The Gig Economy

The "Gig Economy" originated with the first child who walked across the street after a snow storm and rang the doorbell of their neighbor to inquire whether they wanted their sidewalk shoveled. Or maybe it was raking the leaves from their lawn or cutting the grass and bagging the clippings.

According to The Atlantic magazine: "In the late 1970s, 77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s, only 55 percent did. The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half." 

To hear people talk today about the Gig Economy it's if the rise of contractors in society is something new. Kids were the original contractors, negotiating for their jobs and manner of payment. The fact that this is now a term for describing adults and not children is what is novel. When it involved children there was still a safety net for the children, namely, they had a home to return to and a school they were required to attend. Now that this term has been appropriated and celebrated by corporations it is something else for us all to ponder.

When as children we worked outside the home we were not contemplating our retirements or how we would pay for our healthcare. Today as adults we all have to consider the issues around the "defined retirement" plans being replaced by 401k accounts and the variety and complexity of healthcare options. When you add the need for contractors to be constantly selling their services it can be overwhelming for the average person. No small wonder we have a huge segment of society,  according to the U.S. Census Bureau, opting out and having a doctor declare them disabled. This government bureau goes on to state that as of 2017 there were nearly 40 million Americans with a disability in 2015, representing 12.6% of the civilian non-institutionalized population.

Coincidence, maybe. This is not to disparage anybody with a disability, only to point out that given the alternatives of being an adult contractor in a brutally competitive global economy, this is a course of action that many people consider.