The gig is up: America's booming economy is built on hollow promises

[Soph0571]

Uber just filed its first quarterly report as a publicly traded company. Although it lost $1bn, investors may still do well because the losses appear to be declining.

Uber drivers, on the other hand, aren’t doing well. According to a recent study, about half of New York’s Uber drivers are supporting families with children, yet 40% depend on Medicaid and another 18% on food stamps.
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Estimates vary but it’s safe to say almost a quarter of American workers are now gig workers. Which helps explain why the standard economic measures – unemployment and income – look better than Americans feel.

The jobs problem today isn’t just stagnant wages. It’s also uncertain incomes. A downturn in demand, change in consumer preferences, or a personal injury or sickness, can cause future paychecks to disappear. Yet nearly 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/02/gig-economy-us-trump-uber-california-robert-reich|

Same in the UK. Apparently workers want the flexibility of the gig economy. What complete and utter bollocks.

[OnlinePoker]

1. The problem with the gig economy is it's pretty tough to get loans or mortgages

Lenders want a stable income stream before approving loans. As the number of people in the gig increases, this doesn't bode well for future home ownership or credit stability.

[Farmer-Rick]

2. I always thought the way the US govt counts the unemployed is ludicrous

"There are about 60,000 eligible households in the sample for this survey. This translates into approximately 110,000 individuals each month, a large sample compared to public opinion surveys, which usually cover fewer than 2,000 people. The CPS sample is selected so as to be representative of the entire population of the United States. In order to select the sample, all of the counties and independent cities in the country first are grouped into approximately 2,000 geographic areas (sampling units). The Census Bureau then designs and selects a sample of about 800 of these geographic areas to represent each state and the District of Columbia. The sample is a state-based design and reflects urban and rural areas, different types of industrial and farming areas, and the major geographic divisions of each state.

Every month, one-fourth of the households in the sample are changed, so that no household is interviewed for more than 4 consecutive months. After a household is interviewed for 4 consecutive months, it leaves the sample for 8 months, and then is again interviewed for the same 4 calendar months a year later, before leaving the sample for good. As a result, approximately 75 percent of the sample remains the same from month to month and 50 percent remains the same from year to year. ."

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#where

That means you can go back and forth and count the same people over and over again. States have input into what sample they use. Do you think your RepubliCON ruled state is going to allow you to count a real representative sample????? Just asking.

And I haven't even gotten to the part that they count part time employment as they count full time employment.