The gig economy is a labor market in which workers earn money through on-demand jobs

The gig economy has rapidly transformed the way millions of Americans work

Rooted in flexibility and on-demand, project-based jobs, it provides opportunities for both side hustles and full-time income streams, appealing especially to younger generations seeking greater autonomy over traditional office roles. While gig work offers freedoms like flexible hours and project choice, it often lacks benefits like healthcare and retirement plans.

Full-time employees can cost up to 1.4 times as much as an independent worker.

Juliet Schor wrote an informative book about the gig economy: 'After the Gig'

In an interview, she explains that gig economy workers come in two groups: people who are earning supplemental income on the side of a full-time job, and people who depend on gig work for their entire incomes. As it turns out, those groups feel very differently about the gig economy.

Former New Yorker editor Tina Brown coined the term “gig economy” in 2009

Although this article was written pre-pandemic, the workers interviewed in it still feel representative of the sector’s modern ethos. In the piece, the writer interviews a handful of gig workers about why, exactly, they’ve chosen to make a living off of Airbnbs or TaskRabbit gigs rather than doing something else.

Find out what it's like to work in the gig economy

If you’re thinking about being a gig worker—for example, an Airbnb host, Lyft driver, or DoorDash delivery person—keep this article in mind before you start. This article outlines particular concepts prospective gig workers should think about before signing up for gig work, such as upfront costs and budgeting for taxes.

Many gig economy jobs are easy to sign up for, with a low barrier to entry

That doesn’t mean being a gig worker is an easy career, however. This article provides a framework for how to succeed in the gig economy, such as getting routines in place to streamline workflows, avoiding burnout, and creating a solid network.

The number of people collecting money from gig work tripled between 2017 and 2021

That includes people driving for Lyft or delivering food through GrubHub. Those people might be changing the face of the US economy at large, too. Gig work provides a cushion between jobs outside of government unemployment assistance, for example.

Listen to an interview with a gig economy expert

In this podcast episode, the hosts sit down with NerdWallet Senior News Editor Rick VanderKnyff, a gig economy expert who explains why the sector grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, what defines a gig worker, how gig workers handle their finances, and more.

The average salary for full-time gig workers is roughly $60K a year in the US

High-earners can make more than six figures, while close to 15% make less than the federal minimum hour wage. Most gig workers in the United States still have to file a tax return every year.

The average gig worker likely doesn’t have an employer-sponsored retirement plan

But just like full-time 9 to 5 office workers, gig workers can still save for retirement. An article outlines strategies for gig workers seeking to save for retirement, including different ways to think about what the money from each “gig” should go toward.

Inside a recent Lyft lawsuit

Over the past few years, there have been a few lawsuits regarding the way gig workers are classified as employees. Specifically, these lawsuits aim to see if gig workers (like Lyft drivers, in one recent case) should be classified as full-time employees or independent contractors. For more information, read this article.

A guide to gig-worker taxes and the new Venmo rule

Tax laws are catching up to modern freelancers. Starting with income made in 2024, gig workers will have to report the earnings they receive via apps like Venmo and PayPal differently. The main change: workers will have to detail all app earnings above $5,000 (previously, it was $20,000), and that’ll eventually drop to $600. This guide explains what that’ll mean and answers common questions about the new rule.

What is the creator economy?

The creator economy is a system powered by people creating online content for monetizable audiences. These “creators” and “influencers” make money off their digital audiences through brand deals or revenue shares with social media platforms.

In a survey of US Gen Z workers, 53% were freelancing for at least 40 hours per week

Overall, Gen Z has a pretty different attitude about work from previous generations, partly because of the economic hardship they’ve witnessed being born into the Great Recession and coming of age during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 1819 novel 'Ivanhoe' popularized the word 'freelancing'

In the novel, the author wrote about “free-lances:” mercenary soldiers who were “free” to use their weapons (called, yes, “lances”) in service of whoever paid them the most. A video details that story and other gig economy basics.

62% of independent workers said they would prefer permanent or non-contract work

In the consulting firm McKinsey's 2022 "American Opportunity Survey," 36% of employed respondents (about 58 million Americans) classified themselves as "independent workers." But they're not all thrilled about their current professional status.

'Startups' can be defined as small, early-stage companies that are designed to grow fast.

Do unions still work?

Workers everywhere from Starbucks to Uber have made headlines about unionizing—and some union experts argue that despite union membership being lower than it was in eras past, unions could still help the economy.

Here is a visualization of the creator economy as an ecosystem

From social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, to major advertisers paying influencers to promote their brands, to the consumers watching online content, quite a few engines have to keep firing to make the creator economy run smoothly.

The creator economy—which is projected to be worth as much as $480B by 2027—is a system powered by people creating online content for monetizable audiences.

Calculate creator economy platform costs

The creator economy continues to be an attractive way to earn money for many people. While many platforms exist to help creators monetize their work, each has different feature sets and pricing models. This calculator helps workers decide which platform works best for them.

Hustle culture is what happens when the belief that working extremely hard will put people on the path to success becomes the norm in a workplace or other group

From pulling all-nighters at the office to never taking a weekend off, hustle culture has been known to lead to employee burnout. The Worklife with Adam Grant podcast explains hustle culture and its effects in depth in this episode.

Generative AI may automate nearly 10% of tasks in the US economy.

Being a 'digital nomad' has become more common since the pandemic popularized remote work

Digital nomads are people who often work remotely without a specific home base, traveling from country to country or city to city, often without returning to a home address in-between.

Read an article about what happens when nurses are hired like Ubers.

Listen to legendary investor Marc Andreessen argue against the 'lump of labor fallacy,' the idea that there's a finite amount of work in an economy.

A creator economy timeline

Long before anyone memorized a TikTok dance, the creator economy began with regular people blogging about their personal lives. Eventually, it snowballed into the creator economy we know today. The Washington Post created an interactive timeline to help visualize how the creator economy got from point A to point B.

Unemployment is generally sorted into four different types: frictional, cyclical, structural, and institutional.

In a 'K-shaped' economy, higher earners' spending rises while lower earners' spending stagnates or decreases.

A recession is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of shrinking GDP, but in practice, these economic phenomena are more complex.

Delivery apps have realigned the restaurant industry

As delivery apps like Grubhub and DoorDash became popularity, traditional dine-in restaurants have adapted to become more accommodating. In this thinkpiece for the Atlantic, Ellen Cushing argues that it's both changed the kind of food being made and realigned our very notion of a restaurant. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Over 1.9 million Americans—more than a quarter of those unemployed—have been classified as 'long-term' unemployed in a given month in 2026, meaning they've been out of work for at least 27 weeks.

A Tiger economy typically describes a booming Southeast Asian country

The term “tiger economy” has been used over the last several decades to describe a developing country experiencing rapid economic growth, often due to developing export-oriented industries and/or financial markets. The term was originally applied to Southeast Asian economies, including South Korea’s, and has since been used to describe Ireland, the Baltics, and Dubai.

When your 9-to-5 becomes optional

You've seen the headlines. But what would actually happen if everyone's 9-to-5 became optional? We dug into the data. Traced automation philosophy back thousands of years. Examined what happened when elevator operators disappeared. Looked at Alaska's 40-year experiment paying every citizen. And investigated the Philippines, where 89% of call center jobs are now at risk. What we found was more positive than bleak. This video explores three questions: What does the data actually show? What does history tell us about this kind of disruption? And what happens when work becomes optional?

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics releases a monthly 'jobs report' that tracks the unemployment rate, the number of Americans currently on payroll, and more.

A work-free retirement is a relatively recent development in human history

Though it looks different in other countries, economic historians trace retirement's rise in the US to a growth in personal income through pensions, GDP, and Social Security.

One of the driving forces behind an increase in pay transparency laws is their ability to help close the gender pay gap.

Since 2018, pay transparency laws have been enacted in more than a few states and cities across the US. But what's driving the trend, from a legal perspective? This law review article attempts to answer that question, citing factors such as the Great Recession and the gender pay gap—click here to learn more.

WeWork makes money via flexible lease options

WeWork makes money by entering long-term leases with office buildings, then providing flexible lease options to its members on a short-term basis. Members get a refreshed, modern space to work in (with consistent coffee on tap, of course), and WeWork gets their consistent membership dues.

What is the gut microbiome?

The gut microbiome is a microscopic ecosystem that runs off the work of microbes in the digestive tract. These workers make getting energy from food possible. What and how that energy manifests depends on what building blocks these microbes have to work with, meaning their composition and functions are strongly influenced by diet. Gut microbes have their own genes, which affect how a person's genes act.

Watch Ray Dalio explain how the economy works

Dalio describes the economy as a machine that runs on three main cycles: productivity growth, the short-term debt cycle, and the long-term debt cycle. Dalio says layering these three cycles on top of each other essentially creates a template for understanding changes in the economy.

Some argue that advance payday apps aren't markedly different from payday loans

Some apps, like EarnIn, allow users to get money from their paycheck in advance. These apps access users' banking information, allowing the company to immediately take back any borrowed money and track users' financial situations to evaluate their risk. Unlike traditional payday lenders, these apps often waive the right to sue users who don't pay back the initial principal and don't charge interest, but rather ask users for a tip. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

The global creator economy is worth roughly $250B

That number is derived from multiple sources (such as brand deals and affiliate links), and the projections for how much the creator economy will be worth in the future are even more complicated.

Top Ethereum dApps

Thousands of decentralized apps (dApps) run on Ethereum, including marketplaces, financial platforms, and social networks. Top apps include Uniswap, a decentralized exchange for buying and selling cryptocurrency, and OpenSea, the biggest marketplace for buying and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs). New apps are built on Ethereum all the time, facilitating billions of dollars worth of transactions. Explore the biggest ones here.

The monthly US employment report is eagerly anticipated by Wall Street and has significant impacts on markets.

Explore an interactive tool that reveals why Americans are unemployed—almost 30% of unemployed Americans ages 25 to 54 cited being laid off as the reason for their unemployment, for instance.

Ethereum is a blockchain-powered operating system known for its cryptocurrency, ether

Ethereum's underlying blockchain allows developers to build decentralized applications (dApps) that leverage smart contracts to seamlessly run decentralized financial tools (crypto wallets, exchanges, marketplaces, and more), along with Web3 concepts like non-fungible tokens.

Gross domestic product only accounts for consumer spending, investments, government spending, and net exports—meaning factors such as stock market performance, Social Security payments, household labor, and the value of environmental damage largely aren't represented.

The share of workers with remote-capable jobs working from home peaked in 2020

Every year, it seems like some study is claiming that remote work is over, and that employers are forcing workers to return to office en masse. This chart shows a much more nuanced picture of how remote work has fluctuated before, during, and after the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic—remote, hybrid, and in-person work levels have remained relatively stable since 2023.

In defense of the advertisement economy

Advertising is frequently reviled for how it clutters up public spaces and our everyday experiences. Nonetheless, it allows for vast amounts of goods and services to be rendered free to millions of users—and gives users the option to pay with money or time and attention.

Vitalik Buterin’s current thoughts on Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin isn’t just the founder of Ethereum—he’s also a blogger. In this blog post from late last year, Buterin discusses some of his favorite applications built on Ethereum: prediction markets like Polymarket, where users can bet crypto on the outcome of events like elections. Buterin argues that prediction markets also act as news sites for non-bettors, opening the floodgates for many different kinds of info-based apps on Ethereum. Read the post here.