Introducing the Precariat — Are You and I Members?
Definition from Wikipedia:
Precariat
In sociology and economics, the precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labour to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labour and must undertake extensive "unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings". Specifically, it is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.[1] The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism.[2][3]
I sure am a member of this growing social class. How about you?
Uhh… how… uhm… great it is to live a precarious life in a rigged society! Isn’t it? Oh, and Merry Christmas to you… The guy whose birth many Christians celebrate this season sure would have praised us for our 21st century dung heap societies, wouldn’t he? So, let’s celebrate with a will… (Sorry for the sarcasm. Sometimes it’s needed to draw attention. Let’s enjoy the holidays if we can – any way we can – but not forget our outrage and the need to make change for the better.)
Comments
Let's give credit to Uncle Whiskers & Engels for using the
term, accurately, in the Manifesto. Engels used it initially describing the reserve army of labor that capitalism needs to suppress wages and to ensure capital a pool of desperate people needing some sort of job to survive.
Treating employees as contractors, or using contractors to supply workers, takes people farther away from the few concessions they've won to help ensure a halfway dignified life and retirement. Social Security; Medicare; Workman's Comp insurance are usually not available to contractors and those who work for them.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
A small correction.
Social Security and Medicare are available to contractors as long as they pay FICA taxes for the required number of years. I've been self-employed for many years and in some of those years, I paid more FICA tax than income tax.
OTOH, you're totally right about worker's comp, unemployment benefits, health insurance, etc.
Thanks very much edg for correcting me.
I hate the idea that in the USA, workers line up pre-dawn to be driven in a van or a bus to a Wal-Mart(say) to work for minimum wage and have the contractor, who supplies your labor, take part of your minimum wage. (I know this is not your case.)
My daughter was an employee of a newspaper, had her own column, and the paper was taken over by another corporate entity that fired everyone and invited most of those discharged to contribute their writing on a free lance basis. No benefits.
Once again, I appreciate the correction.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Your original comment is true . . .
edg has it right, but there is a day-labor segment of our economic system for which such benefits are (from any realistic point of view) impossible to obtain. And, Wal-Mart would be heaven compared to their reality.
Self-employed FICA
Seconding this.
I think many (most?) W-2 employees don't realize that we self-employed folks pay twice the FICA taxes that they do. The reason is that an employer is required by the federal government to match the FICA amounts paid by the employee. Self-employed people are our own employers, so we have to pay the employer's share of Social Security taxes, as well as the employee's share. The IRS calls this "self-employment tax".
Looking back, most years, the amount I've paid in FICA as a self-employed person far exceeds what I've paid in income tax.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Financial Exigencies
Complicated Story: I had a friend that felt compelled to pay the full FICA tax bill each month. For some "self-employment" is more like self-immolation (original meaning).
This is why, back when I
This is why, back when I dipped over my prior years' ~12K annual income by giving tutoring lessons via a tutoring agency who "employed" me as a contractor (Form 1099 instead of W-2), those self-employment taxes took all the extra earnings away from me again. Seemed to me like I had hit the ceiling of how much I was allowed to earn as someone without a good job. (My day "job" was substituting in schools... no benefits there either, it's a day by day hourly job, no salary, no health insurance, etc.) What, then, was the point of all my extra effort?
Meanwhile, the super-rich get all those tax breaks...
~ Dirk Droll: Exploiting others is not self reliance.
A rare good one on TOP
link
Oh gods, I read the BBB diary to which Bob Johnson Responds
I'll happily pick BBB up in Manhattan and drive him over to "coal country" where he is welcome to tell the residents what he thinks of them. I'm sure they'll appreciate what he has to say.
BBB is symbolic of everything that is wrong about the Democrat party.
I'd pay to watch BBB explain things in Boone County, WV!
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Wish I could drag him
over here. Dr. Bob, that is.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I am Spartacus!
precariat · · · I came from that class. In the 1950s and the 1960s I lived that life. I did not know there was a term for my life experience.
The psychological pressure from this sociological state enhances depression and its concomitant obsession with self-destructive behaviors.
Short Form: Not a happy way of life.