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> It would be a pretty poor rate in most CA urban areas. But $22/hr works out to
> a little under $46,000, which just happens to be the average income for college
> graduates in the US (the average salary for tech writers nationwide is $52,000).
True, but that does assume full 40 hour weeks for 52 consecutive
weeks, which is doable (if they allow working through holidays or pay
for holidays despite you not being an employee), and does not account
for being in a different tax situation.
> If the OP has already left that $22/hr job (presumably for one that is better)
> and is contemplating doing this work for a couple of hours an evening, we're
> probably not talking about crawling into aircraft fuselages or documenting heavy
> equipment teardowns, and chasing down SMEs to drag knowlege out of their heads
> between 9:00 and 11:30 doesn't sound terribly practical either. So ultimately
> the question remains how badly the extra money is needed and what the
> effort-to-money ratio is. Even in CA, if someone wanted me to do some redline
> entry and editing/formatting a couple of hours a night for this rate 1099 and I
> didn't have anything better to do with my time I might just think about
> countering at $35/hr and see what happens.
The conversation (countering/bargaining) is worth having. Not
demanding, but talking it out.
I just re-read the original post, which was quite cryptic. The OP is
talking about this as a side gig, which would add 13 hours (an odd
figure) per week. At $22, that's an extra $286/week before any taxes
augmenting a full week's worth of salary from another job (40, perhaps
more, hours per week). Thus the 53 hour remark.
I think the tax advisor is over-estimating with the 50% savings for
taxes, but it's good to be cautious and pad the reserve. Still, given
having a full time job, you have to weigh your loss of 13 hours of
free time per week (about a full waking day of free time, more or
less) and decide if it's worth an extra $143 per week. Personally I'd
be hesitant to go for that ($11/hr net for each hour of my free time
given an existing full time job taking up 40 hours or more per week),
but if your situation calls for additional income, it might be worth
it to you.
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