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Keyword: affordability

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  • The Best-Paying Jobs in Ancient Rome [6:41]

    06/19/2026 8:35:43 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 5 replies
    YouTube ^ | January 21, 2022 | Garrett Ryan, Ph.D (as toldinstone)
    Some of the highest-paying jobs in the Roman world mirrored modern careers: doctor, lawyer, famous actor. Others - like charioteer and exhibition gladiator - were a bit less familiar. The Best-Paying Jobs in Ancient Rome | 6:41 toldinstone | 633K subscribers | 286,466 views | January 21, 2022 Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 0:36 Laborers 1:05 Craftsmen 1:31 Soldiers 2:13 Lawyers 2:49 Doctors 3:33 Teachers 3:59 Actors 4:26 Gladiators 4:48 Charioteers 5:12 Landed Aristocrats 6:07 Conclusion
  • Uber, Lyft, and the Gig Economy Score Legal Win in California Courts

    03/14/2023 4:14:49 AM PDT · by CFW · 6 replies
    Red State ^ | 3/13/23 | Joe Cunningham
    Companies that rely on the gig economy model for workers scored a big win in courts Monday after an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that previously found Proposition 22 illegal. Proposition 22 passed by a wide margin in November 2020, exempting app-based gig economy drivers from California’s terrible AB5 law and allowing them to continue to work as independent contractors. However, almost a year later, it was ruled unconstitutional by a California court. But a legal challenge to that ruling carried on, and a year and a half later, those app-based companies scored a victory, according to the...
  • IRS penalty for underpayments soars to 8% — nearly triple what it was 2 years ago

    12/03/2023 12:21:35 PM PST · by ChicagoConservative27 · 29 replies
    Nypost ^ | 12/03/2023 | JESSE O’NEILL
    The Internal Revenue Service penalty for tax underpayments has nearly tripled since 2021, putting gig economy workers and consultants at the largest risk of having to cough up big bucks to Uncle Sam. As of Oct. 1, the IRS will now charge 8% interest on estimated tax underpayments, up from 3% two years ago, according to The Wall Street Journal.
  • California Continues To Wreck The Gig Economy… For Writers

    11/02/2019 6:27:54 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 14 replies
    Hotair ^ | 11/02/2019 | Jazz Shaw
    There seem to be another one of these stories cropping up every week. The state of California has been waging a war on the gig economy for quite a while now and they may wind up winning, assuming they can drive the companies involved (along with most of their workers) out of the state. Uber, Lyft and Airbnb are the state government’s favorite targets, but there are other, smaller services feeling the pinch as well. Also, writers are being shut out by these recent actions.At Forbes, Paco Freire takes a deep dive into the impact this is having on...
  • Federal Judge Squashes NLRB’s Attempt To Destroy Gig Economy

    03/13/2024 11:04:15 AM PDT · by george76 · 9 replies
    Democrats hate the gig economy, since they can’t force independent contractors to join unions (and thus rake off their union dues). So Biden’s NLRB issued a “joint-employer standard” to force companies to treat gig employees and subcontractors as subject to union representation. Well, a federal judge in Texas squashed that rule. Last week, a federal judge in Texas issued a ruling that struck down a new joint-employer standard by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would have classified numerous companies as “employers” of specific contract and franchise employees, obligating them to negotiate with unions representing those workers. U.S....
  • War on the Gig Economy: California Prepares To Vote On Killing Off Uber, Lyft

    09/04/2019 7:56:23 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 35 replies
    Hotair ^ | 09/04/2019 | Jazz Shaw
    We’ve known this was coming for some time, but California is now ready to vote on Assembly Bill 5, designed to basically try to put Uber, Lyft and any of their gig economy competitors out of business in the state. The vote could come as soon as today. But the way they wound up wording it may end up giving the ride-sharing companies an immediate out once the inevitable challenges make it through the courts. (Insider) Uber and Lyft’s day of reckoning is here.California senators are set to vote as early as Tuesday on Assembly Bill 5, a proposed...
  • California's Gig Economy Is Under Attack. "Companies can simply blacklist California writers and work with writers in other states, and that's exactly what's happening."

    03/05/2020 6:35:47 AM PST · by karpov · 15 replies
    Reason ^ | March 5, 2020 | Billy Binion
    A new California law intended to force employers to hire workers as employees rather than treat them as contractors is killing freelance jobs across the Golden State and leaving those contractors in limbo. Assembly Bill 5 (A.B. 5), which took effect January 1, was drafted in response to Dynamex Operations West Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, a landmark court case that established a three-pronged test to determine whether companies are correctly classifying employees and contractors. That test says that contractors must control their workload, not perform work within the business's primary scope of operations, and be "customarily engaged"...
  • Team Biden is using the IRS to attack the gig economy

    12/06/2022 7:52:48 AM PST · by george76 · 29 replies
    New York Post ^ | December 5, 2022 | Glenn H. Reynolds
    Sam Bankman-Fried: I don’t know where $10 billion went. The Pentagon: We don’t know where $2.2 trillion went. The IRS: You just sent $601.37 don’t forget to report it.” The Biden administration is recruiting 87,000 IRS agents, allegedly to keep an eye on billionaires. .. aiming at the little fish of the gig economy instead. Taking payments for a side hustle via PayPal or Venmo? Not only is the IRS reminding you those payments are taxable income, it’s deputizing those payment companies to snitch on you. ... But wait — it gets worse. People get payments through these companies for...
  • 10 Things Democrats Desperately Want to Restrict in America

    12/11/2023 1:36:06 PM PST · by where's_the_Outrage? · 42 replies
    INQUISITR ^ | Dec 9, 2023 | Suchitra B
    Within the complex terrain of American politics, Democrats, like Republicans, frequently support social policy initiatives. The political party has expressed its intention to bring about significant changes in American culture, ranging from banning plastic straws to banning specific kinds of guns. Some of these ideas have been well received, but others have encountered opposition from politicians on opposing sides of the issue. Some of these proposals, according to their detractors, might impose restrictions that have far-reaching effects. Here's an in-depth exploration of 10 facets Democrats are often accused of wanting to restrict in America: 1. Gun Control 2. Fossil Fuels...
  • Gig Economy Company Launches Uber, But for Evicting People

    09/21/2020 1:57:32 PM PDT · by Governor Dinwiddie · 13 replies
    Vice ^ | Ashwin Rodrigues
    "SINCE COVID-19 MANY AMERICANS FELL BEHIND IN ALL ASPECTS," reads the website copy. The button below this statement is not for a GoFundMe, or a petition for calling for rent relief. Instead, it is the following call to action, from a company called Civvl: "Be hired as eviction crew." During a time of great economic and general hardship, Civvl aims to be, essentially, Uber, but for evicting people. Seizing on a pandemic-driven nosedive in employment and huge uptick in number-of-people-who-can't-pay-their-rent, Civvl aims to make it easy for landlords to hire process servers and eviction agents as gig workers.
  • Union boss who threatened to ‘cripple’ economy lives in luxe 7,000 square-foot mansion

    10/03/2024 3:28:58 AM PDT · by Kid Shelleen · 39 replies
    NY Post ^ | 10/03/2024 | Ariel Zilber
    Harold Daggett — the union boss who has vowed to “cripple” the US economy if ports don’t ban automation and raise dockworkers’ wages sharply — had a Bentley convertible parked outside his sprawling mansion in New Jersey this week, exclusive photos obtained by The Post reveal. Photos taken by drone on Tuesday show the British luxury car parked with its top up outside what appears to be a five-car garage that’s connected to his 7,136-square-foot, Tudor-style home by a covered skyway. ---SNIP--- He described himself as a target of the mob – though a turncoat Mafia member had testified Daggett...
  • California's High Costs, Low Incentives Are Scaring Away Film & TV Producers, Report Says

    05/29/2025 2:26:33 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 25 replies
    Epoch Times ^ | 05/29/2025 | Jill Mclaughlin
    Low incentives and complicated state regulations, combined with high housing and business costs, have rendered California unable to keep Hollywood from moving production to other states and countries, according to an entertainment industry report released on May 27 by the Milken Institute, a California-based think tank.Hollywood’s in-state production has dropped in the past two years as other states and international destinations continue to increase industry incentives, according to the report’s authors, Kevin Klowden, executive director for the Milken Institute Finance, and Madeleine Waddoups, a graduate teaching assistant in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California–Los Angeles.The...
  • The Many Things that Democrats want to Ban (Running List) - Metallicman

    12/09/2018 4:46:49 PM PST · by vannrox · 22 replies
    metallicman ^ | 8DEC18 | editorial staff
    This is a compilation of the many, many things that American Democrats (often radical totalitarian communists wearing the mantle of “progressive liberals”) want to ban. This is a running tabulated list that originated from an earlier post about busybodies. There, I argued that Social Justice Warriors (SJW) was just another name for a busybody. This is a set aside list tabulated by request. It supersedes the extensive list on an earlier post about busybodies. Remember, boys and girls, all bans are a restriction on freedom. Go ahead and shake your head in disbelief. These people are friggin’ lunatics. The List...
  • California’s $20 Minimum Wage Experiment Crushes Carl’s Jr. as Crime and Costs Collide

    05/20/2026 9:37:55 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 88 replies
    Discern Money ^ | May 20, 2026 | Samara Sterling
    California’s aggressive push for a $20 fast-food minimum wage was sold as a moral victory for workers, a bold stand against corporate greed that would lift families without consequence. Yet the reality unfolding at Carl’s Jr. locations across the state tells a different story—one of shuttered opportunities, fleeing staff, and franchise operators driven to bankruptcy. What began as political virtue-signaling has delivered economic pain that no amount of union rhetoric can disguise. Friendly Franchisees Corporation, a major operator running dozens of Carl’s Jr. restaurants, filed for Chapter 11 protection last month, citing the wage mandate as a primary driver of...
  • The Elites Have Stopped Hiding Their Hatred of the Working Class

    10/13/2022 1:37:37 PM PDT · by gitmo · 86 replies
    Newsweek ^ | October 12, 2022 | CHARLES STALLWORTH
    Last week, a shocking moment of truth broke through the huge effort elites normally put into hiding their disdain for the rest of us. At an event sponsored by the libertarian Cato Institute, President of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Adam Posen—a man who appears to be paid $450,000 a year—made clear his absolute contempt for the working class.
  • The career ladder is broken. Here’s what replaces it.

    05/17/2026 5:52:12 PM PDT · by libh8er · 34 replies
    The Big Think ^ | 5.12.2026 | Simone Stolzoff
    FOR DECADES, THE FORMULA for career success was simple: go to school, get a job, climb the ladder. But the ladder is now collapsing before our eyes. And honestly, good riddance. The career ladder isn’t just an outdated metaphor — it actively blocks people from finding more fulfilling work. Think about it this way: In school, there are clear markers for success. The goal is to get good grades. This continues into entry-level roles, where workers strive for raises and promotions. Tracked careers like law and consulting are attractive, at least in part, because they offer legible paths for advancement....
  • Sen. Chuck Schumer thrown under the bus during House debate between Dan Goldman and Brad Lander

    06/02/2026 7:12:35 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 16 replies
    New York Post ^ | June 2, 2026 | Carl Campanile
    Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got the cold shoulder from the two Democratic candidates running for the House seat in the district he calls home.During the feisty NY1 debate Monday night, Rep. Dan Goldman and Democratic primary rival Brad Lander were asked if they would support Schumer, 75, a Park Slope constituent, if he runs for re-election in 2028."I think it's time for new leadership in the Democratic Party. That's why I'm running in this race against Rep. Goldman," Lander said, throwing Schumer under the bus..."I have not thought about it. I have no idea whether he's going to...
  • GOP Voters Stand by Trump, Dismissing Democrat 'Affordability' Claptrap -Poll

    06/01/2026 10:08:41 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 30 replies
    American Thinker ^ | 06/01/2026 | Joseph Ford Cotto
    In the thick of another high-stakes election year, GOP voters are sending a clear message that cuts through the noise of legacy media chatter. It even transcends far more serious pocketbook worries.AdvertisementA new national survey reveals that Republicans are firmly commited to President Donald J. Trump, rooted in his record on issues that reach beyond dollars and cents. This data was gathered by the Democracy Institute in partnership with me, as host of the current events show News Sight and author of the finance newsletter Dr. Cotto’s Digest.The poll spotlights a GOP base that stands rock-solid even as broader national...
  • The Feds Plan To Start Diluting Gasoline This May: Explained

    05/28/2026 10:10:09 AM PDT · by moviefan8 · 90 replies
    thedrive.com ^ | 3/27/2026 | Andrew Collins
    This week, Lee Zeldin’s EPA announced “approving nationwide E15,” pitching it as “fortifying the domestic fuel supply.” What that means exactly is that the federal government will allow more stations to cut gasoline with ethanol, which, yes, makes it cheaper, but it also yields less power and worse fuel economy in your engine.
  • Socialist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson walks back stinging comments about Starbucks, as fears mount that the coffee giant may pull out of the liberal city

    05/20/2026 11:03:43 PM PDT · by Libloather · 57 replies
    NY Post ^ | 5/20/26 | David Propper
    Seattle’s lefty Mayor Katie Wilson admitted she was wrong to slam Starbucks and push for a boycott of the mega-coffee chain birthed in the Pacific City. Wilson, 43, issued a terse mea culpa to the New York Times this week as questions swirl about whether the liberal Northwest city can attract and retain businesses, including Starbucks, which recently chose to expand its footprint in Tennessee. The democratic socialist made waves last fall when she joined a barista union rally as mayor-elect and expressed her disgust with one of Seattle’s most recognizable businesses. “I am not buying Starbucks, and you should...