How to Beat the High Cost of Working

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From The Wall Street Journal:

It seems like a paradox: The economic news is great, and unemployment has dipped below 4%, yet almost 51 million American households are struggling to make ends meet, according to a May study by the United Way Alice Project. Why the seeming contradiction?

The answer may have something to do with the fact that, according to a study by the economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger, over 90% of the jobs created from 2005 to 2015 involve what is sometimes called “contingent work.” This is a blanket term that covers all kinds of nontraditional employees: workers who are temporary, on call or part-time, as well as independent contractors and the self-employed. Such jobs offer autonomy but incomes that are often less secure, and workers may end up juggling two or more positions.

The rise of contingent work comes at the expense of the stable, good-paying jobs that used to be the foundation of the middle class.

. . . .

One idea would be for the contingent workers who rely on income from “sharing economy” platforms like Uber and Airbnb to simply take this logic a step or two further. The secret of these companies is they allow users to unleash the economic potential of idle personal assets, namely cars and houses. But they have only scratched the surface of what living in the “gig economy” can look like. Perhaps such apps should be viewed as mile markers on the road to a full reintegration of work and life within a single space, the home.

While I was studying the role of technology in society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1990s, I spent summers living and learning among the Amish, who are unappreciated masters at blending work and life. Most economists see the Amish as throwbacks, living reminders of outdated forms of labor. But when I gazed at my yeoman neighbor, I saw a person who combined exercise, fresh air, food production, family life and vocational training in a single activity. He made the most of his greatest asset—his farm—and in so doing (to use a familiar phrase from Economics 101) “maximized his utility,” despite earning less than $10,000 a year.

“What an efficient use of time!” I once exclaimed. He shook his head: “We’re just doing what everyone used to.” But thanks to disruptive innovation, this past may not be that far gone—and it may not even be the past, to recycle a phrase of William Faulkner’s.

In the years since, I’ve applied Amish insights to my work in urban St. Louis and found them economically viable. Today, my three principal income streams come from hand-making soap, writing, and driving a pedicab—essentially a First World rickshaw. All these activities take place, or are based at, my house. This arrangement is aided by a non-Amish innovation, the internet, which allows my wife, Mary, to work as a part-time accountant from her home office.

. . . .

What matters more than the finances, though, is the arrangement of our time: By merging work and life in an urban setting, Mary and I avoid needless expense, duplicative effort and unnecessary shuttling back and forth. That yields huge cost savings and maximizes leisure.

. . . .

Mary and I regard technology with the same wary eye as the Amish. Does it promote economic holism? By way of answers, we have jettisoned the smartphone, the television and even the car (alas, no Uber income for me). Recognizing that screen time is relatively empty, we’ve also minimized internet use, reserving it primarily for Mary’s accounting business. If I need to go online, I bike three blocks to the library.

Link to the rest at The Wall Street Journal

Many indie authors would seem to fit well into this economic model.