[jnbiche]

Not to mention the extra ~12% payroll tax that all freelancers are hit with (twice what employees pay).

Or the fact that a very large portion of your time as a freelancer has to spend with non-income earning activities (accounting, marketing, etc) if you want to have any chance of surviving as a freelancer.

60$/hr for a freelancer is equivalent to about 60,000-80,000/year. It's a decent income for some parts of the country, but not SF.