Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers

by Steven Hill

The US workforce, which has been one of the world's most productive and wealthiest, is undergoing an alarming transformation. Increasing numbers of workers find themselves on shaky ground, turned into freelancers, temps and contractors. Even many full-time and professional jobs are experiencing this precarious shift. Within a decade, a near-majority of the 145 million employed Americans will be impacted. And now a weird yet historic mash-up of Silicon Valley technology and Wall Street greed is thrusting upon us the latest economic fraud: the so-called "sharing economy," with companies like Uber, Airbnb and TaskRabbit allegedly "liberating workers" to become "independent" and "their own CEOs," hiring themselves out for ever-smaller jobs and wages while the companies profit.

But this "share the crumbs" economy is just the tip of a looming iceberg -- a "freelance society," with the middle class drifting toward a troubling future. Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Naked Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers, by veteran journalist Steven Hill, is an exposé that challenges conventional thinking, and the hype celebrating this new economy, by showing why the vision of the "techno sapien" leaders and their Ayn Rand libertarianism is a dead end.

In Raw Deal, Steven Hill proposes pragmatic policy solutions to transform the US economy and its safety net and social contract, launching a new kind of deal to restore power back to the hands of the American workforce.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Business, Politics

336 pages, Hardcover

First published October 20, 2015

Reviews

[John Gurney · Rating 1 out of 5]

I drive for Uber and Lyft; this book is a hyperbolic screed. Every paragraph drips with negative emotion as author Steven Hill attacks Uber, repeatedly calling the ridesharing company "creepy" and worse.

Hill is one-sided in his use of anecdotes, writing Uber is dangerous. Why? Because an Uber driver in Mumbai, India raped a passenger. He makes no effort to address if taxi drivers rape passengers (they do). He uses one terrible incident, out of all the world's Uber drivers, sensationalizes it, and pretends cabbies don't. Women Uber passengers tell me they prefer Uber because of its driver rating system and instant GPS communication to Uber if there's a problem. Several women said cab drivers sometimes "get fresh" or proposition them on a ride, which understandably makes them uncomfortable. Similarly, he treats Uber driver accidents by focusing on one with fatalities while being completely quiet about taxi drivers. While some taxi drivers are excellent, they have a reputation for aggressive, even wild, driving, including ignoring traffic signals. But, Hill is out to bash Uber so he pretends cabbies are model drivers and citizens. Do a Google search on "taxi fatality" or "taxi rape charge" and see if Hill is fair. Another example of Hill's sneakiness is, somewhat inconsistently with his Uber-is-taking-over-the-world claim, he says the company may be about to collapse because people are learning it is a "raw deal" for everyone involved. He cites one person, yes, one woman in Arizona, who got fed up and deleted the Uber app from her phone. What he neglects to mention is literally millions of others have added Uber in the past few years.

Hill misunderstands Uber is typically a side job. He provides no data to show it is a full-time profession. Uber offers no benefits so it is not an ideal full-time gig; flexible scheduling and 24/7 rides makes it ideal for a side job. I wouldn't recommend quitting a solid job for Uber or Lyft. Literally every Uber driver I've met does it on the side or is a retiree earning extra income. Hill has issues with what Uber pays, although in fairness to Uber, they make no promises or claims. You are paid by the ride, not by the hour. I found the pay varies greatly depending on time of day, day of the week, and location. Saturday night in Chicago or rush hour in the city are good times to earn; odd hours in a remote suburb will find you few rides. A good hour might net you close to $20, but a slow hour is under the minimum wage due to a lack of riders. Hill's theme is Uber and other ride sharing companies are "screwing" American workers, but he lacks evidence and it isn't my experience.

Hill completely missed that driverless cars will, most likely, eliminate Uber's drivers- as well as cab drivers and truckers- in the mid-term. That will be a concern for the labor market, but one he didn't grasp.

Hill goes after AirBnB, although not for "screwing" workers as it is free money if you can find someone to use your home while you're away, but for "ruining" American neighborhoods. Hill is just out of touch, nestled in San Francisco as he is. I trust he is correct some rental units in New York City and San Francisco have been converted to permanent airBnB hotels. Yet, this is not happening everywhere else in America. Most of the country probably laughs at the idea of a shortage of housing due to airBnB conversions. Is this a problem in Peoria or Cleveland or farm towns or even in Chicago? NYC and S.F. have unique rent control rules that may worsen whatever problem there is. Still, if airBnB is having such an impact, we'd expect to see (1) urban hotels failing from the competition (which they're not) and (2) developers building new condos for the "airBnB hotel" market (which I'm not aware of).

Hill probably is on the strongest ground about TaskRabbit and similar labor sites because their wages don't include travel to/from the job. An $18/hour job pays less net of travel time/gasoline. As with Uber, though, TaskRabbit seems to be something people do on the side when they need the money, not under illusions of a great full-time job, which it likely isn't as it lacks benefits.

Hill concludes by saying the new American economy is going freelance, threatening our way of life- although his own stats don't back that up. Five percent? He cites Why Nations Fail as evidence that the "Uber economy" threatens the American Way, but Hill either deliberately distorted that rather neoliberal tome or, perhaps more likely, read things that simply weren't there. I read Why Nations Fail and an "Uber economy" was not one of the reasons any nation failed. In fact. that book writes of successful nations accepting "creative destruction" where new technologies (like Uber) disrupt and destroy old business models (like taxis) with a flexible labor market able to adapt to the new. Yet, Hill is opposed to this very Shumpeterian creative destruction, looking askance at new technologies that threaten unions and traditional work relationships.

Hill touches on the broader issue of companies sometimes preferring temps and contract employees to full-time workers, but even there, he doesn't understand that the heavy regulatory burden he demands is one reason employers prefer 1099 workers, at times, to permanent ones. That said, the full-time job hasn't exactly disappeared and Hill can't show it has.

I cannot recommend this book. It is chock full of emotion and Hill loves quotation marks so every page is full of "share-the-crumbs economy", "bad companies", "screwed", "race to the bottom", "gotcha capitalism", "Tasmanian devil of taxis", and the like. I personally have benefited from Uber and Lyft rides in my free time. Both companies have been ethical and very clear with me. It hasn't been a "raw deal".

***

After reading the book, I was curious and Googled for part-time labor facts. The following charts contradict Hill, as the Federal Reserve Bank of S.F. shows the proportion of part-time workers varying only slightly, rising from 17% (or ~19% adjusted) in 1970 to 20% in the Great Recession, which reflected a spike after the economic shock (http://www.frbsf.org/economic-researc...). OECD data shows the European social democracies, whose policies Hill explicitly recommends emulating, have higher proportions of part-time workerforces: https://data.oecd.org/emp/part-time-e.... Other relevant data: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat08.htm and
http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/09/news/...

[Gena · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting if overlong account of what happens when laborers are left on their own to fend for themselves without the protection of a standard employment agreement. If anything, it will make you grateful for your 9-5 gig. I can see how these sorts of jobs (Uber/ Lyft driver, TaskRabbit, etc.) might be helpful short-term for some extra cash, but overall I think they are overly detrimental to the average American worker.

[YHC · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Share the crumbs" economy is coming....
A very insight book about how freelancing society we are living in now. At the beginning, we embraced the low price on our products, accepting low quality came with low price, jobs flew to Asian cheap waged countries (from US angle). Now it's turn of "service"/"labor", with the help of internet app, who offered the lowest price get the customers. Uber and Airbnb are the example to open the door for so called the solution for "increasing" freelancing society, but actually itself could have contribute the situation to get worse. Just-in-time scheduling style has deprived the workers in precarious condition to even worse situation.

The problem of Uber is there is poor regulation for the driver's quality, some passengers got assault and quite some female customers got raped in India. To get a license as Taxi driver requires certain conditions and regulations, mainly they belong to a company so we can feel secured.
The problem of Airbnb is also the poor regulation about housing quality on safety, fire issue. The author has been using fake photos to subscribe as "home" renting member, unlike what the website indicated that they would check up before hand, within 15 mins, he became member, even his beautiful fake house photos, customers wanted to book the rent already. Secondly, quite a lot of the house owners are professional landlords, they are the real-estate people who chased away the disadvantaged old residents by force to buy off the whole building, renew to rent as Airbnb. Paying tax to government is a hole, hard to regulate if they do.
So does to TaskRabbit, just bring down the price of work to those who accept the least pay, usually the poor immigrants from Mexico or South America.

Robots and A.I are standing by the take over the middle skilled jobs, some even quite high skilled jobs, such as pharmacists, lawyers, nurses, basically many kinds of work can be taken over by robots or machines, even education can be received just on line with Moocs (even more professional and famous teachers).
When the day comes, we are hitting the event horizon of economy, everything stops. (The Chinese translation on the title of this book was actually brilliant: economy singularity)

In the end, Hill gave several suggestions about how we could solve this kind of outcome caused by freelancing society. Basically he was just introducing the European style, Nordic or German style.

My thoughts: In the book, Hill mention many times Ayn Rand. She has uncountable side effect for american elitism, she removed the guilt of greedy entrepreneurs on earning huge money in capitalism. Never ever seen anywhere else in the world such a huge gap from CEO and it's worker on earning.(1200:1 in US mentioned in the book) Ayn Rand herself complained in the end of her days when she got sick and needed to pay her high medical bills if she didn't join social security which she always looked down upon. (read here: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012...)

.......................below are paragraphs i copied from books to keep

--经济奇点就像一个黑洞，任何社会都不敢接近，以免引力加速并吸收所 有的光明和善意。一旦奇点的裂变已经达到临界质量，它只能被打断，或者从 一个不稳定的泡沫刺激产生更大的经济泡沫（随着收入越来越少），要么就是 导致一个大的、彻底的对现有财富的重新分配，以此作为一个启动消费需求 的持续努力的一部分。但由于当时的政治体制本身将被经济精英所俘获，政 治和政治家不再是这种再分配的工具。毫无疑问，奥巴马总统是他这一代人 中最有才华和魅力的政治家之一，但他几乎也无力扭转这种恶性循环的局 面，就像一个围绕着重力井滚动的大理石。大理石保持在一个圆圈轨道，但慢 慢地下降，并且随着倾斜的重力井漏斗的平面降得越来越快，在越来越紧的 圆圈当中不断下降，最后陷入中央黑洞。在最后的释放动力学的过程中，在不 远的将来，精英大多会将重点集中在：面对一个支离破碎的社会破坏的不断 裂变，保护其住宅，把住宅设计在城墙及护城河的后面，还包括电子和数字安 全装置，都是专门设计用来控制人群的，如果有必要，也可以起到恐吓的作 用。 我们并不想接近奇点的这种巨大的引力密度。但是，我们距离这个危险
时刻还有多远呢？ 最有可能的是，它可能仍然非常遥远，但轨迹已经非常明确，麻烦也是确 定的。而且沿着奇点的波普，将会产生许多不同程度的崩溃。就目前看来，收 入在最上层的5%的家庭所占的消费开支达到了30%，而这一比率在1992年 仅为23%。这种转变正在加速；2009年以来，收入在最上层的5%的家庭，其支 出攀升了12%，而其他家庭的支出下降了1%。[20]在大衰退的过程中，企业利润 增长了25%~30%，而工资占国民收入的比重则降到了“二战”以来的最低 值。[21]按照联邦储备委员会的观点，2010~2013年，在没有任何缓解的情况下， 美国除了收入在最上层的1/10的人，其余收入都持平或逐步下降。我们正经 历着美国历史上最大的财富转移时期。 在2008年经济危机以前，尽管工资停滞不前，由于还有信用可言，普通人 还能够维持消费水平；收入增长乏力是房地产泡沫的重要驱动力，因为数百 万房主都在利用自己的房子做二次抵押贷款，所以其实也是一种从ATM机里 取钱的方式。但这些宽松的信贷时期已经结束，我们即将面临长期停滞甚至 下降的消费需求。
--所有的证据都表明，不明智的政策干预将导致增加的财富继续向顶端集 中的趋势。美国联邦储备银行圣路易斯分行的史蒂芬·M.法扎里（Steven M. Fazzari）和华盛顿大学经济学教授巴里·塞纳蒙（Barry Cynamon）研究了收入 在前5%和后面95%的人群之间的消费模式转变，总结说：“我们担心，这种日 益加剧的不平等还会继续拉低需求，而且会持续几十年，现在，收入在最下层 的95%的人已经在靠贷款度日，已经拖累了需求的增长，而且在未来几年这 种趋势还会继续。”[23]托马斯·皮凯蒂的《21世纪资本论》揭示了现代资本主义 倾向过度奖励食利者寻求金融投资，并且公司的投资回报实际上是依靠制造 或为社会创造有价值的产品和服务。财富提供的回报总是比劳动多。皮凯蒂 认为，这将导致财富的动态积累会随着时间集中到极少数人的手中，而且将 会导致不平等的继续上升，从而破坏消费需求总量.
---美国企业很快就开始为自己的近期行为进行辩护，它们说在全球经济高 度竞争和动荡的前提下，公司被迫有效地提高生产率，并且要取得更多的产 出，就必须有效减少劳动力和赋予现有的更少的工人以更大的工作量。当然， 这是老板想达到的目标，但这并不意味着政客应该让他们拥有这种权利。迄 今为止，大多数发达国家并没有急于接受“1099经济”和���由劳动力社会。当 然，欧洲的一些国家和日本、加拿大以及其他地方，也确实都比以前使用了更 多的临时工和自由职业者，但绝没有达到如当今美国这样大量使用临时工的 水平，而且其他国家的自由职业者和承包商通常都与固定工人享受许多同样 的工作保障和安全网。 德���汽车行业的工人收入要比美国汽车工人收入高得多，甚至会高达两 倍之多，[25]但德国汽车行业仍然保持着全球竞争力，是世界上最大的汽车出 口商，出口的数量也几乎是美国汽车的两倍[26]——而且德国的汽车行业也没 有采取反工人策略，比如用庞大的独立承包商和临时工代替正式工人，正如 美国汽车公司所做的那样。因此，这只是一个谬论，甚至可以说在某种程度 上，我们必须把自己现行经济的毛病改正过来，才便于我们在全球范围内提 高竞争力。试图通过发展新经济所倡导的反工人主义来提高竞争力的国家， 放眼望去，在全球只有我们自己。正是美国的公司试图通过降低国内工作岗 位的质量来把竞争的压力施加到其他国家，让这些国家为了与我们竞争也学 习我们正在做的事。我们就是那个旋涡，正在威胁全世界，而且要把世界各地 都吸到这个旋涡。 中国正在试图转型成为以消费作为宏观经济基础的经济类型，去替代由 制造业出口支撑宏观经济的经济类型。大多数专家认为，想让中国消费者购 买更多产品，最关键的就是创建一个更发达的安全保障网。安全保障网能够 让人们感到足够的安全感，可以毫无后顾之忧地去花更多的钱，而不是把所 有的钱都存起来。但是在美国，我们恰恰是在反其道而行之，我们在安全保障 网的运行方面越来越弱，这大大降低了工人的消费能力，而且消灭了雇员和 雇主之间在过去很长时间内好不容易才建立起来的稳定联系，这种联系曾让 美国工人在很大程度上感到了安全。 即使联邦政府决定以更多的财政支出来刺激经济需求，就像那些与保罗 ·克鲁格曼一样有类似强烈主张的经济学家所说的那样，那么这种政策的影 响力也会比预期小得多，主要因为对劳动力而言，工作岗位在质量和数量上
都在不断下降，加上安全网也摇摇欲坠，所以这样的政策未必能够达到预期 效果。这些是影响国民经济整体是否能够保障良好运营的重要因素。对“1099 经济”的广泛依赖——“任务兔子”化、“优步”化、自动化、机器人化、自由劳动 力化的宏观经济——随着时间的推移，将彻底破坏自由经济保持稳定、繁荣 发展和“隆隆”前进的重要机制。届时，经济奇点的幽灵将会跃升于地平线之 上，而且会越来越大。
---英国作家、政治经济学家威尔·胡顿（Will Hutton）认为他们的论证非 常具有说服力，“不同国家的经济和政治机构的质量和效果”是导致这一结果 不同的主要因素之一。“资本主义本身就已经被塑造和经营成一种允许新事 物不断重塑甚至破坏旧事物的机制，”[27]在麻省理工学院的一次采访中，阿西 莫格鲁教授说道， “如果你要对国家的繁荣或贫穷进行思考，那么你必须考虑国家为创新 和投资所提供的激励机制，以及一个公平竞争的环境，但可悲的是，这些机制 在历史上看来是极其罕见的。我们所看到的更多是我们所提到的“攫取性制 度”（extractive institutions），它是由少数人设计的，是由社会精英设计的，目的 就在于从社会其他成员那里攫取资源。他们通常不鼓励投资或者创新，当然 也不会为那些想施展自己才能的人才提供一个公平竞争的平台。”[28] 《国家为什么会失败》论证了一个重要结论，即我们绝不能将一个国家的 经济发展趋势与它的政治动态剥离开来。“攫取性政治体制”势必只能培育 出“攫取性经济体制”，正如“包容性政治体制”势必能够创造出“包容性经济 体制”一样，它们是同一枚硬币的两面。践行攫取性政治和经济体制的国家， 要么在经济扩张的短暂浪潮中失败，要么无法全面发展而逐渐衰落。而拥有 包容性政治和经济体制的国家则允许更多的人在更大程度上参与经济，在更
平等的基础上进行经营。这恰恰印证了胡顿所谓的“给予更多人更多参与机 会”，让他们中的一些人能够脱颖而出，鼓励更多的人能够更多地进行尝试甚 至冒险，从而激发经济当中存在的动物精神。“当经济和政治体制不是落在同 一个党派手里，也不属于一群自私自利的、只想从中提取价值的政治寡头时， 就到了经济发展的最佳时期。”胡顿说。[29]奴隶制和封建主义是攫取性社会， 法治和民主的市场经济则往往应当是包容性的。 关于“包容性机制”的特性，《金融时报》的马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）写 道：“应当是集权与多元化的结合：国家必须强大到拥有足以能够保证制衡私 人经济的权力，保证经济发展成果能够被更广泛地共享，但与此同时也能够 代表政治权威。”[30]毫无疑问，攫取性经济的支持者基本上都是反政府的。他 们认为规制或者税收根本没有用，并且把政府看作应当服从于他们个人意志 的东西——就像硅谷的许多新经济领袖所想象的那样，包括“优步”的特拉维 斯·卡兰尼克和“空中食宿”的布莱恩·切斯科（以及“丝绸之路”的罗斯·乌布利 希）。
---阿西莫格鲁和詹姆斯·鲁滨逊得出结论，那些拥有包容性政治政府的国 家——指那些能够尽可能大地扩大政治和财产权利的政治体制，在这种体制 下，同时推行法治，并且提供一些公共基础设施——从长远视角来看，都经历 了最快的增长。他们从十分详尽的研究中所得到的最重要的结论就是，政治 与公共政策，以及由公共政策塑造的机制，与一个国家经济的成功有直接联 系。他们在这本书中所揭示的历史模型已经表明，我们需要做出重大抉择，去 决定怎样影响一个目前处于潜在阶段的新兴经济，以确定它能够逐步发展成 一个具有包容性的利益相关者组成的社会，而不是一个攫取性社会。其实，有 许多方法可以实现鼓励公司发展成“好”的公司而不是“坏”的公司，不论是 在“分享经济”的背景下还是在其他背景下，这主要取决于这些公司到底是被 如何监管的。 然而从这个角度来看，自由劳动力社会和“共享面包屑”经济在美国的崛 起，似乎也不能被肯定地认为是对一个国家的警告，警告这个国家正在被自 己所建立的“攫取性机制”所侵害。实际上，这一新经济的精英设计师正在为 进行更多的攫取做准备，试图通过自动化、智能机器、经纪网站等方法，在很 大程度上扩大“1099工人”的规模。它同时也是政治体制失败的信号，我们应 当对此表示极大的悲哀，因为不仅在美国，包括全世界各地，它意味着一种世 界上最古老的民主国家，这种制度不知凝聚了历史上多少人的灵感，但最终 还是翻来覆去地进入了最后挣扎的阶段，在经济奇点面前一败涂地.
---，共享经济的一个令人好奇的方面还没有被真正地开发出来，即对 其天真的幻想和福音传道者式的迷恋。一方面，无论左翼人士还是右翼人士 都对其非常维护；另一方面，其与自由劳动力社会可以说是连体婴儿。从历史 上来看，左翼和右翼分子走到一起的时候，只有“民粹主义”爆发的时刻。“民 粹主义”通常是一个可以不断实现自我发酵的现象，因为它能够触及人们的 希望和恐惧，通常超越理性。最初，民粹主义被认为是专门直接针对精英利益 的一种反抗，但是缺乏理性，而最终精英分子（或一些学院派的精英）能够从 这种浪潮中逃离出来，并且想方设法进行处理，从而在另一个方向上重新实 现精英的控制。论点和论点的对立面进行碰撞便会产生辩证冲突，结果往往 会形成一种“新常态”。尽管这听起来有些难以理解，历史上却充满了这种类 型的被证明是误报的“改变”，而这恰恰也是共享经济正在发生的事情。共享经济哲学是由渐进的乌托邦主义的古怪的酿造、自由市场的自由主 义、环保的强烈愿望以及反政府的不信任所组成的。其中，反政府的不信任对 无论是保守派还是许多自由主义者和进步主义者都有足够的吸引力。特别是 那些政治上的左翼人士，反政府的情绪深受政府干预的价值进步支柱的影 响，已经在一系列的关键领域包括公民权利、影响显著的环境、劳工权益、减 少不平等等方面表现了出来。事实上，新的解决方案促进了整个范围内更广 泛的共享繁荣。这导致了左翼人士的内部分裂，甚至导致共享经济阵营中保 守人士的同床异梦。
----那些使用“优步”出行的乘客的意愿当然是为了少开车，因此，他们自己 的车辆使用寿命就会持续更长的时间。但如果这些想少开车的乘客使用的 是“优步”共享出行平台服务，而不是公共汽车、骑自行车和步行，那么减少自 己汽车的使用对环境而言就没有任何意义，而且在相当一部分情况下，甚至 比自己开车对环境恶化的影响还要大。 “折旧经济学”也适用于“共享”你的自行车、电钻、洗衣机，和任何其他类 型的个人财产（不包括所住的房子，因为房子在建造时显然就是为了能够居 住更长时间，所以基本上可以忽略那些相对而言极少的居住者数量的改变）。 你的电钻和自行车本来使用寿命可以达到20年，但由于与更多的人共享了该 设备，它必然会磨损得更快，使用的时间更短。这里所强调的关键点就在于， 不仅生产设备的数量是非常重要的，而且每台设备的“使用时间”总量也是非 常重要的。如果你把更多的“使用时间”平均加权在更少数量的生产设备上， 将它进行共享，那么对它而言就只能意味着磨损得更快，必须尽快更换。 当然，如果你从来没有用过你的电视机，你将这件物品进行物物交换或 者出售给没有电视机的人，那么对一台新电视的消耗的确少了。由此看来，随 着越来越多的人进行设备共享和合理交换，确实可能会实现社会总体消耗得 更少。但是，当更多的人都来分享同一台设备时，其影响可能会比共享经济支 持者所认为的那样更具有戏剧性。事实上，斯考尔说：“尽管共享经济的倡导 者都认为共享有助于减少碳排放量，但是几乎没有关于这种影响结果的综合 研究。”现在，共享经济能推动环境可持续发展更多地具备理论性而非实践 性，这一点地球人已经都知道了。
----但由于在很长一段时间内，一说到“共享经济”，似乎就必须和“空中食 宿”、“优步”、“来福车”、“任务兔子”等联系起来，所以真正的共享经济也许可 以有一个更好听的名字——“团结经济”（solidarity economy）。在纽约，已经有 一个组织在使用这个名字（就叫作“团结纽约”，Solidarity NYC）和术语，表 示“团结经济”能够满足人类需要的经济活动，如商品和服务的生产和交换， 加强正义观、生态可持续性、合作和民主。[28]在我看来，这才是正确的语调和 趋势，而且明确这个运动应该做什么。当然，该运动中不包括“优步”、“空中食 宿”和“任务兔子”这些非真正共享经济的企业。
---所以当“优步”、“任务兔子”、“一揽子找工作”、“人力资源”、“凯利服务”或 者任何其他企业在雇用“1099工人”的时候，除了工资，还应当为他们每小时 几美元的成本，为每一个工人在其个人安全网账户中注入资金，建立安全网。 这将是一个十分体面的解决方式，因为它没有必要去争论究竟这个工人实际 上是该公司的固定员工还是独立承包商，这一点已经无关紧要。无论当初是 以哪种方式雇用这个工人，雇主都要保证给每一个工人分配财务资源，预留 必要的安全网资金。这个方法当然也要利用现有的安全网络基础设施和程 序。本书在这里想探讨一下它如何能够在一个简单的、直接的方式下进行有 效运转。 首先，任何雇主雇用一名自由职业者、独立的承包商、临时工或任何其他 类型的非正规“1099工人”，都将被要求对员工代表支付现有的安全网计划， 根据员工的工作时间，雇主应按照比例注入资金。因此，这意味着雇主将支付 现有的社会保障、医疗保险、失业保险、工伤赔偿和残疾津贴，所有这些目前 都被列在联邦或州一级的福利计划中。如果雇主为固定员工提供医疗保险， 那么也应当为所有临时员工提供相同的或类似的健康保险。对于拥有多个雇 主的工人，该工人将根据他的工作时间，在时间银行系统中积累对每一个雇 主的贡献。员工在每个现有程序的账户，将通过个人身份证号码（如社会保障 卡号码）来实现识别和追踪。 其次，对于目前没有为员工提供医疗保健的雇主，个人安全网账户也将 为每个工人建立起来，而且每个雇主都应当按照比例（基于工作的小时数）支 付到员工个人账户，以保障工人能够通过奥巴马医改或消费合作社去购买健 康保险。此外，对于带薪病假、短期休假和长期假期，虽然现在还没有现行的 法定社会保险计划，雇主也要为工人的个人安全网账户按比例注入资金，当
然也是基于工作的小时数，以备工人的不时之需。[13] 因此，举例来说，假设多娜（Donna）是一个每周被理发师雇用20个小时的 工人，而且还有10小时通过“任务兔子”接零散的工作，并且还要在“优步”上开 10个倒班的车，假设她有50%的收入来自理发师工作，有25%的收入来自“任 务兔子”，其他收入则通过“优步”赚取。那么这些雇主将共同承担她3/4的福利 开销（按照每周工作40个小时的基础计算）。又如，假设乔治（George）利用“一 揽子找工作”作为独立承包商每周工作14个小时，利用“来福车”每周工作10 个小时，还要通过Postmates软件每周送15趟货，再通过Handy软件做7份左右 为别人打扫房屋的零散工作，那么他将从每一个雇用他的公司领取他应当享 受到的福利，或者按照他为每一个雇主工作的时间来计算，或者按照他为每 一个雇主工作时所赚到的工资的比例来计算。 个人安全网账户可以由政府监督（就像一个人的社会保障账户、一个个 性化的号码跟踪）或私人实体（受政府管制）监督，这些福利保障多为保险公 司今天所能够提供的各种安全网功能，如国际管理工程师联合会、卡车工人 联合会、SEIU以及其他保险公司，共同为数以百万计的工人提供安全网。这 些个人账户将被收集到一个更大的保险池中，并且进行专业管理。这将构成 一个安全网的框架，工人将根据需要来使用，就像任何全职员工所能享受到 的福利保障一样。 因此，这意味着，当一个“1099工人”失去了他的工作（这在一年当中将会 发生很多次），也将有一些失业补偿金；相同地，如果他在工作当中受伤了，或 者作为残疾人在工作，或者生病了不能轮班工作，那么他也将得到相应的补 偿。而且安全网还将提供一些年度带薪假期，就像全职员工所拥有的那样。在 许多方面，这个体系都将和社会保障以与奥巴马医保类似���方式运转，可以 为多雇主工人建立退休账户和医保账户。但是，在个人安全网账户中，每个雇 用该工人的雇主都会支付资金到该工人现有的安全网络计划和个人安全网 账户中，以支付该工人安全网的各个组成部分。该系统的原理很简单：由雇主 支付，无论该雇员作为工人到底属于哪一种类别。 那么安全网的所有福利计划总共需要多少资金呢？令人惊讶的是，并不 是很多，没有我们想象得那么高。我们可以通过估算现有员工的工资水平，对 每个“1099工人”的成本和雇主的贡献做出相当不错的估计。美国劳工统计局 会定期计算这些数据。根据2014年9月的数据可以看到，美国所有文职雇员 （包括政府和私人部门）的工资和薪金，平均每小时为22.13美元。美国的雇主 也支付了每小时额外的7.44美元——1/3以上——以确保这些工人有机会获 得安全网，包括社会��障、医疗保险、联邦和州政府的失业保险、工伤保险（法 律要求所有定期雇用的工人都应享受），以及健康保险、短期和长期伤残保
险、带薪病假、短期休假和长期假期。 如果我们只关注私人部门的工人，即现阶段大多数“1099工人”正在为之 工作的部门，如果我们仅仅关注服务部门的工人以及零售业和办公室工人 ——这些部门采用的绝大多数都是“1099工人”——就会发现为他们建立安 全网的资金并不多。对销售人员和办公室工作人员来说，他们的成本仅为每 小时5.37美元，而服务部门的工人甚至更少，每小时约2.91美元就能给他们建 立一个全面的安全网。[14] 与此同时，值得注意的是，美国劳工统计局表格中所提供的数字，实际上 是雇主花费成本的上限。通过精心设计的安全网，我们可以使这个成本更低。 上面的例子中假定的都是两周或者10天的带薪年假（这是基于美国劳工统 计局的数据），这个数字可以减少到最基本的标准，也就是四五天（即使是这 样，仍然远远超过目前数百万美国工人可以享受的带薪年假的天数）。相同 地，带薪假期也可以缩减，而且甚至没有基本规定。相对而言，病假的数量想 要削减到更低水平以降低成本，空间可能非常有限。通过各种方式缩减安全 网篮子都会降低整体成本，这使服务业的私人部门雇主只需支付工人每小时 额外的2.27美元，而只需支付销售及办公室工作人员每小时4.19美元。[15]如此 小的金额，就能够为数以百万计的“1099工人”建立包括健康保险、医疗保险、 失业保险、工伤保险、残疾人补贴、带薪病假和休假（但在这个例子中没有带 薪假期）等社会保障服务项目——无论他们的就业情况如何。 这还没有结束，因为成本还可能更低。低收入的工薪阶层都有资格参加 奥巴马医疗补贴，这样就可以再为雇主降低一些成本。医疗保健是迄今为止 福利计划中最大的一笔费用，在整个预期形成的安全网篮子中，它要消耗整 体篮子34%的费用。其他费用占比的分项数字分别为：社会保障（21%）、长期 年假（16%）、短期假期（9%）、工伤职工补偿（6%）、健康保险（5%）、病假 （4%）、失业（短期）、长期及短期残疾（1%）。以这些数字为指导，我们就可以 提出不同项目的混搭方案，使其更加实惠，并且逐步确定一个稳定的福利计 划，随着时间去推广这个项目，并且按照这种设计比例来运转，最后建立整个 项目计划，这样就可以使用很多年。（这种模式反映了社会保障的历史，它最 初在20世纪30年代曾有适度的收益。但多年来，因为它被证明经济实用，并且 非常受欢迎，所以规模越来越大。）

[Alicia Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book touches several topics, some well, some poorly. Hill starts by discrediting Uber, AirBnB, and TaskRabbit as modern-day feudalism. He's quite right about their faulty businesses models, to some degree, but his writing is spotty. In short, according to Hill, these companies' business models treat workers poorly. Hill then goes on a rant about modern businesses of all types forcing workers into a race to the bottom. I'm not sure that readers unfamiliar with these topics will be able to keep up with this book.

I started picking up books on the sharing economy, hoping to gather information which would help me decide which companies I should and should not use. Uber is one such company. Hill lays out a good argument for why Uber itself (but not all ride services) is a bad company, from its strong-arm tactics against local lawmakers, to its avoidance of taxes and liabilities, to its nightmare frat boy, misogynistic founder. Hill then points out that traditional "medallion" taxi companies have controlled a corrupt monopoly in need of a shake-up. But Hill doesn't stop at simply imploring readers to dump Uber in favor of a competitor. Instead, he rants about all app- and internet-based businesses destroying the American economy. Hill offers no real solutions.

The anti-app stuff is followed by a description of the 1099 economy and how it has been increasing, and hurting workers, over the past several decades. I agree with much of what Hill is saying, but again, he offers no real solutions.

At the end of the book, Hill takes on the Freelancers Union (headquartered here in Brooklyn) and in some convoluted way, ends up portraying it and similar efforts as anti-union, anti-worker, and pro-business to a degree I simply can't comprehend. Hill's only real answer is that no tech-heavy business ventures with massive growth potential, etc., should be allowed to start until they've been properly vetted. Likewise, all jobs lost to technological unemployment (that is, workers lost to machines and computerization) must be gained somewhere else.

Huh!? Hill is in essence saying that all technological progress must be stopped, that new businesses cannot be started. Okay--people are totally gonna vote for that.

I'm a bit of a Luddite myself, in terms of feeling apprehensive of how new technologies might impact the economy. I do not want to use services which mistreat and underpay workers, or destroy housing markets. From a less altruistic perspective, I also realize that the entire economy will crumble if no one earns enough to buy anything. It scares me that we're moving toward some dystopian, futuristic feudalism where the 1% constitutes our oligarchy of lords and ladies.

I liked this book to a certain degree--in the sense that I can say I learned some new information. But Hill is far too pessimistic. He seems to fail to realize that positive changes are happening. The mere fact that there is a ready readership for his book is proof of that. Narcissistic CEOs aside, most people do want to play fairly. Bad publicity for companies like Uber means that its competitors, which treat drivers better, get to take some of Uber's business.

It's also maybe worth pointing out--which Hill kinda sorta does but not well--that the sharing economy is the product, not the cause, of the 1099 economy and stagnant wages. As much of a jerk as Travis Kalanick (Uber founder) may well be, I don't doubt that he started Uber genuinely believing it would be a great way for people to earn extra money. A person wants to earn a little extra money, so he/she spends a weekend driving others around; Uber connects the riders with the drivers. I don't think it's fair to lay all of the blame at Kalanick's feet that people are desperate and struggling, and trying to use Uber (or any of the other 1099 gigs) as a full-time job.

So yada yada yada the 1099 economy is out of hand and people aren't learning a living wage. And 200 years after the Luddites, a new batch of workers is being replaced by machines. You can't win with Hill. The 1099 economy is awful for workers on many levels (agreed). Traditional taxi companies operate unfair, corrupt monopolies (agreed). Uber's business model rips off its drivers (agreed). But within a few years, no one will be able to afford any sort of ride service, so none of it matters. Hill offers no real solution.

The answer is, I think, new protective legislation designed to deal with the changing economy, not a moratorium on new technologies and computer-based businesses. We need new unions which help 1099 workers.

[Paul Froehlich · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Welcome to the Freelance Society,” writes Steven Hill. His simple premise is that the American job market is rapidly changing – mostly to the detriment of the average worker. That worker has less stability, lower compensation and a skimpier safety net than his counterparts a generation ago. Consequently, we need to update the social contract – codified by the New Deal for a much different economy – to establish for freelancers and independent contractors the same legal protections that full-time employees enjoy. In an interesting, though somewhat repetitious, book, Hill details what is happening.

• More than one in three workers is now freelancing, and the trend is picking up momentum. Temp work is one of the fastest growing sectors in the American economy.
• Business has a preference to use “independent contractors” who file 1099-MISC forms with the IRS. That’s because employers can lower their costs by 30 percent, since they aren’t responsible for a 1099 worker’s health benefits, retirement, pension, workers compensation, overtime, disability, paid sick leave or vacations.
• The worker protections that began with the New Deal are based upon the assumption that the employee works for the company that makes the product. That assumption is less and less valid.

What does it mean for workers in the freelance society? It’s back to the future in the 1099 economy, where workers are responsible for paying for their own health insurance, arranging for their own IRAs –though without employer matching – and paying the employer’s half of the Social Security and Medicare payroll tax. They go without “a steady paycheck, secure employment, and a comprehensive safety net.”

In short, working conditions are more precarious for freelancers.
One option for people seeking work is to find short-term gigs via websites and mobile apps. These might be called job brokerages for day laborers where freelancers bid against each other for work in a type of reverse auction designed to be a race to the bottom.

The largest company in the digital temp industry is Upwork, which has 10 million contractors around the world. For services that can be performed regardless of the worker’s location, the Internet competition is with freelancers from India, the Philippines and other Third World countries who accept Third World wages.

Hill examines two of the most prominent companies in the so-called Uber economy -- Airbnb and Uber. He calls Airbnb “a catalyst for massive lawbreaking, a tax rogue, and an impetus for the eviction of longtime tenants.”

Neighborhoods are most likely to be disrupted in areas attractive to tourists, such as some in San Francisco, New York and LA. When landlords realize they can make more money doing short-term rentals via the Internet, they evict their current tenants, which results in fewer places available to rent for permanent residents. Thus formerly stable residential neighborhoods undergo “hotelization,” despite zoning for residential use, not for tourist hotels.

While hotels are subject to municipal occupancy taxes, Airbnb claims tax exemption in almost all of the places it operates around the world. The exception is San Francisco, where the company agreed in 2015 to pay its back taxes and to collect taxes going forward, due to the threat of a hostile initiative.

While the company claims its hosts are regular people who live in their homes and occasionally rent out spare rooms, the reality, at least in hot tourist areas, is quite different. An investigation by the New York attorney general found that the Airbnb market is dominated by professional landlords and multi-property agents. One operator in New York City booked $6.8 million in revenue on his 272 units over four years. Similar patterns have been reported in LA, San Diego, and Chicago.

Uber has been called “an app-based taxi service for non-professional, unregulated and underinsured drivers.” Uber drivers are 1099 contractors. The company claims it does criminal background checks on their drivers, but does not take fingerprints, and name-based checks are far less reliable.

The company says it has no liability because the driver is a private contractor. Uber does not require its contractors to have commercial insurance in order to protect their customers, since personal auto insurance does not cover commercial use. By contrast, taxi drivers are covered by their company’s commercial insurance.

While taxi companies and limo services are subject to livery taxes, Uber claims exemption because it neither owns vehicles nor employs drivers. Uber makes the same argument when it comes to regulations.

Uber claims its driver-contractors are highly paid, but four out of five are part-time and most are temporary. If they really could earn six-figure incomes, one would think there would be more full-timers. Uber takes a cut of every fare, originally 5 percent, but now 20-25 percent or more. Uber also makes unilateral price cuts, which reduce driver compensation. Meanwhile, drivers are responsible for their own costs, such as gas, insurance, maintenance, cleaning, tickets and so on, as well as the employer’s payroll taxes.

So what are the solutions? One is the political decision to extend the same job protections that W-2 employees have to temps, freelancers and contractors the way the European Union has done. If employers were required to pay the same benefits to 1099 contractors as to W-2 workers, that would remove the economic incentive to use 1099 contractors to save on benefits. What’s indispensable is to make worker protection and rights portable and centered on the individual, not on the job, since freelancers can have several employers in one day.

The way it would work is to require employers to contribute to an individual security account a few dollars per hour for each freelancer, temp or 1099 contractor they use. From these accounts would come the employer’s share of Social Security, Medicare, and worker’s comp. The principle should be, “if you contract with them, the employer pays.”

A second proposal is to join the 160 nations that already provide for paid sick days. Another idea is to offer tax breaks to corporations that permit workers to elect from one-third to one-half of the board of directors. The German economy does not seem to be harmed by the requirement that half of directors be selected by workers, though CEOs would earn less than they do now. Raw Deal makes a persuasive case that Ayn Rand fundamentalism does not benefit the workforce. ###

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive pro-union nonsense, that could have been a pamphlet. Started way too many sentences with a conjunction. Still, it gave intense scrutiny to upstart employment types, which is fair, as they are just filling a need, and over-reaching as they attempt to profit.

However, the author failed to squarely rest the outdated labor regulations, the impetus of the industry disrupters, on those benefiting most, the government.

New Deal needs a fresh look, and Congress should address burdensome tax laws that encourage overseas transactions. No incentive to that, so it seems. Uber on!

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote about this book in this piece: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/1...

[Erik Surewaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading quite some books on platform companies like e.g. Airbnb and Uber, I understood that many of these Silicon Valley startups support the so-called libertarism. A political ideology that wants to get rid of government control as much as possible. This to give the companies as much comtrol as possible without limitations of mandatory rules like e.g. employee insurances etc.

I understood that the author Ayn Rand with here books like The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are the must read books to get and idea how libertarism could benefit society. I therefore decided to read The Fountainhead. After some further research I also decided to read some books that also show the negative side on libertarism: e.g. The Jungle by the author Sinclair and Germinal by the author Emile Zola.

Well... after reading up on the abovementioned books, I tended towards having a negative opinion on libertarism. This since it would create, as I understand it, a society in which the middle class would disappear whilst leavingnus with a poor underclass and a very wealthy upperclass.

So... I decided to also this book... And I must conclude that I should have found this book earlier. I honestly don’t understand that this book is not considered as a more important read whilst being read by many other people. But believe me... this should be an almost mandatory reads for somebody interested in the media / technology sector.

I have to admit that not all is good in this book. I see the book as having two really distinctively different parts. The first part contains a biography / description on Uber and Airbnb. The second part is more an analysis of the good and bad sides. The last around 100 pages are in my opnion to opinionated;) The last 100 pages give too much a subjective view. I would have been a better book in case the last few chapters would have been dropped from the final book.

I really had to think on whether the book deserved three or four stars. But I decided to give it four stars. The fact that I consider the subject as so important whereby I should have found and read this book a lot sooner, I decided to give it four stars. The book gives a very good view on what is wrong with libertarism and platform companies that create a society with an unregulated (job, housing, ...) market in which we go back to the Middle Ages. Our society should really take a good look at its laws and regulations and adapt them in such a way that we don’t loose our middle class..

[Matt Sandgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting to see how the gig economy destroys income of the providers and the quality for the consumers. This book gets more relevant as time goes on. People are so in love with the sharing market because it is new and seems to make these services cheaper, but someone ends up losing. I find myself referring to "Raw Deal" frequently in a lot of different situations.

[CBergs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read but extremely repetitive- Hill could have made this half as many pages and still gotten his point across.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've read in a while on the sad state of employee / employer relations in the modern United States. Many of the things I've said over the years regarding the cavalier attitude of companies like Uber, Air BNB, and oDesk towards laws and regulations were addressed. Also addressed, in significant depth, is the "1099-ing" of regular employees and making them "contractors" ~ as a truck driver, I saw this extensively with a number of companies, but heavily with Fed-Ex (which has fortunately lost a couple of lawsuits regarding employee mis-classification).

Hill addresses the crumbling middle class due to corporate greed and exacerbated by the undue influence of the wealthy few on public policy and the rule-making process. The safety nets that were historically provided by a mutually beneficial employee/employer relationship has all but vanished ~ while employers claim that "workers would rather have 'freedom' than stability / security", Hill's research unmasks that as the bald-faced lie many workers know it to be.

The implications for this rampant 1099-ing, weakening of laws / regulations (or outright disregard thereof), and devaluation of workers has implications across a wide swath of society.

We can do better than what we are left with; and we should. Hill uses examples from around the developed nations as to how worker-positive policies can be implemented and done so well without the horribly negative impacts that the 'pro-business' lobbying machine have sworn will be the ruination of our economy.

Hill finally shows us some potential solutions, research on how they have been successfully implemented, and the positive outcomes they have lead to as a guide of hope that it's not too late for us to fix this mess we currently find ourselves in.

[Erik · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mostly just an opinionated rant. It seems the "author" is an "expert" at the sarcastic usage of quotation marks....

Guess I should have known from the title that I was getting into 1-star terrain.

[Mills College Library]

331.10973 H6483 2015

[KNK · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really interested in this topic but book was not well organized and poorly edited.