That was also Thanksgiving week and looking at the details, I earned $500 that Friday and $450 that Saturday. Very unusual volume, almost certainly because of Black Friday.
Anecdotally, when the pandemic happened and everything went into lockdown, Uber Eats demand just skyrocketed and I was earning up to $60/hour delivering Whataburgers. Just fuckin’ insane - the demand for UE drivers rapidly outstripped supply, and people were tipping like a MFer.
Apparently a local Sonic closed early last night when the staff all walked off.
Yes exactly, the people whose career prospects sort of died in 2008 and who now live in a 55+ community in Florida. We have a lot of those compared to other regions. Based on census data (fourth column mine),
| Bracket | Population Estimate | Labor Participation Estimate (%) | Labor Participation Estimate (absolute) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 to 19 years | 100 | 0.0 | 0 |
| 20 to 24 years | 180 | 72.8 | 131 |
| 25 to 29 years | 54 | 100.0 | 54 |
| 30 to 34 years | 413 | 19.1 | 79 |
| 35 to 44 years | 830 | 67.8 | 563 |
| 45 to 54 years | 1936 | 62.6 | 1212 |
| 55 to 59 years | 3055 | 44.2 | 1350 |
| 60 to 64 years | 7546 | 25.7 | 1939 |
| 65 to 74 years | 38426 | 9.3 | 3573 |
| 75 years and over | 26335 | 5.3 | 1396 |
So for an estimated 10,297 person workforce about 3,289 (~32%) are within the 55-65 age group.
Now, this not being a big city ridesharing is uncommon (can count the number of drivers within range on one hand) and expensive. Delivery services for restaurants and groceries however are commonplace, especially with the pandemic, doubly especially for the period of time Florida was actually locked down - when people 65+ (~90% of the population) were advised to stay home 24/7.
I would expect to see people from the 55-65 age group represented with instacart, doordash, grubhub, Walmart delivers, etc, but alas.
~Max
For anyone interested in an in-depth look at someone who was fully entrenched in the gig economy, check out this feature from Wired about a man named Jeffrey Fang, and some of his gig economy friends. It really is a good look into “hard core” giggers.
I can think of a similar job that I’ve done scoring standardized tests. When the job was done on site in large temporary scoring centers, the labor force had many retirees who definitely enjoyed the social aspect of the job. As it moved online, even before Covid, many of them dropped the job. Technology might be a reason, but I suspect it’s just not as much fun for them when it’s done in solitude at home.
Quite a few of the older people we are acquainted with go out to work regularly, but not for wages.
They volunteer at the local food bank, charity shop or distributing meals to the elderly. One takes people to hospital appointments for car expenses.
It’s all been disrupted by Covid of course, but things are gradually getting under way again. When I went for my Coid jabs, the volunteers manning the centre were mostly in the 60+ age group, although there were also some students.
I think you’re missing the point. I said that some of the tasks are fun, and what’s wrong with that?
I have several relatives who have done that over the years. In the case I’m thinking of, they would score essays that accompanied standardized tests, and they made something like $12 an hour; they were paid by time, not by the piece.
Yes, almost every project I’ve worked with different companies has been by the hour. Per piece ended up being a mess, plus no one milks the clock anyway. If someone is scoring slowly, they’re likely overthinking things
My SIL told me that they did expect a certain number of essays graded per hour. I tried to get on there, but she said they had all the people they needed.
Yeah, in general, you should be close to the average. Almost never a problem.
It’s social pressure and tech adaptation, that’s pretty much it. There’s not a lot of cred to being a 55 year-old Uber driver, and being able to use your cell phones for gig work beyond Uber/Instacart/etc requires a certain adeptness to the technology which my generation just doesn’t have… but my daughter, who grew up in a smart phone world and supported herself for 2 years doing various odd gigs via her phone, does.
But even she prefers the regular job lifestyle supported by her job at Mamans, telling me a couple of weeks ago that she really enjoys the feeling of having money she can spend w/o worrying where the replacement for each dollar is coming from. She is still doing gig work, however - she landed a dog sitting gig for 8 days - $500, plus $300 for ‘expenses’, plus an unlimited credit on their grubhub account so she can order dinner every night while playing with the dogs. (Just, holy shit, Sophia. Good for you!)
Anecdotally, I’ve been using DoorDash a lot during the pandemic, and I’d say the vast majority of the people are middle-aged or older. I had on old guy deliver once who looked close to 80.
The CBS “Sunday Morning” show had a segment relating to this:
They interviewed one former restaurant worker who said when he lost his waiter job, he took it as an opportunity to look for a new career. He started an online class to get into cybersecurity. People in restaurant management were saying that people won’t work for typically low wages and businesses have to raise their rates (and add benefits) if they want to retain workers. Businesses which can’t adapt because their profit margin is too low will likely go out of business. And the flip side is that we as a society should understand that we have to pay higher prices to ensure that the employees can be paid a livable wage.
Well, the extra Covid benefit ran out a few days ago, so watch for the next jobs report to see if that had an effect. Economists predicted over 700,000 jobs would be created on the last one, and it came out to less than half that.
? It’s hard to know what you’re talking about when you make a brief and not very clear assertion and don’t provide a cite for it. “The last one”? The last what?
I presume that this isn’t what you’re referring to:
Surely the fact that you can stay on Mom and Dad’s health insurance until you turn 26 helps skew gig work younger. People who need their own policies are going to want a job that has benefits.
People here act so surprised that someone would pursue a job with higher status and compensation. I mean I’m sure plenty of skilled trades pay well. And plumbers, carpenters, etc can live anywhere people build houses, which is anywhere. They don’t need to live near expensive cities like New York or San Francisco like lawyers, bankers, and tech workers do. But a lot of people would rather work any office job , rather than outdoors on some construction site or some factory job.
People act surprised when, after 20 years of working an office job so many desire or are envious of, that I never want to do so again. A lot of people would rather work anywhere but an office.
It irritates me that our educational system in this country tries to hammer everyone into one box out of many.
The jobs report. Mentioned in the previous sentence. Nobody remotely qualified to be participating in a conversation about employment needs a cite for that.