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Good data on the size and composition of the independent contractor workforce are elusive. The authors carried out a series of focus groups to learn how independent contractors speak about their work. Based on those findings, they designed and fielded a telephone survey to elicit more accurate and complete information on independent contractors. Roughly 1 in 10 workers who initially reported working for an employer on one or more jobs (and thus were coded as employees) were independent contractors on at least one of those jobs. Incorporating these miscoded workers into estimates of main job work arrangements nearly doubles the share who are independent contractors to approximately 15% of all workers. Taking these workers into account substantively changes the demographic profile of the independent contractor workforce. Probing in household surveys to clarify a worker's employment arrangement and identify all low-hours work is critical for accurately measuring independent contractor work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many researchers and advocates believe that income inequality affects individual health, but empirical evidence has been inconclusive. A large body of research has found that income inequality is negatively correlated with average life expectancy, partly because a transfer of income from the poor to the rich is likely to harm the health of the poor more than it improves the health of the rich. A smaller body of work has investigated socioeconomic disparities in life expectancy, which widened in many countries after 1980, at the same time that income inequality was increasing. These two lines of work should be seen as complementary, because high and rising income inequality is unlikely to affect the health of all socioeconomic groups equally. Understanding the effects of income inequality on health requires attention to the mechanisms that affect the health of different income groups, changing average health, disparities in health, or (more likely) both. Rising income inequality can affect individuals in two ways. Direct effects change individuals' own income. Indirect effects change other people's income, which can then change a society's politics, customs, and ideals, altering even the behavior of those whose own income remains unchanged. Indirect effects can thus change both average health and the slope of the relationship between individual income and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]