Many people who have lost income during the coronavirus pandemic, including gig workers for Uber and elsewhere, have turned to GoFundMe to fill the gap
Uber drivers and other gig workers who lose their main income overnight have an immediate cash channel — crowdfunded donations — but no guaranteed one, since platform sick-pay policies remain piecemeal.
Second-order effects
Platforms are forced into defensive benefit announcements — Instacart, DoorDash, and Postmates rolled out new financial-assistance policies within days of each other — and Congress eventually moves too, with the CARES Act extending unemployment checks to Uber and Grubhub drivers, which critics read as a subsidy to the companies that avoided employing them.
Third-order effects
If emergency measures harden into precedent, the gig model's core bargain — flexibility without benefits — gets repriced, either through formal classification fights or through a permanent expectation that platforms fund worker safety nets they currently offload to donors.
The trend: The pandemic is exposing that gig-work income security is being improvised by donors and emergency legislation first, with platform policy trailing behind.
15M Americans are part of the gig economy (Uber, Lyft, DoorDash). As the country shuts down and people shelter in place, they are left without riders, income or health insurance. https://www.nytimes.com/... via @NYTimes
Good story from my colleagues on the plight of gig workers. One thing to keep in mind: CA's new law effectively requires that they be considered employees, who are entitled to sick pay and unemployment bens. Uber and Lyft haven't reclassified drivers tho https://www.nytimes.com/.…
Just as it served as a safety net for the (many, many) people who our disastrous healthcare failed, GoFundMe is now serving as an economic lifeline for struggling artists, gig workers, and laid off employees good writeup by @SarahFKessler https://onezero.medium.com/...
While Uber & other gig economy companies promote themselves as providing flexible work that can be lifelines to workers, with the economy imploding this week, gig work has been anything but a dependable lifeline. “They've got no social insurance at all” https://www.nytimes.com/..…
It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that in the time of pandemic-induced economic crisis, GoFundMe has stepped in to help peers + fellow citizens do what the government has utterly failed to do: Support working people + artists https://onezero.medium.com/...
“Should I pay rent or should I pay the insurance for my car? I can't pay one.” The coronavirus pandemic lays bare the stark difference in protections between full-time employees and 1099 contractors by @kateconger @satariano @MikeIsaac https://www.nytimes.com/...
Over the last decade, GoFundMe has become a symbol for gaps in U.S. healthcare coverage. As the economic crisis sparked by the coronavirus unfolds, the site may become a grim window into gaps in the country's unemployment insurance policies, too. http://read.medium.com/pIjh1Ou
Countless individuals have posted GoFundMe campaigns to raise funds for themselves, citing missed tips, reduced gigs, and dried up performance dates. http://read.medium.com/PWkerxM
One of the promises of the gig economy was that it could provide flexible, quick work during an economic downturn. We looked at how that promise is changing during the pandemic. w/ @adamsatariano @mikeisaac https://www.nytimes.com/...
we've known for a long time the vulnerabilities gig workers face when it comes to benefits but the coronavirus pandemic lays bare the stark difference in protections between full-time employees and 1099 contractors. story w/ @kateconger, @satariano https://www.nytimes.com/...
Unemployment programs in the US are limited, and out of date. You can expect to see people launching GoFundMes for basic needs in the coming weeks For Many, GoFundMe Is Now a Coronavirus Safety Net by @SarahFKessler in @OZM https://onezero.medium.com/...
Freelancers and gig workers don't have unemployment insurance. As coronavirus destroys their income, they're turning to GoFundMe instead. My story: https://onezero.medium.com/...