Here's a short linear unreasoned response to @brandon_mn's link: Uber Welfare Sharing Gig Economy.
- It's great that there is a variety of worldly tasks people can pick up, especially with in the flexibly hours frame, plus the varying degrees of skill you can gradually climb the rungs.
- The Internet is a great equalizer; before I force "restore work requirements for food stamps", I'd force easy access to cheap and/or inexpensive fiber Internet first. There's no point integerating all of this Internet based working when we can barely get decent speeds, rates and caps.
- Maybe there's an example I have not seen yet; my grandmother relies on foodstamps, and I just doubt she can handle a gig economy requirement to get those foodstamps. Sure, exceptions and such. That's what they all say at first. I tried to get my grandmother (who stays at home 90% of the time, and has had some form of Internet and a decent computer for over ten years) to build websites. I lost that battle, but it was a good idea!
- It might be fun and games now, but by placing this gig economy overhead on all those gig proviers, they might dislike it.
- We should have been giving away computers and phones, and making Internet at home and on the move cheaper for years. We need to catch up. (We really had our chance fifteen years ago, I say; so we lost.) Besides giving away all of that good stuff to those that can make use of it for these needs, education along with it is also required. Hi community education!
- I wouldn't say this is a silver bullet or fool proof solution, instead of this replacing whatever we have now, I think putting this along side it is better. Recognizing jobs can change form over time is excellent, recognizing that there are other steps that need to be taken alongside that transformation is also important too.
Thanks for reading this short response.
+100000
I completely agree. "Gigs" can be meaningful ways for people to make a living. One of my biggest concerns with the article is how flippantly they set aside the lifestyle (and, in all likelihood, severe class structure) that making work (especially gig work) required enforces.
<political-science-soapbox>The entire point of assistance/safety net programs is to provide people some base level of support when they need it. Making access to that safety net conditional is entirely contrary to the spirit of the program, and stands to harm tons of people who rely upon it.</political-science-soapbox>Which is my inflammatory way of saying what you said first and better. :)