The state of benefits in the gig economy

It’s not necessarily easy to define the “gig economy,” and it’s even harder to estimate its size.

A 2017 study by Intuit and Emergent Research estimated that there were 3.8 million gig workers in 2016 and that the number would grow to 9.2 million by 2021.

Meanwhile, a study released this summer by Staffing Industry Analysts estimated that a whopping 53 million Americans worked in some capacity in the gig economy. That study took into account temporary workers assigned to jobs by staffing firms as well as the fully independent contractors, such as Uber drivers.

What is clear, however, is that the gig economy is generally characterized by a lack of benefits. Workers are almost always on their own when it comes to retirement savings and health care.

To some, that’s a major problem. Many labor advocates see the use of independent contractors as a way for companies to evade typical employee protections and leave workers insecure financially.

However, not all freelancers are unhappy with their work situation. A recent survey of “external employees” by the Society for Human Resource Management found that about three-quarters of freelancers say they could get a full-time job if they wanted to and that nearly one-fifth of them said they preferred to work externally. That suggests that while many freelancers would like to have a full-time job, they’re not unhappy enough in their situation to settle for one they won’t like.

Asked what their reasons were for working as freelancers, the most popular reason, cited by 49 percent of external workers, as setting their own schedule. Similarly, 40 percent said they liked determining the number of hours they’ll work. A third of respondents cited the appeal of working from any location.

Meeting gig workers where they are

An affinity for the freelance or gig lifestyle does not necessarily make up for the problems traditionally associated with independent contract labor, notably the lack of benefits.

Perhaps the problem is not the gig economy, but the traditional system of employer-based health care and retirement savings. Making benefits portable would allow workers to avoid being tied down to a job. Employment mobility can encourage entrepreneurship, empowering workers to take greater risks, including starting companies, without the fear of losing health coverage for themselves or their families.

Obamacare has helped on this front. First, the Affordable Care Act prohibited insurers from refusing customers based on preexisting conditions. Previously, somebody who quit a job to freelance or start a business faced the serious risk of being denied coverage due to a medical condition, forcing them to live with the fear of a financially crippling hospital bill.

Just as important, the ACA established a centralized marketplace that any consumer could access online and find a plan that covered all of the core services that one would expect from a health plan.

Finally, the ACA subsidies have made health care cheaper for the many independent employees with low or modest incomes.

However, the ACA isn’t nearly enough to address the benefit challenges that accompany freelance employment. First, it only addresses health care. Second, its health plans aren’t necessarily cheap, particularly for those who make too much money to qualify for subsidies.

A number of companies are therefore designing portable insurance products geared towards America’s millions of gig workers, part-time employees and others who traditionally don’t receive employer-based insurance.

One example is Trupo, an “insurtech” company that focuses on offering “curated” insurance to freelancers. Similar to Turbo Tax, Trupo leads users through a series of simple questions about their income, work status and physical activity required of their job. Based on the answers, it recommends a health plan.

Trupo, which is currently only offering insurance in the state of New York, is partially owned by Freelancers Union, a nonprofit organization (contrary to its name, it is not a traditional labor union) that offers services to independent employees and advocates for freelancer-friendly policies. A Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund, Sequoia Capital, is also a part-owner of the company.

Also offering curated benefits targeting freelancers is Catch. Its dashboard allows workers to search for and compare health insurance plans. It also provides a robo-advisor that helps workers put money away for retirement in an IRA or Roth IRA. Finally, it offers to automatically calculate federal and state withholding and put them in a separate account for workers to use to pay taxes later.

Employers seeing the benefits

In other cases, benefits providers are partnering with employers to offer voluntary products to independent contractors.

A notable example is MyChoice Market, a platform that was originally designed by Businesssolver as a way to offboard departing employees, including transitioning their benefits, in the hopes of staying in touch with high-quality former workers who might return in the future. Businesssolver is now marketing the program as a benefits platform that employers can use to attract and retain part-time employees by offering them a convenient way to access and oversee their own benefits, even if the employer is not contributing to them.

“Because Businessolver manages pools of employees and premium payment in the system, these employees can get lower rates than they may have access to on the retail market,” said the company in a recent news release. “Benefits access at better rates supports employees’ physical, mental, and financial well-being, and this drives improved outcomes for individuals and organizations alike.”

A number of prominent employers boast a range of benefits for contract employees. SurveyMonkey, the online polling company, announced last year that it would be working with i2i benefits and Insurance Services to provide benefits to the contract employees who work at its San Mateo site in janitorial services, catering and workforce management. The benefits included a medical plan with premiums that are 85% paid for by the employer, a $260/month voucher for public transit and 80 hours of paid vacation a year.

There are reasons that employers may be hesitant to participate in any scheme to facilitate benefits for contract workers. That could be used as grounds by regulatory agencies, such as the IRS or the Department of Labor, to classify those workers as employees entitled to full employee protections.

That’s why Mike Boro, a partner at PwC’s who specializes in independent contractors, tells SHRM he recommends that clients work with temp agencies to provide benefits to workers. And yet, he said, that doesn’t eliminate the risk. If the temp agency is passing the cost of benefits onto the company, then it is the company that is effectively providing the benefits.

Employers, including gig economy platforms, may not be willing or able to pay for benefits, but they can help connect their workers with resources to find benefits themselves. Many gig platforms, including Uber, have partnered with Stride Health, a search app that people can use to find ACA health plans.

Fiverr, an on-demand task service, has partnered with eHealth and WealthSimple to help its workers find health plans and set up retirement savings accounts. It also has a tax advice service –– including a personal tax adviser –– that is heavily discounted for both those who provide and buy services through the site.

For those who are forced into or choose the freelance lifestyle, there may never be options as easy and generous as those provided by a full-time employer. However, economic, political and technological changes have clearly created an opportunity, both for benefits providers and workers, to provide a greater level of financial security to freelancers than they have historically enjoyed.

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