Future State: Listening to Chicago’s Gig Workers’ Needs in the New Economy

The last 25 years have seen dramatic growth in the “gig” economy. And the increased use of technology and online platforms to hire, schedule, and manage workers has been one of the key drivers of gig work.

At the national level, estimates suggest that the number of gig workers has increased significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Depending on how researchers define “gig work” it is estimated that gig workers represent between 1 percent to 36 percent of the workforce nationally.

In Illinois, data suggests that the number of gig workers has increased by 168 percent since 2010. Cook County has the greatest number of gig workers among Illinois counties. Surveys indicate that large subsets of workers in Illinois who participate in app-based platforms often earn low-incomes and face a number of health and safety issues.

With these trends in mind, in March 2023, New America Chicago and The Workers Lab held two community listening sessions with workers who self-identify as gig or contingent workers. We wanted to understand the experience of gig and contingent work from these workers' perspectives in order to drive future policy solutions and consider worker-centered and led technology solutions.

The workers who participated were primarily African-American, in addition to several Latino/a, White, and East Indian American workers. Most workers had worked a variety of different part-time, contract, and contingent work. The majority had done a number of different types of freelance work with some mentioning as many as five or six different types of work assignments over time. The workers we spoke with worked in everything from freelance marketing, motivational speaking, merchandising, customer service, and promotional work at conventions, to selling Mary Kay, delivering food, driving Lyft, and construction and maintenance work. Respondents who had only completed high paid consulting work were not included in our focus groups, in order to focus our findings on workers most in need of financial stability and less likely to have worker protections.

Our findings tell us that some workers choose gig and contingent work - they need work to fit around medical issues, caregiving, parenting, working in the arts, or studying commitments that fluctuate day-to-day. Our learnings also suggest that for some workers this is the only type of work they can secure due to structural barriers to employment like lack of transportation, criminal legal system involvement, immigration status, or personal or family health issues. While many of the workers we spoke with chose flexible work and enjoyed the freedom that came with it, there were also some examples of workers being misled about the work, feeling unsafe, or being underpaid. Our focus groups pointed to the need to invest in worker-centered technology and worker-led online platforms to curate, manage, and direct gig and contingent work opportunities and for policy solutions within and across workforce development, worker benefits, and worker and workplace protections issue areas to ensure that all work is quality work.

What We Learned

• Overwhelmingly workers find the flexibility, freedom, and choice of gig or contingent work to be beneficial. Most really enjoyed the flexibility of choosing when and where to work and preferred to make those choices for themselves rather than having to give up that autonomy to a company. For some, these types of work arrangements are a choice and for some workers this work may be the only option available as a result of personal, situational, or structural labor market factors. For example, having children, not having a strong support system, or criminal legal system involvement may push people toward engaging in gig work according to our focus groups.

• While the workers who participated had worked in many different types of white collar and blue collar gig work, they shared some common challenges. When we talked with workers about what they didn’t like about gig-type work or what about that work was difficult they shared that the lack of pay and pay stability was a major issue. While people loved the flexibility of gig work, living month to month without knowing how much they would earn was exhausting. They talked about the lack of worker benefits - particularly health care benefits which is burdensome. Workers discussed the reality that managing taxes as a gig worker is cumbersome - especially if they are working multiple gig or part time work arrangements. A few shared examples of wage theft via online or gig worker technology platforms. Workers required to go to new locations for gig work, reflected on times when they felt unsafe going to a job because there wasn’t accurate or adequate information on current technology platforms that they use to guide their decisions. These workers also reflected on having to travel large distances to secure gig or contingent work.

• Most workers in our two sessions either currently use technology based apps to secure work opportunities or have in the past. Workers point to a number of challenges with current technology arising from a lack of transparency, safety, inability to drive or control wages, and consistency of work opportunities. Some workers said that current apps may take a long time to set up or may require lengthy or time-consuming verification processes. When we talked with workers about ways that these technology-based platforms could be improved we heard a number of things ranging from ensuring that workers understand and know their workplace rights, offering pooled benefits like retirement or paid sick or leave time off, and ensuring privacy and safety. When we asked workers if there was value in being able to aggregate and pool disparate gig or contingent work experiences into a single W2 they said that being able to do so would streamline loan and benefits applications, make filing taxes easier, and may make them eligible for other work-based tax benefits.

Future Directions

Our findings point to these future directions in Illinois and at the federal government.

• First, Chicago should explore and pilot a worker-led and centered technology platform like what Long Beach, California piloted and other cities are exploring. These platforms differ from current models that drive down wages, lack transparency, jeopardize worker safety, and focus squarely on employer needs. A new technology platform like this can allow for workers to have more say and control in their gig-work based environment and may be able to pool portable benefit options. Technology like that tested by The Workers Lab in Long Beach could allow workers who need flexible work arrangements to show steady gig employment and income growth over time and local workforce system reporting requirements should allow for this.

• Illinois should advance broad sets of public policy reform at the state level. As has been elevated by others in Illinois, Illinois needs to enact broad based paid leave and portable benefits for all workers, enact livable wage laws, and crack down on worker misclassification. Additionally, there is a need to modernize workforce development policies to account for workers who choose gig and contingent work arrangements.

• Without support from the federal government, states can only go so far in creating better workforce policies for gig workers. Federal workforce policies should be modernized to ensure that workers have the option to choose flexible work, without giving up workplace protections and supports. Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act policies are outdated and do not allow options for people who prefer or need the flexibility of gig work within a construct of ensuring job quality standards. In addition, there are few protections for workers in these situations. Worker complaints are handled by different agencies depending on the area of concern but there is little consistent recourse for workers who are cheated or mistreated. Furthermore, unemployment insurance protections and health and safety laws and regulations at the federal and state level should apply to workers in gig and contingent work settings. Thinking about flexible work in new ways could lead to alternative resources that allow workers to receive pooled benefits across multiple employers that aren't cost prohibitive for those employers.

All work can and should be quality work. Our efforts to explore and continue to build the conditions and policies that allow for gig and contingent workers to thrive is only just beginning.