02/03 - Workity Workity Work Wednesday

"the website is just horrifically out of date" Please explain what you mean by the website is out of date? When I do a hit that pays $24 an hour and the browser wants me to rate it as "fair pay" when actually it is very generous. I do not think the website is out of date but rather there is an error with the browser extension....

 

$24/hr should be fine to rate as generous, if you see that messed up lmk? The pic you posted above was less than fed min-wage (it accounts for taxes a bit) which is why it was rec'd for underpaid

 

Rahul Govind has also fixed his hit as well.

 

I made $138 on mturk today and might be done for today

 

My issue is the website and browser does not match. Sorry just read the message on how the Wage Guidelines had been changed. Saying that in my picture the wage is $7.89/hr. Fed Minimum wage is currently $7.25/ hour. No federal law has been passed to make Federal Minimum wage any higher than $7.25. It is in my opinion that $7.89/ hr should be rated as fair pay as it has been on the website because it is a fair wage and exceeds current federal minimum wage. Some states that have higher cost of living due to high taxes and regulations have raised their state minimum wage but that is not nation wide as not all states have such outrageous cost of living. My state for instance is much lower and don't even have a state income tax so anything over $10/ hr is pretty generous for doing easy work sitting on my butt IMO if that makes sense. Sorry for the confusion. If this is the new system when can we expect to see the changes reflected on the website and on hits and requesters so that the ratings all match? Because when looking at reviews on the hits themselves still reflect the old wage guidelines as well. Are you saying I should go ahead and ignore everything on the ratings and website and start rating hits like this that pays $7.89/hr ($0.64 over Fed Min Wage) as underpaid when submitting reviews on the browser and let it be inconsistent with everything else? Because I have been manually changing every review to reflect what we have been doing.

 

God, these millennials... Smh

 

that is like 1/3 of an acceptable minimum wage where I live. what state do you live in?

 

Makes sense about figuring in self employment taxes in the equation. But keep in mind not everyone pays the same taxes either. Also note even if you have a job that pays $7.25 an hour taxes are taken out as well and in some states they pay state taxes as well so nobody actually earns $7.25 take-home pay. I would think to keep things simplified on a national level we go by national wages. That's just my opinion. But yeah I have done a lot of hits that were over $15 and even $20 an hour and wanted me to rate them as "fair pay". Like I said every rating is now 2 levels lower. So Anything over what was generous pay is now fair pay on the browser extension. When I do another hit that is over $15 and $20 per hour I'll take a screen shot and show you so you can see what it is doing.

 

I'm testing this and it still defaults it to fair without requiring an explanation, did something update? (I took a break for a while last year)

 

Just to clarify real quick, it's accounting for the excess taxes you pay on that $7.25/hour. I'll try & explain why a bit in a sec!

You will have to opt-into it if you want it displayed that way to you.

You can already do this in MTS by going to the Options page and then the TurkerView header and changing the hourly requirements for coloration like this:


CT - That's nuts / stupid! WHY?

The very short answer here is that TV's public facing website is quickly becoming a place requesters come to figure out how much they should pay.

So, TV needs to be advocating for higher wages publicly since, like you mentioned, a lot of folks live in areas where the hourly wages are WAY higher than min-wage. TV can't help those folks get fair pay if we're just defaulting to $7.25/hr being "good"

I agree, it's certainly acceptable for folks in certain places (I live in BFE south carolina haha) but TV is a lot more "global" nowadays & there are a huge # of workers kinda getting boned by displaying the "lowest" values.

Think of it like a contract negotiation.. would you want to start the discussion at the absolute minimum $ you'd take to do the work? That's kinda what TV is doign to a lot of folks by displaying those old wages

So it wont ever impact your actual workflow for the values you see, it just asks you to help out other turkers (and in some ways yourself, if wages rise across the board that's a good thing) by using the higher guidelines to rate HITs. What/how you work is still 100% up to you.

A bit of a "be a nice neighbor" of a feature if that makes sense? But the huge issue is the large # of requesters engaging in wage data assessment coming to TV & TV not really providing them a positive frame of reference.

As long as you're logged in, the website's colors actually wont change at all. You can opt into the changes (when they go live) here: https://turkerview.com/account/preferences/wages/

Also need to check the math on this but I believe it's only the SE portion of the taxes it's adding on (so the part you'd normally pay in w2 shouldn't be accounted for, but idk).

Otherwise it's just a path of least harm thing. It generally wont hurt folks in lower SES areas to have wage recommendations go up (..I would hope? it's not like requesters are bound to them lol, and workers can fully ignore the update and never notice much of a difference), but if they stay stagnant or wait for the fed govt to update laws well we'll all be long dead before that happens

I'll def 2x check the math on this at least & make sure it's correct

 

how does anyone anywhere in the US live on $7.25/hour minus taxes in 2021. I don't believe that's possible. you can't rent an apt. for under $1400/month-ish including utilities, internet, food.

 

Are you using MTS or TVJS? TVJS is more or less deprecated

 

You must live in communist California huh? lol. I live in Texas. My younger sister makes $8/hr and can afford her Rent, Utilities, Phone, Car Ins, Food and Gas etc all on her own no problems here. Now saying that most employers don't really pay minimum wage. Usually they pay $8 or $9 starting pay. Hope that clarifies the confusion why I think $7.25 is fair pay lol! I guess it makes sense for the update. My issue is really everything matching I guess. And it don't match and is messing with me haha.

 

Uhhh.. rent in a 2br college town in sc is like 400/mo lol

It's absolutely doable here.

 

Oh, I'm using TVJS (I'm using another catcher besides MTS). I have MTS on another browser just for HIT tracker - guess I should switch it over.

 

Safe to wait a bit, still lots of bugs to work out lol

 

you made that in paint