When TaskRabbit first started back in 2008, there was a problem: Ikea furniture. Yes, it’s always been affordable and stylish, but it was also a multi-hour assembly nightmare homemakers couldn’t avoid.
Fast-forward to today and TaskRabbit has helped alleviate that nightmare for hundreds-of-thousands of Clients, creating a whole new “market” for furniture assembly.
Since 2008, hundreds of thousands of Ikea furniture pieces have been assembled thanks to our skilled (and patient) Taskers. This got us thinking… can we look at our Taskernomics to derive the value and willingness to pay for furniture assembly in each of our cities? Then, can we use these data to gauge the health of the local economies?
Much like the Big Mac Index, the Taskernomics Furniture Assembly Index (see below) reveals some interesting trends in the state of economies in several US cities as well as London. Using the average hourly rates of Taskers across the marketplace, the index reveals some interesting trends in cities’ willingness to pay for Furniture Assembly.
