[neutrino]

The household survey takes into account things like people who leave their jobs to become consultants, independent contractors, or to run home based businesses.

Consultant translated means unemployed.

Now about those home based businesses - the ones where you can stuff envelopes and make $1,000 per week in your spare time - oh, come now.

[blackdog]

My neighbor, a mechanical engineer in the paper industry, quit his job and went into the mill support business as a solo act. He felt that the corporations who owned the mills and the large firms who provide service/support were below par and not likely to change their psychology.

He now gross's more than a million a year and his wife is quitting her $125,000 job to stay at home as a mom, and selling her services as a patent attorney to firms needing contractual assistance.

He went from cold start to over a million in two years. During the first six months he had run up several tens of thousands on his credit cards just on air travel and hotel stays. He had to take out a huge insurance policy for liability to cover his exposure, tinkering with several hundred million dollar paper machines.

His wife figures she can double her earnings by staying at home with babies.

I just hope he avoids a tax problem.

[speekinout]

Now about those home based businesses - the ones where you can stuff envelopes and make $1,000 per week in your spare time - oh, come now.

There are people with no imagination and no ambition who need someone else to tell them what to do, but there are also a lot of people who can make a lot of money with home based businesses.
I personally know a guy who has a home cleaning business (he started out with a vacuum cleaner and some rags, and now he has 50 employees); another who has a lawn care business (his employees are based on how much business he gets); a free lance editor; and a medical transcriber. I also know several high-tech workers who moved from dot com ventures to consultant work.

Home based businesses can be very lucrative if you have any ambition at all. They are not for people who need to be taken care of.

[Strider]

Consultant translated means unemployed.

That's not true.

I've been a consultant for years. I make plenty of money, so I buy my own health insurance and so forth.

I have more work than I can handle. I even finally got my wife to quit her job and help me. She can do enough of my work in two weeks to generate more income that she did in a month at her job.

I don't have one company that pays me. I have many. I had two job offers last year, nice ones too, but I can make more money this way.

I really don't think it makes sense not to count me as employed.