What's the gig economy?

com or the Parkway Theater dot com for tickets. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant. And there's our guest producer today, Dylan. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah. We picked Dylan up by UM Advertising on task Rabbit saying that we needed a guest producer today, and here he is. That's not true, but it could be, Chuck,

it could be. It is true. Um. The reason it could be is because, whether you know this or not, Charles, we are living smack dab in the middle of what's called a gig economy. Uh sure, partially, yeah, yeah, And a lot of people are blaming UM the recession for it,

uh And I think that's definitely part of it. Like there's a an abundance of people who didn't have jobs starting in late two early two thousand nine, and it's kind of become the tradition to give people jobs, but not give them full time jobs because there's a lot of things you can get around if you're an employer, as we'll talk about UM. So the gig economy has developed as a part of the recession, but it's also developed because there's been a lot of tech, there's been

a lot of slow pace government playing catch up. There's UM, there's and there's an abundance of workers, but it's nothing new. The idea of of um kind of being paid as an independent contractor working to fulfill a particular task and just getting paid for the task, which is kind of the basis of the gig economy. That's that's actually pretty old from what I read prior to the Industrial Revolution.

That's basically how most people made a living unless you were like a highly skilled crafts person, right like a brewer, or a blacksmith or something like that, smithy smithy. Yeah, I mean things really uh changed at a certain point

where it went from that too. You get a job for a company, and you work for that company for forty five years, and then you retire for that company, right, and they take care of you in retirement and while you're working for them, And that was that was really how things went for for a long long time for like our grandparents generation and even to a certain degree

our parents generation. And things really really changed again, and now we kind of are back in this place where you know, the gig economy can mean a lot of things that can be um, I mean technically any freelancer, like when I used to work as a film production freelance U production assistant, Like, that's technically part of the gig economy. Yeah, because you were paid for the gig. You weren't like part of a company's You were in

a full time employee with a company, right. Yeah. But like when I hear gig economy these days, and I think most people associate the modern two thousand nineteen usage of it, you kind of think of the tech industry and you think of being a driver for a ride share company or UH working or selling stuff on Etsy or working for scrab it or something like that. Yeah, I mean it's basically synonymous with with tech platforms that connect people to consumers directly. That's kind of that's and

gig economy. I think that's a really good point when you use the term gig economy, Yeah, that basically describes this modern incarnation of it. But gig work, like you were just saying, is is it's been around for a very long time. And like remember all those temp services like manpower and UM there was Okay, so that's that's

gig work too. Basically, if you're a dog walker and you go put a sign on a UM street pole or light a light pole at the corner, and you've got like the little tearoffs for your phone numbers, that's basically working in the gig economy. Now, if you took that street pole with the little flyer that you made and swapped it out for an app, that's that's basically what we're living with right now. Yeah. So, UM, here's

a stat for you. There are all kinds of stats for the gig economy, but here's one UM from UH in two thousand five. The gig economy was about ten of the U S workforce, and just ten years later that had grown to about six and then just one year later in two thousand sixteen, UM of Americans reported earning some kind of money from what they called the digital platform economy. And that's what we're talking about with like ride share or Airbnb and task grab it and

stuff like that. So that's a lot of people, and that's you know, we'll get into other sets later about whether or not these are people that UM are doing this little thing on the side, like I worked my day job then a go drive for Uber at night or uh. Basically, more and more people are doing this as their full time job without the benefits of being

full time employees. And from the very spare um number of studies that are actually like conducted on this gig economy and the ramifications that holds UM those are the people that people who work full time in gig economy jobs, especially tech platform jobs, they they tend to be the most vulnerable as far as workers go. Yeah, so there's really a few, um, well, there's three parts to this. There's the the platform companies that are I mean, it's kind of funny, I guess it's genius in a way.

But all they're doing is connecting people. Yeah, they're they're replacing those old like temp agencies and there, but you don't have to go in and fill out stuff. You just log on, create a profile and start. So that's a that's one appealing part of it too. Yeah. So what they do is they they're gonna draw that direct

line between you, between the consumer and the producers. So they everyone who's ever done a rideshare knows you just click on the little thing and you can pay through the website and they get whatever percentage of money they get. The hindy I think is no, no, no, the technology platform gets money and obviously the gig worker gets money, right,

And all they're doing is facilitating that connection, right. But they're also one of the things that that um, these apps can do that is totally new and revolutionary is that they can fulfill demand. They can connect supply and demand in real time, like you know when you when you hail like a ride app or hail a ride

through an app. I think is the way all the millennial right, um, you you have you have just entered like this world where you are saying I need to ride right now, And they say, oh, we have a car near you right now, let's send this person over Like it's real time demand that's being fulfilled. Whereas if it were just that that person who is in a car and saying like I could use some extra scratch, I want to take you some where, what are they gonna do, like just drive down the sidewalk and be like,

do you need to ride somewhere right now? No? Okay, do you need to ride? Think about how much time that takes off of their plate. And that's really the role that the platform UM performs is connecting consumers with producers. Yeah. And as far as being a gig worker, UM, there are a couple of big categories. It's either sort of the UM if you don't necessarily have a college degree.

You might be on the lower income side of a gig worker, which could be someone who delivers something to your home or one of these services where you can call a handyman to come over and do something like cut weeds in your front yard, or it can be on the very very high side. I got a list of the the highest paying gig rates and the very top one is uh, something you probably know a little about about from your into the world research, but deep learning jobs the a fifteen bucks an hour. Wow. Yeah,

what is that like consulting or something. I think it's just any kind of AI specialization where you know, that's the kind of rate you can command on an hourly basis. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah. Blockchain was number two at eighty seven bucks an hour, robotics seventy seven dollars an hour. Uh. Number four was penetration testing jobs, which what is that? Penetration testing jobs? Give me, give me your best guess. I want to let's let's play a game like allowing

yourself to be punctured by stuff. A shot at and they like that, that bullet works, that needles sharp. Give me give me some money. No, it obviously sounds dirty, but it's all it is. It's like security, to see if your security can be penetrated. I got to, I got to that makes sense that that would be a cool gig. You just get hired on to to just mess with somebody's cybersecurity. It's fine weaknesses, right, Yeah. But then it goes all the way down to number ten,

which was Instagram marketing at thirty one bucks an hour. Wow. Wow, that sounds made up, But wow, it sort of does. But this is um, I mean, those are the highest paying gigs. There was one film industry job in their final cut pro editor thirty seven dollars an hour, So those are on the high side. But um, I mean, what what are these drivers making it? This is something like twelve dollars an hour on average, that's the national

average after expenses, but before whatever taxes they need to pay. UM, and they do need to pay taxes. This is a hard lesson that UM. Some some gig workers are finding is that like, this isn't like tax free money. Just because the money is not so great doesn't mean there's it's not tax free. Like you still have to pay taxes on this. You still have to file like self employment tax in some areas, some cities, some counties, some states.

You have to have a business license. There's a lot of hidden costs that a lot of people don't know about. And because as I was saying before, governments from the local level up to the federal level have been so slow to like pivot. I guess in Silicon Valley corporate speak to this new reality of um of tech platform

apps that that the gig economy functions on um. There's a lot of people out there who who just are un licensed, who aren't paying taxes, and who hopefully will never find out the hard way that they did, but maybe find out the easy way like through us and then start and don't have to pay anything for back there are you know there's certain municipal municipalities and is that right? Municipalities? Man, you nail municipalities. The only way it could have been very chuck is if you've done

it with a horribly stereotypical Italian accent. Do it? Do it? No? No, no, no no. Did you see that guy right in and said I sound like a cartoon chef on TV? And I was like, oh, well that's right. Yeah. I was like, you didn't think I was trying to pull off a real accident, right, Like that's what I'm going for. I want of you to know what it sounded like to

hear chef boyer, do you know? Basically? So? Um. A lot of counties now are getting involved though, because um, well they say they want to help them transition into the gig economy and learn to put away money to pay taxes and stuff. What they're really probably doing is making sure that they pay their taxes right. And and it's not just counties that are getting into its. States are the federal government's kind of but it's it looks like it's starting to become a patchwork of state regulations.

And we'll talk about that UM in a minute. But first, Chuck, why don't we take a break, let's do it. Uh So, UM, we were saying that that there are the governments are starting to it into this finally years on. Basically, I mean, the gig economy itself is many many years old by now, and they're just now starting to pass legislation. UM. But not all of it is, you know, like on the county level putting up educational posters saying, hey, you're a small business, you need a license to do you know,

to drive for uber or whatever here. Um. It's not just that. There's also a real, um frequently overlooked component of the tech platforms that connect consumers and producers UM, and that is that their profit margins are based largely on getting around labor laws that have been established throughout the twentieth century UM and that are just outdated. The the the UM tech platforms, the apps that that connect people. Um, we're built up around those laws, and they skirt the

law very plainly. I mean there have been court ruling in UM, federal agency rulings to say, yeah, they're right, Like these aren't employees, these are independent contractors. And so they don't they don't get over time, they don't get unpaid vade or they don't get paid vacation time. UM, there's all this stuff. Health insurance is a big one. So that's a huge chunk of revenue or of um outlay that the companies who who like Uber or test

Grabit or whoever don't have to shell out. That means that's profits more profits for them, and it's also something that their competitors, like cab companies, say have to pay. So it's a one way that the cab companies lose

against the ride hailing apps. But the people who are out there still need health insurance, they still need healthcare, they still need food, and so the the the companies that make these platforms tend to kind of offload the responsibility that used to be on the company's part onto local governments. And so what local governments are trying to figure out to say, like, well, with this influx of gig economy workers saying like I need Medicare or I

need food stamps or something like that. How can we deal with this? And there's been some a couple of interesting proposals at least for how to get um the companies to pay for benefits that companies traditionally have paid for but in this new gig economy. Yeah, I thought this one was really interesting. Portable benefits. So you know, if you've ever changed jobs, or if you change jobs a lot, like on a full time basis, you know that it can be big pain to your benefits are

always changing. Sometimes they're better, sometimes they're worse, but they're bound to be different, and that's just a hassle. The idea of portable benefits basically that you own as an employee. So when you go to a new job as a gig worker, you take your employee your benefits with you and basically just plug it into their system and say, well, you are now going to contribute your your employer portion

to my portable benefits. Yeah. It's kind of like the difference between a four oh one K and an IRA, right, The IRA is yours no matter where you go. The four one k is between you and your employer. Imagine if all you ever had was an IRA, but your employer paid into that, but it was for health benefits

rather than retirement, so it was always yours. But just depending on who you worked for, part of what you got paid was an additional premium that was a contribution to your benefits, whether it's a retirement package or dental or vision or health or whatever. And and it was always you. It was associated with you the worker, but everybody from each task paid into that. It's a great idea and apparently it works too. Yeah, and I'm not super sure this. The other idea ideas, uh, that of

a dependent contractor rather than an independent contractor. And that's basically if you receive the majority of your income from one company, um, then they need to do things like pay your health or you know, contribute towards your health insurance. What I don't get is what what's the difference between

that and being a full time employee. There's nothing. It's basically just calling Uber out on its bs and saying these are your employees, dude, without having to say, hey, federal government, you guys need to revise the independent contractor laws because this is different. These are states or local governments saying you want to do business here. These people are dependent contractors and you have to provide them with benefits. Sorry,

that's just the way it goes. And if you get a big enough county or city or state and the the app or the platform wants to do business there, they will do this. And it stinks, and you have to have different people who are experts in the different

states you're doing business in. But eventually, if enough different states have slightly different laws that are all to the same effect, companies like Uber are going to go to the federal government be like, can you please pass a law that says that we have to provide benefits for these people? And maybe they're not the greatest benefit. It's

we don't want to give away the farm. But it will be more cost effective for us to just have one standard to adhere to nationwide than it will be to have fifty different laws that we have to adhere to nationwide. And how do they do that through lobbyists paying tons of money? It's true, but in this case it would benefit people, But it's it's a it's a ground up push from the local and state government's basically agitating for the federal government to take action. Yeah, I mean,

Uber certainly had a share of missteps along the way. Um, and even if you cast those aside and not to pick on them, let's just talk about any app based um, gig economy or gig job or whatever. I guess gig is all you need to say. Really, it's a mouthful, and um, you can you can't help, but just picture a back room boardroom in Silicon Valley with these dudes

just saying, like, you know, here's what we'll do. We'll develop this app that connects people and we take a cut and we're gonna have tens of thousands of drivers all over the country working for us. And then the other person goes, yeah, but man, that you know how expensive that is with payroll and this and that and and insurance everything. Oh no, no, no, the best part is they're not employees, right, Like that was the very first in the very first meeting. That was the big like,

oh I get it, And they all laughed. Oh, I'm sure the room went breathless. Yeah, like that's it was literally world changing. I mean, like that's the state of affairs now. And yeah, it had to start somewhere. I'm not sure where it started, but it started somewhere. But like you said earlier, that is the I mean, and

they've proven it with with financials. We're not just saying the stuff they that is the reason they are profitable is because they're not having to pay this dough and unfortunately, it's also the reason why people who rely on gig work full time to make ends meet, and who are not who don't have any kind of uh higher education and are not skilled workers. That's why they are increasingly turning to um taxpayer funded public assistance for things like

healthcare and food and basically making the ends meet. Because from like I said, the few studies that there are out there, what they're finding is that there's a segment of people who work in the gig economy who are who cannot make ends meet with gig work. And it's not just to pick on the platforms and the apps that make up the backbone of the gig economy, because it says a lot that if there are people in the vast majority of people who do gig work I

think you said earlier, they don't work full time. They do it to supplement income, but they're not supplementing income. I saw somewhere, um somebody said they're not supplementing income to to save up to go to Hawaii. They're doing it to buy medicine and food and pay utility bills. So that actually says a lot about the state of

work in general, not just gig work. Because if you have a regular job, whether it's part time or full time, and you have to have a side hustle, which by the way, is a term that's been around since nineteen fifty, I saw, Yeah, you there's there's a problem with work in general, you know what I'm saying, where you cannot make ends meet just with your regular full time job or even a couple of part time jobs, so you

have to do gig work too. But the people who just do gig work, those are the people who are the most vulnerable, and they usually if you're a driver, you make about eleven ninety that's the national average. Yeah, here's some stats for you. The Federal Reserve did a report and from two thousand eighteen, fifty eight percent of full time gig workers UH said they would have a hard time coming up with a four hundred dollar emergency bill, like if they had to go to hospital and pay

four hundred bucks. They couldn't cover that, nearly sixty of them. Yeah, and that's compared to thirty eight percent of people and just the regular economy, not the gig economy. Uh. And they did surveys that said five percent of people said that gig working. This out of eleven thousand people who did gig work at all, five percent of them said it was their main source of income, which is a

pretty small amount, but that's that's growing. I think between two thousand sixteen and two thousand twenty one, they're projecting it to grow from like three point two million people too close to ten million people like working gig economy jobs. I saw somewhere sixty million. Fast Company predicted something like sixty million Americans are going to be working in the gig economy um by, which was far and away the highest number I saw. Yeah, man, that's crazy, But yeah,

I got another stat for you I saw. I think in barrens I believe it's barrens um the gig economy. Gig work accounted for ninety four percent of net employment growth between two thousand five and two thousand fifteen, So that means that all the new jobs that came in and all the old jobs that went away. Of the jobs that that accounted for the growth of work in America were gig work. That's astounding. Yeah, I mean I feel like every time I go to publics, of the

people in there are shopping for other people. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, you can tell by their T shirts. Yeah, they wear the shirts. And uh, Emily has done that a couple of times, you know, a bit too busy working parents. She's, um, I can't remember the service that we use, but uh, I don't like it because I like to chop for my own stuff. I don't want people picking out my food. Yeah, when they bring the bag you hold up an orange, You're like, did you

touch this? It's not even that, it's just you know, you want to pick out your own stuff. Yeah, I'm just season. I like running errands myself too. Um, and it's it feels like it's never right too. They'll be like, oh, well I couldn't find the thing, so I got this.

That's not what I asked for. I saw m quest love like hadn't had peanut butter, Captain Crunch and like forever, and he posted something I think on Instagram where he ordered um some from like task grab it or something, and the guy brought him a regular Captain crunch and a jar of peanut butter. He threw it down the hall of his hotel, which I thought was a little much, but it was a pretty good ending to the slade.

It might be pretty good though, um I I did. Uh. I had a very something, very heavy to move in my home recently that was just sitting there because I couldn't get a friend over and I had never heard of task grab it and someone said you should try task grab it and I did look up and I was like, you could you get a young strong man to come over and lift something heavy for you and like an hour's notice? And I was like, man, I

feel like I should probably just get this done. And I got distracted and didn't do it, and uh was able to get friends over. But I didn't even know it existed and that you could get that kind of work. I yeah, I think task grabby you can do about anything. And there's there's something in the UK. There's a site called five er if I v R. I think I've

heard of that. I think and like every like all tasks on it are for five bucks or like, whatever you want the person to do, they'll either do it or won't do it, but the price you pay is five bucks. So it's like small, quick, easy tasks. What's worth five dollars? Um, Like go get my mail, see if see if this needle is sharp. I want to do a puncture test on you. Back to that one again. Huh. I guess we should mention the strike that happened earlier

this month. Uh, we're recording this in May two th nineteen. Um, just very recently, there was there were thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers who went on strike. Um, not just in May, but kind of all year long. This has sort of been brewing, I think, and uh it's it um. Uber stock prices down for one dude by two. They started out with a hundred and twenty billion dollar valuation and ended up at the end of the day I

think at forty billion. Yeah, And that's where this whole idea of like is it exploitation um, like, because I mean the courts have roundly kind of said, like, no, you can't unionize, you're not employees, right, and these are in some of the most liberal courts in the land, right, you're independent contractors, so you don't get over time, you can't you can't unionize. There's all sorts of stuff that you just can't do because you're an independent contractor UM,

and that's that's slowly starting to change. Yeah, But the whole idea of this strike was is there're basically saying you have intentionally misclassified us as non employees. And I'm sure they're like, yeah, that that's exactly right right there, Like was that I think that's like in our terms of use that we intentionally missclassify you. Well, they probably say we have intentionally classified you as what you are, which is a non employee. But the drivers are saying

they're misclassified obviously, right, So there's a big lawsuit. UM. A few hundred thousand Uber drivers sued Uber and they very recently settled, I think in March, with like thirteen thousand, six hundred of them, and they were given twenty million dollars to split between them, which sounds like a lot, but it's actually like less than a driver for basically

saying we we have been under paying you. The other like three hundred something thousand drivers didn't get squat because they all signed a UM an arbitration clause in their agreement, which you should never sign if you have any saying it whatsoever, because it basically says I can't sue and any time I have a problem with you, we will go to a mediator who you pay to decide whether my claim has any value or not. So it's a terrible,

terrible thing to sign. But on top of that, if you are a full time gig economy worker, you basically don't have a choice, and the company you're working with as an independent contractor knows that. So there's almost certainly going to be an arbitration clause. But that's a really good example of what happens when you signed an arbitration clause.

You lose out on the settlement because you said that you are waiving your right to a trial right And aside from stuff like health insurance, the drivers are angry because Uber and major cities has been cutting driver pay rates because they're trying to get their bottom line down and say, hey, look, everyone, look at our bottom line.

How attractive is this? So, like I was saying, this is slowly starting to change thanks to regulation, and um, we'll talk a little more about that after this break so Chuck Um New York really kind of changed things recently that that one study or a study, I don't know if we talked about it yet. The study with

eleven thousand people was conducted by the FED. There's another study conducted by I think you see Berkeley in the New School, and they basically found, like most I think of drivers driving for ride hailing apps in New York City, not just Uber, but all of them, um, especially the Big four via Juno Lift in Uber, UM, fifty percent of them work full time, so they're basically independent cab

drivers who are not licensed cabbies. UM fifty I believe have families that they're supporting with that they're working for. About eleven and of them qualified for Medicaid and eighteen percent qualified for foods amps. Yeah, and this was shocking enough to the city government of New York that they passed the country's first and maybe the world's first as far as I know, minimum wage law for ride hailing app independent contractors. And it's actually more than the minimum

wage for New York in general. Yeah. I mean, basically, the New York came out and said, first of all, Ubert, they could fix this if they just had a very small fair adjustment that passengers would probably not care about. Then they could pay them fairly and increase driver pay. But since they're not gonna do that, we're gonna step in.

And I believe it was was that this past January, uh, they were required to start paying drivers um after expenses about seventeen dollars and twenty two cents an hour, which is about five dollars more per hour than the previous almost twelve dollars per hour average. Right, So that's a big deal. And I mean that's that's that was a huge um win for the independent contractors who work for

ride hailing apps, at least in New York. But also it's set a precedent across the country basically saying like, yes, if you are big enough town, you have the clout to to look out for these these workers who are being exploited by the tech platforms that they're partnering with as independent contractors. Yeah. And actually today, as as we record this, the State Assembly in California past legislation that required employers to recognize gig workers as employees UM with

sort of what they call the dynamics. It's a uh, the California State Supreme Court said in May uh um that this three part test, called the dynamics, would be used to determine if contractors qualify as employees so to be exempt um from labor requirements. An employer would be required to prove that one it's workers have complete control over how services are provided. So in other words, Uber can't give a minimum amount of hours that you have to work or so you have to drive every Tuesday

or whatever. I'm not sure, you know if they even do that, but no, I don't think they do. And I think that's part of their argument why they're not employers, because the workers sets their own schedule, all right. And number two, uh, the services provided are not related to the employer's main business. So that's a big one because that rules out all the I mean, all the ride chairs unless they say that their main business is app development, right, Yeah,

that is I'm not sure if that's a loophole. Yeah, I don't know about that one either. And then number three, the worker is engaged in an independently established role. So this is a big deal because other states, you know, a lot of states look to California because this is where a lot of the gig economy, the modern gig economy was born, and um, and this is sort of the first, the first big California legislation that's that's gone

down the road. Yeah, now that is a big deal because it's like that's their home court making laws against them. So that definitely kind of indicates like a turning tide. And again, it's not just like government's looking out for their citizens, although I'm sure that's part of it, but it's also government's looking out for their own bottom line because those citizens are having to comme and say I

need healthcare. Again, it's really important, frequently overlooked point. But despite all that, and I mean you said it's it's easy to pick on Uber. They're kind of a model for this this kind of thing, but they're certainly not the only ones. But it also, Um, when you just focus on that, you miss out on the other aspect of the gig economy, which is that it's a double

edged sword. For some people, uh, freelancing gig economy has allowed them to basically pursue their dreams and become quite successful at doing what they want to do on their own terms, on their own schedule, And there are um, supposedly a pretty decent amount of people out there who are doing it that way, but usually they're highly educated and they work in UM a craft or an artistic or UM kind of elite field, specialized field like AI

or robotics, sure or UM. If you are a consultant of some sort and especially very specialized consultant, you don't have to spend the time and money going out and drumming up business for yourself. You can go to platforms like up work UM and find people who are looking for the stuff that you do way easier than before.

And that's a huge benefit of this gig economy. It's become way easier to find work, whether it's UM, you know, driving for a rideheiling app or being a marketing consultant you know, like you it's from from top to bottom. It's easier to find work than ever. Yeah, but it's also UM like the people are in these situations a lot of times because they were unable to find the job that they wanted on a full time basis. Uh is.

It is a very tough nut to crack because even in ride shares, when you get in a car, nine times out of ten, my driver is very happy doing what they do. And they always say uh pretty roundly like yeah, it's great man, it's at my own hours.

And I mean it sounds like I don't know if they're encouraged to say these things, but it sounds like an ad for when you sign up, you know, because they kind of pair it exactly the things that that they try and entice you with, which is your your own boss and you set your own hours, you only drive when you want to. But that is the deal, um, And no one's forcing them to go do this, and they you are putting money in their pocket. Um. I

mean I always tip super big. That's that's I think the only thing within your control or not use these apps at all if you think they're evil, right, which is another another way to look at it, for sure. But then all of a sudden, you know, there's a lot of people that depend on that money that are being heard. It's it's tough, right, No, it is for sure.

Like that is another thing about the gig economy too, as you can say like, well, I mean you're having trouble making ends meet, I get to like hire you and like have an impact on you being able to make ends meet. Um, or it's just it's such a first world thing to be like, oh, forget all all you know, platforms and apps because they exploit workers. Well, they also help people make money where they otherwise couldn't, So there's it is very much a double edged sort.

There's definitely exploitation, but there's also certainly an uplift of the middle class that wasn't happening before. There's also been an uptick in uh New York taxi driver suicides really yeah, that have um long been blamed on rideshare because it's put such a dent in taxicab incomes driver incomes. So I looked into that a little bit and then found out this whole other world about you know, the whole

deal with the taxi medallions. Yeah, like people buy the medallions as like an investment and then they like lease out the license to cabbies. Right. Yeah, we need to do a full show on that because it is way more involved than I thought, And I was going to talk about it some here, but it deserves its own episode. But they're saying that that is a big part of the problem for the suicide rate as well. It's sort of both of those things contributing. Right, so taxi medallions.

Look look for that one. Okay, that's a that's a deal. There's a two other things in New York that I want to point out, actually two other UM platforms to other things you want to point out. The departure date buildings very nice. Right, that's one UM and take your ride on the subway. Right. There's a cleaning service called

my Clean. That's get an app where they started out with UM as with like the normal Silicon Valley model where they just have independent contractors, and they actually converted and started hiring their contractors on as employees. And there's another one called Hello Alfred, which is kind of like a personal assistant, a team of personal assistance that you can basically involve in your life as much as little

as you want. Hello Alfred. It's just in New York and it's only in certain buildings in New York from what I can tell. But they'll do everything from like keep your plant alive, to walk your dog, to do your grocery shopping, to pick out clothes for you, UM, to have your shoes repaired, whatever, just basically keeping your life in order for you. But because UM they try to anticipate the things their customers need. They realize that

they need employees. They need people they can't have turnover and frequent training and introducing their customers and new people they need, like people who are going to be there

for long haul. So they started out having employees too, And that really kind of underscores a big reason why UM having a full time employment is preferable to gig employment, and especially if you're a company, because there's less turnover, there's less training, training involved, and usually the worker is a lot happier when they have a steady, full time gig and then that's their only job and they get two weeks paid vacation every year or more if you're

in Europe UM and that has a benefit for the company because that's the person who's communicating with the public or making the stuff, and they don't hate their life for their job, so they're they're they're just producing better too, if you want to look at like the ickiest economic terms. Yeah that's interesting, I thought so too, Alfred. Yeah, I think he just became their spokesman. You got anything else?

Uh No, I don't know. There. I do have one more thing, Chuck, you ready, h This whole like puer to peer platform thing. Reminded me we have a Kiva team, and I went and checked on it that just the other day. So you saw what like the big number we're plashing on on total donations. I think you should take this one. Well, you had the most recent number. It was close to six million the other day. Yep. Still, is this really really creeping up on six million dollars

total loans loaned out? Dude that it had been a while too. That's so funny. We both had that same thought, um man, that that's really something else. Yep. So congratulations to the stuff you should know Kiva team. There are people joining. I saw people joined yesterday, so there's it's wide open if you want to learn more about it to search Kiva, k I v A and stuff you should know. And not only were our Kiva page come up, but some blog posts we wrote about it in the

past come up to which is hilarious and quaint. All right, Well, since I said quaint, Chuck, it's time I think for listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call this Tin pan Alley follow up. I enjoyed that episode. Hey guys, if you asked me what tin pan Alley was. Prior to listening to this episode, I would have said somewhere in New York where music started to be popular. And that's about all I can tell you. And guys, I graduated

with a Bachelor of Music and Music Education. What it's not that I'm so far out of college either that I don't remember music history. I'm only twenty five and I'm finishing up my third year teaching orchestra. At fourth, fifth, and sixth graders didn't even really know much about Tin Pan. All I know the last semester of music history in college had to cover late Romantic to present day, which is over a century worth of music. Uh. This was so much more interesting than the one slide in music

history class. At eight am. I am one of many listeners sitting in the d C Metro traffic. So thank you for teaching me new things every day. And that is from Consuelo Civilia, not severe No, it's she wrote back even two els. Yeah, yeah, she said, this is the Filipino pronunciation, not the Spanish. Gotcha, So thank you, Consuelo. Yeah, thanks a lot, Kensuelo. Glad to know we are rounding out your education even after you graduated. Yeah, well, it's kind of the purpose of the show, isn't it. I

think so. Well, if you want to let us know what you think. The purpose of Stuff you Should Know is. We're amorphous in wide open, so let us have it. You can go to stuff you Should Know dot com and check out our social links, or you can send us a good old fashioned email, wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to stuff Podcasts at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.

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