This study of gig passenger and delivery driver earnings in the Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay, and Seattle metros finds the typical drivers earned less than the applicable minimum wage in all five metros.

Passage of AB 2257 has caused only minor changes in coverage of the ABC test under AB 5.

In this report, we leverage recent innovations in analyzing tax data to shed new light on the prevalence and characteristics of independent contracting in California.

Uber and Lyft, along with a group of delivery network companies, have filed a ballot proposition in Massachusetts to create a separate set of labor standards for their drivers. After considering multiple loopholes, we find that the majority of Massachusetts drivers could earn as little as the equivalent of a $4.82 wage, while the minority of drivers who qualify for a health care stipend could earn the equivalent of just $6.75 per hour.

Thornberg over-estimates driver gross earnings (before expenses) based on data that is not representative of drivers in California. He also underestimates driver costs. In doing so, he significantly overstates what drivers earn on net now, and would earn under Proposition 22.

In this data brief, we estimate how much Uber and Lyft would have contributed to the state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund between 2014 and 2019, had the companies classified the drivers as employees. Our finding: If Uber and Lyft had treated workers as employees, the two TNCs would have paid $413 million into the state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund between 2014 and 2019.

The lion’s share of media attention surrounding AB 5 has gone to the law’s effects on on-demand labor platforms like Uber and Lyft. However, these workers represent just a fraction of independent contractors, most of whom work across a diverse range of occupations such as janitors, hair stylists, and accountants.

The companies have a choice over how they adjust to comply with California’s laws protecting workers—or if they choose to fight those laws with a ballot initiative that would take pay standards back seventy years.

This report analyzes a major barrier to successful implementation of new clean truck standards: the common trucking industry practice of classifying (and often misclassifying) truck drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

In this fact sheet we look at three industries in California where misclassification is known to be disproportionately high and could potentially be reduced by an ABC test – trucking, construction, and janitorial services. For each industry, we describe the demographics and wages of workers and misclassification practices by employers.

Third in the Guest Blogger Series: Voices of Labor and Allies from Labor in the Climate Transition Conference. “Freight and delivery companies are finding ways to pass on the responsibility of cleaning up fleets to individual drivers, while minimizing their own investments. This is what corporations do when we don’t have policies that protect workers or incentivize companies to do the right thing.”

If you’ve consumed any media on the gig economy during the last several years, you were probably seriously confused last Thursday. That’s when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its new survey data on contingent workers, which was much anticipated because the last time the survey was conducted was in 2005. Given the endless coverage of Uber and freelancing as paradigmatic of the 21st century labor market, expectations were that the new data would show significant increases in contingent work.

In this paper we (1) provide a clear framework to help define gig work and understand how it relates to other forms of work being discussed and (2) draw on current research to identify what we know (and don’t know) about the prevalence of gig work, the demographics of the workforce, and job quality outcomes, using data on California where possible.

IRLE Working Paper. This paper identifies data gaps and research questions that need to be answered in order to better understand trends in workplace restructuring during the era of growing wage inequality.