| And what does welfare pay? Serious question as I'm not in the USA and have no idea. If Welfare pays less, isn't Uber/Lyft a positive thing? And that is just the direct monetary benefit of $27K vs welfare. There are many intangible benefits to work vs welfare beyond money. Being unemployed has mental health and life satisfaction costs (summary: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/04/is...). This is research that has existed for > 30 years. There is significant evidence that long term unemployment REALLY hurts someone's hiring chances when applying for a job (see https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/04/co... from 2013 with linked papers). As a stepping stone to a living wage, driving rideshare likely helps people looking for better paid work, especially given you can clock off for two hours to take an interview, then clock back on. Try that working any other job. The rideshare side of the ledger has better mental health & life satisfaction, more money and better job prospects, vs the welfare side with more free time. I'd prefer to frame the "living wage" question as of all the people who drive Uber/Lyft, not Uber/Lyft drivers which puts their job above their humanity and implies it is a permanent state of affairs, anyway of all the people who drive Uber/Lyft at some point in their lives, will they be better off with the option of driving Uber/Lyft, or better off in a world where Uber/Lyft is not an option? |
But in the study linked, they're really testing whether a resume gap hurts your chances of getting hired. I'm skeptical that it would translate the same to gig economy job, given you can't ask them for a reference, nor is there any indication of how much you worked (did you work 40 hour weeks? a few hours a week?), or how reliable/timely you were.