
What It's Like Working for TaskRabbit - edward
http://time.com/money/3714829/working-for-taskrabbit/
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sciurus
The NY Times had a much more nuanced story recently:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/technology/in-the-
sharing-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/technology/in-the-sharing-
economy-workers-find-both-freedom-and-uncertainty.html)

HN discussion of it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8189034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8189034)

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vinhboy
Can you imagine how much growth there would be in this type of work if we had
universal healthcare? That's probably the only thing keeping many people
chained to a desk.

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jeremyt
With obamacare there really isn't any excuse for not having health insurance.

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powertower
Obamacare tripled the rates in my state, while not really providing anything
over what was provided before.

Nationally, the last time it was reported, the average increase in insurance
costs was around 2x.

Obamacare also does not provide coverage for anyone that is near, or makes
less, than the poverty line. It simply mandated by pen, rather than by a way,
that the states absorb those people on their medicaid program (though the fed
does assume the majority of the cost at least till 2022).

So there are quite a few excuses for not having insurance, such as its now
more expensive for a lot of people, especially the ones that can't afford it.

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DavidAdams
It sounds like you're talking about the Medicaid "donut hole." The ACA
intended for states to expand Medicaid to cover the poorest Americans, but
thanks to an unexpected supreme court challenge many Republican-controlled
states opted not to expand Medicaid, putting a lot of people into the catch 22
of making too much to qualify for the existing Medicaid program, but not
making enough to qualify for the new Obamacare subsidies. It's a crappy
situation that's being rectified little by little as those states are cutting
deals with the Obama administration.

Here's how you can hack the system, though. The IRS (who's in charge of
enforcing the subidies) has determined that there's no penalty if you end up
making less money in a year than you had estimated that you'd make. So if you
make $20k per year, but you need to make $25k to qualify for a subsidy, you
can just enter $25k at healthcare.gov, and you'll get the subsidy. If you end
up making less than that when you submit that year's taxes, you won't be
penalized, and you won't have to give the subsidy back. IANAL, etc.

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ris
Well done, Time, you've created a webpage that is unable to scroll without
javascript.

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tabrischen
Would be interesting to read about the weirdest jobs these taskrabbiters had
taken, but would not be surprised if there is already a subreddit for that.

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jjp
[http://www.reddit.com/r/TaskRabbit/](http://www.reddit.com/r/TaskRabbit/)

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cylinder
I don't understand. The first example charges $150 an hour for general labor.
Who would pay that much for unskilled labor?

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deeviant
For 150 an hour, you could actually attract skilled labor...

