The problem is it takes typically takes days or even weeks of unpaid work to find the next paid job. If you get 6 months contracts that unpaid time is easy to deal with (and much of the unpaid work is really half an hour here easy to put in after hours while in the middle of the longer contract). Thus a 1 day job needs to pay a lot more perhour than a 6 month contract as the costs to get that contract needs to be paid from than 1 day - a fair price for a 1 day job is likely in the $20,000 range.