,000 a year, or approximately $6,667 a month.

Today, she works in the gig economy. “I do not consider myself having a primary job,” Kunda said. She works for Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Instacart, DoorDash, Grubhub and various other on-demand delivery and rideshare apps. “My primary job is putting a roof over my head,” she said.

Her current goal is to make $5,000 a month but, in reality, she said she is lucky if she can pocket $100 a day or $2,800 a month. - Marketwatch

Just a reminder, the Great Recession was the work of Conservative policies of the Republican George W. Bush administration, who was president from 2001 - 2009.

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The government has no idea how many gig workers there are, and that's a problem (Original Post) ffr Jan 2019 OP

"As long as people aren't receiving unemployment, it's good, OK?" ck4829 Jan 2019 #1

The BLS numbers are weird because they count part time jobs. Farmer-Rick Jan 2019 #2

ck4829

(35,068 posts)

1. "As long as people aren't receiving unemployment, it's good, OK?"

Reply to ffr (Original post)

Mon Jan 7, 2019, 11:40 AM

Jan 2019

Farmer-Rick

(10,163 posts)

2. The BLS numbers are weird because they count part time jobs.

Reply to ffr (Original post)

Mon Jan 7, 2019, 12:01 PM

Jan 2019

Straight from the BLS site:

People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey reference week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment.

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#employed

Also during several different administrations, there were notable complaints about who the survey was distributed to. That is people claimed persistent high unemployment rate areas, such as the inner city and the Appalachia, were misrepresented in the survey.

So, Americans are NOT fully employed as the rate might suggest. And we have yet to reach PRE RepubliCON Great Recession wages. Wages are up for POST RepubliCON Great Recession rates but not compared to before W crashed the economy.

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