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One survey found that one out of three full-time employees took a pay cut due to the pandemic. The same survey found that 28 percent of American workers had their bonuses affected by the pandemic, and there’s been a big drop in employees who believe a pay raise is anywhere in the near future. While some individuals were still fortunate enough to get pay increases in 2020, the number was smaller than it was in 2019. All of these figures are a bit scary and depict a world in which cost of living is certainly rising (it always is), but pay is either stagnating or shrinking. These changes are happening across industries, across the country, and even across the world. While in a healthy economy, if you weren’t happy with your pay you might boldly ask for a raise, now, perhaps you fear your company can’t afford one. Maybe you’d use some leverage and get a better job offer elsewhere before, but perhaps you’re finding that right now, no such offers exist.
For many, keeping up with a rising cost of living and paused pay raises or even job loss can mean one thing: finding another way to make money is a necessity. But who wants to or has the time to learn a whole new, immersive skill when they already have a full-time job or several part-time jobs? When time is of the essence and you’re short on it, you may need to get creative. Here are weird ways to make money online that could help.
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Apartment hunting
Anyone who works in the commercial apartment industry needs to have up-to-date data on properties in order to remain competitive and informed. Gathering this information, however, has to be done the old-fashioned way: through cold calling. Yardi Matrix pays individuals to call rental properties and ask specific questions about current rent, rent specials, and other factors that are subject to frequently change. Yardi Matrix survey conductors call properties under the guise of being an “interested renter” – not a survey conductor. Pay changes slightly depending on the outcome of the survey (did you get someone on the phone? Answering machine only?), but the company guarantees at least minimum wage per hour. Depending on how fast you can conduct the surveys, you can make plenty more.
