Despite flexibility, gig work and insecure income prove harmful to US workers, says new study

Insecure revenue related to nontraditional employment often known as “gig work” has a damaging impression on the general well being and well-being of U.S. staff, in accordance with a brand new article by researchers from UTHealth Houston.

A pre-press model of the findings, which will likely be revealed within the September 2022 situation of the journal Social Science & Medication, is now accessible on-line.

Gig work contains employment the place individuals are paid by the piece of accomplished work, by the hour, or by the day, slightly than a standard employer-employee relationship. Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, and Helpful are examples of gig firms, in accordance with the Congressional Analysis Service.

Utilizing information from the 2008-2019 IPUMS Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, UTHealth College of Public Well being researchers discovered that insecure revenue from gig work contributed to poor well being outcomes among the many nationwide workforce, together with a sicker workforce, larger unreimbursed healthcare prices, and better prices to the patron.

Co-authors, led by College of Public Well being alumnus Robert Thomas, Ph.D., JD, MBA, included Gretchen Gemeinhardt, Ph.D., affiliate professor of administration coverage and group well being; Paula Cuccaro, Ph.D., assistant professor of well being promotion and behavioral sciences; and John Davis, MA, from UTMB Well being. Thomas can be quick previous commissioner of the Texas Workforce Fee.

Key findings included:

• Insecure revenue earners reported a 50% enhance in poor total well being and psychological misery in comparison with wage earners.
• The poor well being results of piece work have been considerably eased on staff when accounting for socioeconomic elements, however the pattern of elevated well being dangers remained fixed, particularly for girls, these with lower than a university diploma, financially poorer staff, and non-white-collar staff.
• Black and Hispanic staff incomes insecure revenue have been extra more likely to report poor well being than their white counterparts.
• Larger charges of hourly pay diminished, however didn’t take away, the correlation between insecure revenue and staff’ well being.

The research comes at a time when gig firms are pushing to categorise staff as unbiased contractors, slightly than workers, in state courts and legislatures in California, Massachusetts, and elsewhere within the U.S.

Whereas the paper utilized pre-COVID-19 information, the researchers say their findings recommend that COVID-era gig staff will possible see a good better enhance in poor total well being and psychological misery.

“The longer-term financial burden will in the end be handed onto the U.S. client as we see will increase in employee shortages, will increase in costs from gig firms, and will increase in unreimbursed well being care utilization,” Thomas stated. “It’s affordable to undertaking that the U.S. taxpayer can pay extra for uninsured continual morbidity care of uninsured U.S. staff who’re paid an insecure revenue.”