I'd imagine those 300K years they're not just working 40 hours a week, more like 70+ hours. Add higher taxes on those years and it becomes less attractive.

Oooof. I pity the poor fool who has to pay taxes on their 300k annual salary.

300k per year for a few years is just not that much money. It's a nice boost but let's not pretend it's rich or wealthy.

IMO taxes should be on the rolling average of your income so two good years does not mean you get taxed as if that's your steady state

It’s 1099 income, not w2 income. You often need to buy your own non-group health insurance, in addition to employer payroll tax contributions.

If it was a predictable & reliable 300k, 30k, 300k, 30k, 300k, 30k pattern, then yes.

But if not...

I imagine a Bernoulli pattern would work too

Yeah, if not, it could be even more!

It can also be less

Not likely. When the price goes down, some people take jobs doing other things pretty quickly. When it goes back up, they don't all come back immediately. The result is that the price tends to stay high longer than it stays low.