Thanks for writing this good overview of a perennial topic.
Paying people higher salaries for EA jobs might be an alternative approach to at least part of this problem. It would allow people to save to protect themselves from future unemployment, without the difficult vetting and bad incentive effects of ‘insurance’. It doesn’t help people very early on in their careers, but probably no insurance product would either, as these people would often not have built up a credible history of contribution anyway.
Agreed that higher salaries could help (and are already helping). Another nice benefit is that they can also be useful for the broader community; more senior people will have more money to help out more junior people, here and there.
I imagine if there were an insurance product, it would be subsidized a fair amount. My hope would be that we could have more trust than would exist for a regular insurance agency, but I’m not sure how big of a deal this would make.
Another idea is a safety net which estimates the opportunity cost associated with taking a low-paying EA role and caps the financial support at said opportunity cost. Potentially a much cheaper way to achieve the same end result.
The best approach might be to have people register for this safety net as soon as they get an EA role, so they can argue for a particular opportunity cost at that time and know how much “insurance” they’re getting.
For people how have taken the further pledge an increase in salary would be less valuable than insurance that is paid by the employer. This might be a case that is only relevant for a few people, however, they might also be part of the most dedicated group.
Thanks for writing this good overview of a perennial topic.
Paying people higher salaries for EA jobs might be an alternative approach to at least part of this problem. It would allow people to save to protect themselves from future unemployment, without the difficult vetting and bad incentive effects of ‘insurance’. It doesn’t help people very early on in their careers, but probably no insurance product would either, as these people would often not have built up a credible history of contribution anyway.
Agreed that higher salaries could help (and are already helping). Another nice benefit is that they can also be useful for the broader community; more senior people will have more money to help out more junior people, here and there.
I imagine if there were an insurance product, it would be subsidized a fair amount. My hope would be that we could have more trust than would exist for a regular insurance agency, but I’m not sure how big of a deal this would make.
Another idea is a safety net which estimates the opportunity cost associated with taking a low-paying EA role and caps the financial support at said opportunity cost. Potentially a much cheaper way to achieve the same end result.
The best approach might be to have people register for this safety net as soon as they get an EA role, so they can argue for a particular opportunity cost at that time and know how much “insurance” they’re getting.
Perhaps, although it may also increase the number of people working uncompensated.
For people how have taken the further pledge an increase in salary would be less valuable than insurance that is paid by the employer. This might be a case that is only relevant for a few people, however, they might also be part of the most dedicated group.