Amanda Hess unravels Etsy’s call for more government assistance:
Etsy sellers may be collectively swapping $895 million annually, but most of them aren’t seeing much of that cash, and they’re not passing it on to any employees, either. The report, based on an online survey conducted last year with 94,000 sellers who had made a sale in the previous 12 months, found that Etsy sellers, who are mostly women, “report higher levels of education and lower household income than the general population.” The majority of respondents— 52 percent—are college educated, yet average median income for Etsy sellers is just $44,900, 10 percent lower than the national average. Twenty-six percent of Etsy sellers earn under $25,000 in annual household income.
… Etsy emphasizes that, in terms of seller motivations, “personal reasons outweigh business and income considerations.” More people start up Etsy shops to express their creativity than to generate income. That’s fine, but it doesn’t explain why the U.S. government ought to encourage more people to take up knitting in return for fun times and minuscule paychecks (particularly when many of them are recruiting other people to work for free). Etsy bizarrely knocks the government focus on creating “good-paying jobs,” instead suggesting they invest more in poorly-paying hobbies.
The Dish 