SWAT team, "smart women with available time"., but at $21/hour...?

There has been much debate and discussion over Sue Shellenbarger's article, How Stay-at-Home Moms Are Filling an Executive Niche. 
Here's some follow-up from Sue Shellenbarger and from Amy Tiemann, who has blogged about this on her website www.mojomom.com :


Dear Catherine,
Thank you very much for your interest in our coverage. Your point is well-taken. I’m pasting below a follow-up Q&A I did on this topic.
Best regards,

Sue Shellenbarger

Q: Re your column on teams of at-home moms taking executive-level projects: I think it’s wonderful that moms have so many options. I don’t understand, though, why they seem to be selling themselves short on pay. –N.F., Charlottesville, Va.
A:  Actually, they’re not. The teams typically are paid at competitive rates among independent contractors, reflecting their temporary status and, in many cases, brief time commitment of as little as a few hours a week. The $21 an hour rate mentioned in the column was unusually low, paid for a project by mothers who were drawn via their neighborhood networks into flexible work they found intrinsically interesting, with an opportunity to make valuable contacts. I should have included more pay information in the column.
The staffing firms that place most of these project teams say pay varies based on recruits’ skill and experience and the nature of the assignment. Recruits at MomCorps, Atlanta, usually make $30 to $100 an hour, says CEO Allison O’Kelly; most have five to 15 years’ experience; most of its jobs are at an employer’s site. At Flexible Executives, Atlanta, which requires recruits to have a college degree and usually 10 years’ experience, executives earn about $100 to $150 an hour on average, says co-founder Jamie Pennington; most of its projects are done from home. Flexperience Consulting, Burlingame, Calif., which is also seeing more demand for project teams, says its jobs pay $80 to $220, with at least 10 years’ experience required. These firms also place men, particularly at-home dads, retirees and others who are looking for flexible work, but in many cases moms outnumber other kinds of candidates.

Amy Tiemann, who has blogged about this on her website www.mojomom.com :
 
Hi Everyone,

I was actually one of the women in the Kenan-Flagler project and
while I see why $21 an hour caught your eye, I wanted to tell you
that for me it was a win-win-win experience, for particpants, Kenan
Flagler business school, and the MBA students.

I have worked with many women whose mission is to promote more
flexible work (see http://www.balancingprofessionals.com or http://
caliandjody.com/).

This is an idea whose time has come but it's taking a while to get a
foothold. So the idea that there are smart, talented women who want
to work if the right opportunity comes up is still a new one in the
business world. Employers are still in the "Huh, why didn't anyone
think of this?" stage. The answer of course is that we did think of
it but it takes time to get the message out into widespread
acceptance and practice.

To reframe this slightly, for me the Kenan-Flagler project was a
great professional development opportunity. They paid us a relatively
low hourly rate, but we were paid for the time that we were in
training as well as the time that we did the role plays. I learned a
lot. So for me the actual experience was a win for everyone.

Amy