"You're focused on remedying that source of scarcity, whether it's earning more money by working more, whether it's trying to find other sources of income, or whether it's focused on budgeting more to save money," Sayre said. "And you're not so worried about eating a healthy dinner or getting your hour of exercise that day because you have basically more pressing issues on your mind."
"I think this is not just applicable to gig workers or people sort of at the lower end of income earning. I think this is throughout our society," Muskin said. "And yeah, maybe people who are earning $1 million a year and they didn't get as big a bonus, I’m not going to feel so badly for them, but I treat people like that, and you know, it makes them anxious, too."
"It matters how dependent we are on volatile sources of pay," Sayre said. "So basically, if you're working a sales job and 80% to 90% of your pay comes from a steady salary, and you get a small commission or performance based bonus that makes up the other 10% to 20%, that's not so bad. You can handle volatility when it makes up a relatively small proportion of your pay."
"That is a solution at the corporate level, where you alter the pay arrangement so that people are not as dependent upon commissions, bonuses and tips," he said. "But then you still need some sort of incentive process so they don’t say, 'well, I'm getting paid for this so I don't have to work as hard.'"