[ChuckMcM]

I don't disagree, that is one of the interesting concepts in the book on scarcity[1]. If you're operating at the limits of your demand for a resource it affects the way to reason about that resource and can lead to counter productive choices.

That said, if you aren't constrained to only doing mechanical turk or figure 8 things, then you have the option of doing something different, or adding in other resource streams. You you trade off the time vs money aspects of different work situations to achieve longer term stability. That doesn't apply of course to people who have extenuating circumstances that cut them off from any other revenue stream and that makes them vulnerable to exploitation.

[1] "Scarcity: Why having so little means so much", Sendhil Mullainathan