CSS Report Provides First—and Most Comprehensive—Overview of New York City’s App-based Gig Workforce During the COVID-19 Pandemic

New York, NY – The coronavirus pandemic has increased the precarity of on-demand gig work mediated by third-party apps and highlighted the gaping holes in the safety net for drivers and food delivery cyclists working for companies like DoorDash, Postmates and Uber.  Yet, despite all the attention this segment of the workforce has been receiving from both lawmakers and advocates at the local and state levels, there is limited data available on the size and nature of New York City’s app-based gig workforce.

A new report from the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), “The Gig is Up: An Overview of New York City’s App-based Gig Workforce during COVID-19,” takes a deep dive into the size and composition of the city’s app-based gig workforce, the challenges faced by these workers and the health and economic impacts of the pandemic on them. The report analyzes data from our 2019 and 2020 Unheard Third surveys of New York City residents.  

Among the report’s key findings are:

• New York City’s app-based gig workforce is larger than previously estimated and comprised of workers who are predominantly young, people of color, and male. Twenty percent of employed New Yorkers said that they engaged in app-based gig work in the past year, including 23 percent of low-income New Yorkers. Young adults, Latina/o/x New Yorkers and men (especially fathers) had the highest rates of participation in New York City’s app-based gig economy.
• Gig work is not just a side hustle for New Yorkers, as nearly six out of every 10 New Yorkers who engage in the app-based gig economy depend on this type of work as their main source of income.
• More than a third of app-based gig workers reported that they or family members contracted COVID-19 compared to 26 percent of employees and 21 percent of other self-employed workers.
• Since the start of the pandemic, app-based gig workers were two to three times more likely than employees to face food and housing insecurity, as well as difficulties with healthcare affordability.
• Forty percent of app-based gig workers receive SNAP benefits, three times higher than the share of other self-employed workers and employees receiving this benefit.
• Half of app-based gig workers we surveyed reported that they were worried all or most of the time about having enough income to pay their bills, compared to just 22 percent of employees.

The CSS report also provides key recommendations for policymakers to expand labor protections for app-based gig workers. These include using one simplified, universal labor standard—the ABC test—to determine whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor; automatically covering gig workers and independent contractors under existing paid sick leave and paid family leave programs; a portable benefits model; and considering the creation of gig worker cooperatives.

“When the pandemic shut down our city a year and a half ago, app-based gig workers were essential to keeping New Yorkers fed and ensuring that they could receive prescriptions and other necessities when they needed them. Yet, our report found that these workers make up a sizable share of our city’s workforce and are not benefiting from important labor standards like paid sick leave and a minimum wage that were put in place to protect workers,” said David R. Jones, the President and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York.

“By misclassifying their workers as independent contractors instead of employees, app-based companies have built billion-dollar businesses on the backs of our most vulnerable New Yorkers while skirting labor laws that would have given this workforce more protections and financial stability during a global pandemic,” said Irene Lew, a Policy Analyst at CSS and primary author of the report.

“Our new report highlights the consequences of misclassification for app-based gig workers, who were already struggling to make ends meet even before the pandemic hit. As our city and state policymakers continue to focus on pandemic recovery efforts, we urge them to consider adopting the ABC test—a  critical step toward ensuring that this workforce, which includes one in five working New Yorkers, is no longer shortchanged by their employers,” said Debipriya Chatterjee, Senior Economist at CSS and co-author of the report.

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