Penny pinching and cut throat competition

[bjohnrichard]

Its a request to upwork that freelancers get a base pay rates. I mean it could be 10 - 15 USD per hour and clients cannot underpay the baselined amount. Most of the clients are penny pinching the proposals and are giving the work to those who are cut throat in the pricing. This is creating a fierce competition among the freelancers and most of them are getting underpaid and exploited.

[martina_plaschka]

Upwork has a minimum rate, I believe it's $3/hour currently. 

I would not work for that rate, but many people are willing to do so. They will not get the same jobs or any jobs at all if they charged 3 or 5 times more. 

These people are not your competition. If you have a convincing profile and a perfect portfolio, you can still charge the rate you think your work is worth. Nobody is telling you that you shouldn't have a higher rate, if you can convince clients that they get their money's worth and hire you at that rate. 

But you must stand out amongst your competition, so you should improve your profile to make it more professional and attractive. 

[sh_jyoti]

One thing I would like to add to @Martina P's reply- those who agree to work at the lowest rates, are not subject matter experts. So, the low paying clients get low quality work, too.

If any client is serious about their work, they come back to good quality freelancers and agree to pay more.

I can say this from my personal experience in Upwork, if your work is good, clients will pay you better rates. 

Sometimes, I work for lower rates just to help sombody. Otherwise, I get paid as per the rate I ask. 

[dotticolvin]

I agree. Upwork is the number one platform for clients who want to avoid the law on minimum wage. Clients should be ashamed to ask people to work for so little. I agree that there should be a minimum. I am not sure it would change the competition much but at least there would be no exploitation.  The other side is clearly the people who do the work for so little cannot be paying taxes, how could they be, after fees there is nothing left, so as a taxpayer myself, the low rates offered are not even considerable. I am a talented freelancer with a ton of experience, if this thing could be resolved I would work more on this platform, /( and Upwork would get more money from me!) but I just see how ridiculous most of the offers are and walk away. Upwork should encourage fair trade.

[martina_plaschka]

Minimum wage in which of the 180 countries represented on upwork? $3 is above minimum wage in a bunch of them.