Wow. I just read the most recent financial samurai post about FS's wife losing her passport. She said it was full benefit, meaning she learned a lesson and turned it around. That was good there were benefits to what she did.
But I guess what stood out to me in the whole post and I read Financial Samurai all the time, that she used task rabbit to hire someone to stand in line for her. Yes she paid someone to stand in line for her $134 actually.
So why am i writing this? I guess because this post made it eminently clear the US for a 1st world country is quickly dividing into the haves and have nots. Where labor is becoming very cheap and people are working these jobs like uber, door dash, that make other people's lives convienent.
A friend said that people are working those jobs for second income, probably true. But when did the US have such a income discrepancy that it makes it so easy to pay others for these types of jobs? I've always toyed with the idea of doing task rabbit. I'm curious if it really is profitable.
I actually have a fedex driver client who tried uber but told me it wasn't worth his time. He made too much as a fedex driver and would do better working overtime for them. Totally true, I do his taxes. He also said most people don't make very much doing uber, but those "professional" uber drivers (drive a prius, and work set hours) are more like cab drivers and know how to do it profitably. But they've mastered where and how to drive.
So is this the same with task rabbit? Have we crossed into a more inequitable society where we can afford to pay for stuff because the income discrepancy is so high? I think it has and I've actually thought this for awhile now.
July 10th, 2023 at 11:36 am 1688988977
If you go back to the start of the US, people had large families which supplied ‘free’ labor to the family plus provided workers who helped with house and farm chores. Trades were taught via apprenticeships that were ‘room and board’ low wage jobs.
Slavery came along soon after.
Industrial Revolution had a great influx of cheap labor - men worked in back breaking jobs; women cooked, took in ironing, were nurse maids, house maids. Subsistence wages.
Post WWII, men worked outside the home. Women got ‘labor saving’ appliances but took on the jobs of cooking, cleaning, runnng errands. Many were both educated and bored.
Now, both members of most couples work outside the home, but they outsource the ‘drudge’ jobs of cooking, cleaning, shopping, errands.
There have always been people with more resources and skills valued as more valuable in the workplace ‘taking advantage’ of those with less resources to do jobs valued less by the market.
An interesting question is why we value ball players and entertainers more than say day care workers and home health aides. But paying for labor is not new.
July 10th, 2023 at 10:39 pm 1689028764
However I do think times are simply changing. As I travel, I noticed one huge difference, those of us in the US want instant/and easy gratification, and will pay for it. We seem to always be in a rush, no time to wait.
July 11th, 2023 at 05:35 am 1689053754
Sam also wrote about giving over 500 Uber rides. He’s not too proud to hustle and neither should you. Don’t think odd jobs are beneath you.
Nobody is being oppressed earning extras income on the side. And the people who should do more turned, always be the people who do less and pay the least amount of taxes.
July 13th, 2023 at 03:03 pm 1689260585
There is a statistical measure of income inequality called the Gini Coefficient (or Gini Index). In the US, in 1974, the Gini Coefficient was .35. By 1990, it increased to .43. In 2019, it hit .415, and by 2021 (the last year for which the statistic is currently available), it reached .494. There's clear evidence that the trend is increasing in the United States. Conversely, in the rest of the world, the Gini Coefficient is around .35, or even .3 in some instances. Growing polarization both politically and economically is what we have experienced during my lifetime :^(.
July 18th, 2023 at 11:53 pm 1689724435