I presume you are talking about 3 to 4 cents a line - as an independent contractor Posted: Jan 20th, 2018 - 5:05 pm In Reply to: Question for those getting paid 3 or 4 cents per line - How much
since you said "no benefits." The one thing that you have to worry about is the double social security tax (not to mention regular income tax) that you must pay on those crappy wages.
For example, in the case of the almost-double social security tax (there is a Medicare 1.65 percent tax that employees pay but employers don't), you cannot deduct your way out of any of it.
All of my numbers here are approximate because I can't remember them precisely, but it's something like 17% for both portions of the social security tax. So even if you make very poor wages (even less than minimum wage in your state), you must still pay both.
For example 200 lines an hour for 8 hour would equal 1600 lines per day. That times 5 days (if you got consistent work and didn't run out of work or have hard ESL dictators, for example) would equate to 8000 lines per week. Multiply that times 0.04 per line would equal just $320.00 per week. (Multiplying that times 0.03 a line would equal $240.00 per week, which would be part-time wages for full-time work, basically).
Now, if you muiltiply $320 times 50 (rather than 52, allowing for 10 days off per year), you would get just $16,000 per year. ($240.00 would get you almost poverty-line $12,000 per year).
Multiplying $16,000 times 17% (I actually think it is 17.2% but am not sure) would be $2720 in social security tax that you must pay, not to mention regular income tax, if any.
Multiplying $12,000 times 17% would still equate to $2040, which for anyone, would put them below the poverty line.
Bottom line: It's not worth the effort to work full-time at 40 hours per week for poverty or near-poverty wages for a single person.
I do believe you can subtract the employer's portion (that you pay as an independent contractor) from your income for income tax purposes, but you still have to pay it, which on those wages, either 0.04 and particularly 0.03, would be just about impossible to pony up when other expenses must be covered, like food, utilities and medicine.
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