| Is any of this supported by evidence that "a big chunk of the economy (will be) powered by gigs"? I doubt it is true, and I believe your conclusion is likely off, even though I agree with (what I think are) your implied goals. Let me explain why. > I wish the new tech entrepreneurs would find a better way to fix the low skill problem rather than find a way to reduce services/costs to the bone. I doubt these low skill workers are the gig economy workers. Many people on AirBnB are doing fairly well, as no one wants to stay in the Ghetto, and the places with high take up are relatively well off places (London, NYC, SF). Ditto Uber, which requires a car under a certain age - is it 5 years? - not the sort of bombs truly poor people have. The Minimum wage is a good comparison point here: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-mi... > Just who are minimum-wage workers, anyway? ... people at or below the federal minimum are: > Disproportionately young: 50.4% are ages 16 to 24; 24% are teenagers (ages 16 to 19).
> Mostly (77%) white; nearly half are white women.
> Largely part-time workers (64% of the total). The problem isn't that minimum wage is unlivable - it is that some people can't get a job. Increasing minimum wage doesn't help people who can't get a job at all. Similarly, the gig economy isn't reducing the cost of services for people who currently do it. Rather, it is an extra source for people who already make OK money. There aren't a lot of poor people living in the Haidt, or NYC, two places where I have taken AirBnB places, and there aren't a lot of people looking to rent a room in Gary, Indiana. Or Nairobi. Or Soweto. That's the real issue - not the cost reductions in rich areas, but finding a way to engage people who don't have a way in to the economy at all. I'd say this is not even a low skilled issue, I'd almost say it os a no skilled, combined with a no history (as in no work history) workers' problem. The gig economy isn't really affecting these people, as it seems more likely to me to be a way to prop up middle class people and make their lives slightly better, rather than a way-in for these almost-no-skilled workers. Just as an increase in minimum wage isn't the panacea to poverty alleviation, if it does much of anything at all, so addressing the gig economy, when so many of the means of making money have rather high barriers to entry, isn't going to fix much. I have no answers BTW, I just think the suppliers to the gig economy aren't the group - poor, low skilled people - that is the common perception, and this mis-alignment of who we need to help and HOW we help them is sending people in the wrong direction. |