Posted on 09/05/2014 7:51:45 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
new report shows some 53 million Americans—or 34 percent of the U.S. workforce—are now working as freelancers in some capacity. "This is more than an economic change," asserts the report, a joint effort from the Freelancer's Union and freelance markeplaces oDesk and eLance. It's also "a cultural and social shift" that will "have major impacts on how Americans conceive of and organize their lives, their communities, and their economic power."
The first and last time anyone looked at the freelance worker population in the U.S. was 2004, in a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Back then the GAO turned up about 42 million "contingent workers," a group that included folks we would normally think of as freelancers but also all part-time workers. "It was a solid, if not particularly nuanced, effort," as the writers of the new report put it. For their purposes, they defined freelancers as "individuals who have engaged in supplemental, temporary, or project- or contract-based work in the past 12 months" and further broke the group down into five categories:
Independent contractors (21 million). This group hews closest to our "traditional" idea of freelancing: individuals whose main source of employment involves working on a project-to-project basis in their field. They make up about 40 percent of freelancers.
Moonlighters (14.3 million). These are individuals who work regular full-time jobs and also do some amount of freelance work. This group includes 27 percent of freelancers.
Diversified workers (9.3 million). These are our serious hustlers, the folks pulling in income from multiple sources, including traditional employment and freelance work. A diversified worker may have a 20-hour per week bartending or retail job and supplement her income with freelance graphic design work and some time as an Uber driver. This group makes up about 18 percent of freelancers.
Temp workers (5.5 million). Temp workers are those working with a single employer, client, job, or project but on a temporary basis. This could be "a business strategy consultant working for one startup client" (the report's example) or a recent college graduate doing grunt or admin work for different companies each week through a temp agency. They make up about one-tenth of freelancers.
Freelance business owners (2.8 million). This group includes people employ between one and five others and who consider themselves both freelancers and business owners. They make up 5 percent of the freelance economy.
A few more key findings about the freelance population in general:
77 percent say they make as much or more money now than they did before becoming a freelancer.
About half (53 percent) say going freelance was totally their preference; the rest say it was out of necessity. The main reason people take on freelance work is to earn extra money (68 percent), followed by the ability to have a flexible schedule (42 percent).
When it comes to millennials, we see an even more freelance-heavy generation. About 38 percent of those under age 35 are freelancing, compared to 32 percent of those 35 and older. Millennial freelancers are also more likely to look for job with a "positive impact on the world"—62 percent of the younger group said this was important, versus 54 percent of older freelancers. Finding freelance work that's "exciting" is also more important (62 percent versus 47 percent).
I'm happy to say that this all squares up with what I wrote about millennial workers for Reason's latest (and millennial-themed) issue. And I'm also glad someone's dug a bit deeper into the demographics of freelance workers (with all due respect to the 2004 report, a few little things may have changed since then). To its credit, the new report remains relatively agnostic about whether these updated employment realities are better or worse than the previous paradigm(s), an agnosticism I share. There's just no use crying over a culture and economy we won't get back. What matters is what is happening now, why it's happening, and how adjust our political and cultural expectations to accommodate it. And to the first two points, this new report provides some valuable and long overdue data.
Our oldest, who has his master’s degree, had a hard time finding a full time job, so he started freelancing to make ends meet. He found a full time position, but still enjoys his freelancing.
That’s a lot of Schedule C’s.
This should be the way EVERYONE works. They would then have to make quarterly tax payments and pay both sides of the FUTA SUTA tax. It might make everyone more aware of how wasteful the government is and inspire them to hate it and politicians as much as the “freelancer”, that’s self-employed do.
I seldom have a kind word for lawyers but your post is correct.
Some make two or three times the income that their employee counterparts do and that is after paying all their taxes.
It is the compensation for being at risk. You don’t work you don’t get paid. your skills are perishable though, you have to keep up to date on your own.
Offices, where people spend most of the day in a cubicle sending email to the person 20 feet away, are stupid.
There are reasons for going into the office to meet with other people but you should have a reason for beating yourself up on a traffic trek every day.
I guess you inlaw is not working for Yahoo.
Actually my daughter-in-law had this position created for her because of her highly skilled background and experience. She was ready for ‘a office job’ ...though in another field it’s closely related. There were several companies trying to get her on board.
She’s not in a cubicle by any means....
I’ve never had a job my whole life. Have freelanced and owned several small businesses.
It can be a bit nerve-wracking at times but I’ve been doing it for more than 40 years and at this point there will never be a change.
Two years before I officially retired I decided I didn’t want to work full time anymore. I quit my job, rolled my 401k into an IRA, signed up with a job agency and got a contract with my old company pretty much setting my own schedule and hours I wanted to work. I didn’t have to attend all the meetings, didn’t have to participate in reviews or do peer reviews. It was great.
>> Fundamentally, for many it’s a way of Going Galt. &etc
Your post absolutely nailed it as to why I’m “freelancing” (or whatever you want to call it).
The shadow cash economy is also huge. What do you think Craigslist is all about? Its a giant shadow network. That’s how some folks are getting by. Buying and selling stuff.
Yes, there can be anxious times. You are there for one reason when you contract, to produce work. Nobody loves you, nobody cares about how you feel or where you want to be in five years etc. if they ever did when you are an employee.
I’m in my 16th year of it myself. I can’t say I’ve missed a day when I wanted to work yet either and our industry has been through two hard times since I left the mink padded outhouse that was employment.
I have not had a Personal Development Plan session or a counseling session or salary treatment or anything like that in going on two decades. My evaluation is more work and I test my rate ceiling by asking for more when the climate demands it.
Regulation is finding us though. The monster does not like our independence. They are going to tax us to death and bury us in regulations. We all break a law of some kind every day.
The Democrat-Union-IRS complex will get these out of control bourgeois running dogs under control, soon enough. They are already pretty close to banning independent contracting.
I wonder if they count all the illegals selling that same bag of oranges to each other?
More Angelenos are becoming street vendors amid weak economy
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