To research this article, I talked to about a dozen freelance writers and a handful of magazine editors about the present state of the job. These were mostly writers who have been doing this work for between 10 and 20 years, who write pieces of national and global importance, and who, from the outside, look like they have reached the top of their profession. I’m not talking about 24-year-olds cobbling together $250 paychecks for their TV recaps so they can afford a corner in a tiny three-bedroom (though I’ve been there, and they too deserve much better). I’m talking about writers you might recognize from their bylines on the covers of magazines or as guests on cable news and Morning Edition. They are mid-career professionals, many with spouses and children. These people are more successful than I or almost any freelance writer can hope to become. And not one of them had a nice word to say about their working conditions.

The most common complaint is that the numbers just don’t add up to a good living. Without signing writers to exclusive deals, most magazines top out in the $1 to $2 per word range (exclusivity can get you $3). It’s possible to publish 30,000 words of freelance writing a year at those rates — about eight articles the length of the one you’re reading — but it’s extremely difficult to land and execute that many assignments successfully. And if you manage to pull it off and place a full year’s worth of writing in top-flight publications, you may make as much as the average personal trainer: $60,000.

In reality, writing a story — especially an interesting or important one — is not an efficient process. “I wrote a feature for [a national magazine] in 2014, and I still remember getting the $5,000 check,” one writer told me. “I sent a photo of it to my father, because I wanted him to see you could actually get paid for writing. Now I wonder whether in the back of his mind he was thinking, ‘Five thousand dollars for six months of work?’” (That $5,000 is worth $5,322 today, but I’m willing to bet the publication has not increased its rates to keep pace.)

Once a writer proves him- or herself, depending on their politics and temperament, they might be eligible for a staff writing job. Some of these are legitimately good gigs with regular paycheck and benefits—the whole enchilada. Many of them, however, are not, and it’s virtually impossible from the outside to tell which is which.

I would be remiss if I omitted that almost every person I spoke to brought up one of the industry’s worst-kept secrets: New Yorker staff writers, some of the most admired journalists in the business, don’t typically receive health insurance. Of course, that magazine isn’t alone in keeping top talent on freelance contracts, often without benefits.

Freelance staff writers are still freelance in that they’re legally considered independent contractors, but in nearly all cases, they write only for the one place. If that publication doesn’t want to run their idea, the writer can’t take it elsewhere.

Beyond the basic numbers, writers also told me about a grab bag of smaller frustrations and indignities that make the economics of their job problematic: checks that arrived on a geologic time scale while the landlord still charges monthly; publications squeezing out reprint, TV, and film rights; editors who assign and fix pay for pieces at word counts they know writers will likely exceed to meet the scope of the assignment.

“If the editors announced a 50-cent per word pay cut next week, I don’t think any of us would quit,” one contract staff writer told me, “and they know it.” Writers cite a cartel mindset among editors. And the editors I spoke with, like the writers, did not expect rates to rise.

There are other consequences to the declining value of the written freelance word. The most obvious is that skilled and insightful writers will ditch the profession for greener (but arguably less prosocial) pastures. Many of the writers I spoke with are looking for other kinds of work or have already started splitting their time between writing and more lucrative jobs. One recently did some television work and estimated it paid four times as well for labor that was considerably easier. (Earlier this year, when a Google spreadsheet of TV writer salaries circulated, it left some of us print writers agog: $12,000 to $25,000 per episode, or $4,000 per week.)

Freelance writers are subject to capture in other ways too. Many of my interviewees brought up the New America Foundation (NAF), a think tank with a list of supported fellows that includes a bunch of prominent writers. Google and Eric Schmidt have provided more than $20 million to New America, and some writers said they were skeptical of the influence that gave the tech giant, especially after the organization booted scholar Barry Lynn and his Google-hostile Open Markets initiative. Some writers felt too conflicted about the money to try to get an NAF fellowship.

Being willing to take the cash whenever it’s available, mind you, is an adaptation to this stagnant market. It’s hard to hate the players.

Labor cost-cutting by publications can also lead to access for billionaires with an agenda. Michael Bloomberg, for example, funded The Trace to report on gun violence. The site collaborates with various media outlets, thereby reducing the average cost of pro–gun control stories. (These stories feature disclaimers about the cost sharing, but few readers think twice about a public-interest magazine working with a nonprofit.) If Bloomberg’s anti-gun message seems benign or even agreeable, imagine this same playbook being used by a rich person or firm or nation with politics you don’t agree with.

Of course, freelance writing is better paid for those willing to receive support from the NAF or Michael Bloomberg or the Nation Institute or Cato or the Kochs or some other interested pile of money. And if pay continues to drop in real dollars, those checks could make the difference between who’s on the cover and who does something else with their time. They probably already do.

When I asked one writer why they kept writing even though they could get more money elsewhere, they compared it to the financial sacrifices of artists. I pointed out that, archetypes aside, if they were an equivalently successful visual artist, they would be making considerably more money, and they conceded that is definitely true.