A 2020 Federal Reserve Survey asked about “income-earning activity” as opposed to jobs, and found that 27% of adults earned money through gigs. ² Women, young people, and people of color ³ are over-represented in these non W-2 jobs. Yet the non-W2 workforce is not consistently tracked ⁴ in state unemployment data or many federal data sources, leading to varied estimates of its size and demographic makeup. Contract workers are also excluded from Unemployment Insurance (UI), workers compensation, many basic labor protections, and employer-provided benefits, leaving them particularly vulnerable to the impacts of poor quality jobs, and undercounted in program data collection. A recent survey showed that 30% of gig workers are enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), twice the rate of W2 service sector workers. ⁵ The pandemic exposed the need for all workers, regardless of job classification or status, to have access to critical safety net services; however, without changes to existing public sector data systems and collection methodologies it will remain difficult to understand who these workers are, their working conditions, and what services they may need to achieve financial stability.

Surveys of workers typically do not distinguish types of self-employment income or account for use of gig jobs as secondary employment and supplemental income. For example, while the Contingent Worker Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CWS) provides critically important data, it reflects only the type of work individuals do as their main source of income; it does not currently capture supplemental work. Most administrative datasets, including state-held unemployment data, do not separately track those who receive non-W2 income.