Okay. My point about the employer plans above 10% income is still relevant. Cite:
Affordable coverage
A job-based health plan covering only the employee that costs 9.83% or less of the employee’s household income. If a job-based plan is “affordable,” and meets the “minimum value” standard, you’re not eligible for a premium tax credit if you buy a Marketplace insurance plan instead.
Putting in numbers from Snowboarder_Bo at healthcare.gov…
zip 32806 (random zip from nearest big city - Orlando, FL)
just me
24
male
income $41,600 ($20*40hr*52wk) - note that min. wage here is much lower
no unemployment comp this year
I am told I qualify for an estimated $135/mo premium tax credit. The plan I would probably pick, credit already applied,
$275.18/mo Bright HealthCare Silver
$0 deduct
$8.5k oop max.
$30 PCP copay
$30 generic copay
$60 specialist
$750 emergency
They also let you estimate the yearly cost of premiums, deductible, and copays combined. You can choose whether you expect low, medium, or high use of your plan benefits. I picked medium use and got
Estimated total yearly costs: $3,946
Roughly 9.5% of a $41,600 yearly income to spend on healthcare, which falls within the government’s definition of affordable. Unlike the employer plan this includes estimated copays and deductible (there is none for the plan I chose).
ETA: If I use $10 as a wage, I qualify for a $356 credit and most plans cost $0. Even silver plans are available for under $10/mo.
That’s great that it falls within someone’s definition of affordable, but it also demonstrates just how fucked up our society is - because I make a lot more than 41,600 a year, and I don’t pay for ANY of my health insurance. Instead, my employer foots the whole bill, and gives me a bunch of benefits besides. Once I have children, I can add them to the policy for a few bucks a month. Less than a Netflix subscription. If my wife decides to take a leave of absence after our kids are born, I can add her to the policy for a similarly low price.
Oh, and that includes dental and optical, too.
Now, I’m under no illusion that my policy doesn’t come with a cost. If my employer wasn’t paying for that, I’d e able to negotiate a higher compensation. And frankly, I’d happily take the trade, pay slightly higher taxes (and see the top 1% pay not so slightly higher taxes), and cut the insurance companies’ profits out of the equation.
But in the meantime, this example just demonstrates how regressive our health insurance system is.
Yeah, I really don’t get how it’s messed up that you pay nothing. You’re paying 100% of your premium via a lower salary, or your employer is altruistic - I’m not aware of anything comparable to an altruistic employer except one RAND study where they paid the entire cost of people’s healthcare for a few years. Maybe a parent who pays for your insurance is comparable.
If you’re saying something is messed up (regressive) it’s the simple fact that you make so much more, or rather, that others don’t make enough. Or that you have a health insurance patron and most people don’t.
What I’m saying is, I’d rather healthcare weren’t linked to employment, and I didn’t have to accept a lower salary in order to meet that basic need, and people who make less then me wouldn’t need to throw down even more money out of pocket just to meet that basic need.
Do you mean employment or do you really mean income? Losing a plan because you switch employers seems like a totally different concern than what we have been talking about. I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to make health plan enrollment a prereq for hiring either, but I might be wrong on that.
Employers have a strong incentive to pay 100% of health care - they’re able to pay more money to employees without it costing them as much, because health care costs are effectively wages that aren’t taxed by either the payroll taxes or the income tax. Even with a small 10-12% marginal tax rate for the employee on income tax, and considering both halves of the employment taxes, that’s over 25% savings on whatever they can provide in health care. If the marginal rate of the employee is higher, there’s even greater effective savings.
They can’t really do that in all cases because of differentials in employee types, since they have to cut pay across the board in order to afford meeting 100% of health care, but certain people will have their health care cost more. In an operation that has good margins, they can afford to offer that additional perk to people whose health care situation is more expensive, but some employers simply can’t afford that for everyone while still offering a reasonable wage to those that aren’t looking for full health coverage.
Employers, however, are moving more and more of the cost of health care onto the employees, because health care cost inflation has been vastly exceeding wage inflation for a long time.
One of the aims of the ACA was to “bend the curve” - to reduce the rate of health care inflation. It seems to have been somewhat effective toward that end, though wage inflation has been so low that it’s still common to push more health care cost onto employees even since the ACA’s adoption.
How much can you really make taking surveys? I did it in high school for a couple years. It was enough to buy a few extra video games and pizzas, but far less than I would have made at even minimum wage.
I have done Amazon Mturk for several years (and there’s another Doper who has done it for even longer). You can’t make a living at it, but it’s gravy, and some of the tasks are fun. There are no quotas, and you can sign up any time.
I’ve noticed all of these doordashers tend to skew younger, as in twenties or teens. I know JohnT has shared that he drove for ride-sharing, I’m curious if in your experience the people who do gig jobs are generally relying on that as a sole or major source of income? Or is it only as a supplement.
Can you make mortgage payments with that kind of income - including driving expenses, self-employment tax? Or is this more like a new set of jobs for that demographic of stay-at-home parents or young adults, who have perhaps a complementary source income or assistance with/reduced expenses.
A quick Google is not giving me any recent (2020, 2021) data, I found plenty of articles but most sources seem to date from 2017 or 2018.
~Max
ETA: Also in my experience, the ridesharing drivers have skewed mid-twenties to well into middle age. But I have not done too much ridesharing, and none since the pandemic.
Part of the problem is that it’s really hard to find good numbers on this sort of thing. I’ve met a few people doing these sorts of jobs, and I often ask how well they get paid doing it. Some get pissed off at the companies and think they’re getting a bad deal, but it’s the best they can do right now, while others think it’s great. There’s so many variables in play that it’s really hard to predict how well any one person will do at these jobs.
I’m not personally thinking about going into gig work, it’s just that I was thinking… if it’s a sweet deal, why don’t I see older people taking it? I live next to the largest retirement community in the nation, 55+. Lots of them have jobs, part time ones. They staff the grocery stores, the wal-mart, etc. not kids. Sometimes even fast food staff. Lots of them drive still and seek something to do with spare time. I would expect to see more of them in the gig economy, at least locally, but I don’t.
Without getting into details, the year I paid for my car and divorce by Ubering, I earned $40k in ridesharing income, paid an effective 7% in federal income taxes (no income tax in Texas), earned $14 for every $1 in gas I put in the car, and did this part time. There were an estimated $2k in accelerated car expenses (worn out tires, oil changes, etc), but since I paid off the car, I now just consider it a piece of capital equipment. I’ve never been one to place a lot of emotional weight on vehicles anyway.
Looking at my records (OK, I’m getting into details, shoot me), I earned $1,442 on 36 hours and 27 minutes of work the week of November 25th, 2019, which makes sense as it corresponds to the week I paid the lawyer. So:
$1,442
-$100 (gas)
$1,332
-$115 (8% tax on $1442 earnings)
$1,217 (net, $32/hour after tax)
Overall, one can expect about $20/hour doing rideshare in San Antonio during the slow periods (June-August) and $35 during Sept-May.
To your question of whether this makes a career, eh, it depends upon the person of course. For myself, Ubering was a means to specific end(s). But if you operate it as a business by (1) understanding that you cannot skimp on repair and maintenance expenses, and (2) having a good CPA who is experienced in gig work, $40-60k a year after taxes is certainly possible, which is not bad for a city where the average income is $27k.
Well, that’s probably it. Gig jobs aren’t what they think of when they think “Hey, I’ll get a job!” Old people are old, after all.
And even if they thought about driving Uber or something, lots of them might have problems dealing with the new technologies needed to actually do the jobs. I know my own mother would never have been able to figure it out, even before she started having memory problems.
That’s not bad at all. So it leaves me wondering why gig work skews so young.
@Horatius has an excellent point about the technology, certainly for the older people that makes sense. But the older retirees, those born before 1955 (65y+) or so, tend to actually be retired. There are a few of them still working but you don’t see them in fast paced environments like retail checkout. More like janitorial or stocking shelves.
I was thinking of tail-end boomers or early gen X (55-65y). These are the folks who were texting in their thirties and adopting smartphones in their forties, then social media in the mid-forties to fifties. I would guess most of the older cashiers or fast food workers I see belong to this age group. I don’t think the technology gap at this point would be insurmountable.
Something I just thought of, I suppose there isn’t really much opportunity to socialize with co-workers if you are doing gig jobs. That might be a contributing factor, if you’re retired and looking for a job to feel some sense of purpose, going out for solo gigs might not do the trick.
With this group, there’s two factors to consider: Lots of them aren’t actually retired yet. My (older) sister is still working, for example.
Of those who retire in their mid-to-late 50s, how many of them even want a job? I’m considering retiring sometime between 58-60, largely because I’m sick of working. If I still wanted to work, I could just keep my current job until I’m 65, maybe even older, and make a lot more money with a lot less hassle.
So you’d be looking at just the subset of this group who were somehow involuntarily unemployed, but who can’t find anything better than Uber et al. I don’t expect there’d be very many of them.