
Why cleaners get paid more than software developers? - simonebrunozzi
I&#x27;ve noticed that if you want to hire someone to clean your house, it&#x27;s usually 30-35$&#x2F;hour in the Bay Area, which would equate to about 50-55$&#x2F;hour if you consider that these people seldom pay taxes on their earnings.
That&#x27;s a lot more than a junior or experienced software developer.
This is, of course, true for many other jobs.
I don&#x27;t mean this to disrespect cleaners, plumbers, and the like, of course. I am just really curious to understand why their wages are so different than what we should expect.
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patio11
Are you comparing hourly rates to hourly salaries? If so, don't do that.
Anyone working on a freelance basis, programmer or cleaner alike, has to
charge a hefty premium to pay for self-employment taxes, their own benefits,
vacation, non-payment/scheduling/market risk, unbillable time doing
rainmaking/business administration, and the like.

If you are doing apples to apples and actually know junior or senior
developers with a $50 hourly in the Bay Area, tell them to double their rates
_today_. That still doesn't get them to market but hey baby steps like
doubling their rates are a good way to get started.

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byoung2
We hired a clown for my daughter's first birthday and it was about $100 per
hour. She only works weekends though. Remember that these workers (cleaners,
clowns, or other on demand workers) don't have a realistic possibility of
working 40 hours a week at that rate like a developer does. They will have a
few gigs a week, and they spend a lot of time idling or driving.

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rmc
Clowns can probably only do one child's birthday party per day, since they are
all around the same time.

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CurtHagenlocher
They don't get paid for travel time or vacation and don't have insurance. If
they really are being paid under the table, they also don't have the kind of
paper trail that's needed to get a loan for a house or car, or an employment
history that would help them find a better job.

But it's mostly the travel time that kills them, I think.

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thwarted
_I am just really curious to understand why their wages are so different than
what we should expect._

"What we should expect"? What does this even mean? What do _you_ expect
someone who provides a service that is in demand charge or make? Why should
they make any less than what the market is willing to pay?

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thedufer
I don't know for sure, but I imagine OP is curious because cleaning is a
relatively unskilled job, and would thus expect higher supply.

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thwarted
If this is the case, then it betrays significant naivety on the part of the OP
(which is my assertion of the question in general). Good cleaning
people/individuals, not just cleaning services, are _not_ easy to find. My
household has gone through a handful and at times struggled to keep the good
ones.

The same goes for competency in many other jobs, like plumbing and yard work,
that may be considered "unskilled" or not. The difference between some of
these is that you often hire cleaning or yardwork services on a regular or
scheduled basis, so you have a nice feedback loop on determining their value
(both monetarily and for keeping them around/finding a new one). Versus
services like plumbers, who most people only call when there is a problem
(that is, no one keeps a plumber on retainer).

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6d0debc071
If you're hiring from a company or agency, the company or agency may be taking
a large cut of that. I know many cleaners round here make around minimum wage;
£6.31 (around $10.50) an hour. Whereas hiring from a cleaning company will run
you out to around £10-11 an hour (roughly $17)

So, if you knock a third of the price in OP off - and say that's what the
company keeps - you'd be looking at more like $20-23 an hour in Bay Area.

Then you've got travel time to count in - say it takes them a half hour to get
to your house and a half hour back to base. If they work your house for two
hours at a stretch that's another third. So, 40 over 3. That'd get you down to
$13 an hour.

And then you've got to ask how many hours they can really fit into the day.

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adultSwim
Ask HN: why do the entitled elite feel so persecuted?

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gclaramunt
can you explain how $30/hr equates to $50/hr ? As stated in other answers,
$50/hr is very low for an independent sw developer in the bay area (and many
other places too)

EDIT: Just think on how may real billable hours any of those contractors have
in the year

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jesusmichael
Compare annual earnings and SW developers earn lots more... with more job
security

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shitgoose
Because cleaners provide value.

