Making Ends Meet: The Role of Informal Work in Supplementing Americans’ Income

Katharine Abraham and Susan N. Houseman ()
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Susan N. Houseman: W.E. Upjohn Institute, https://www.upjohn.org/about/upjohn-team/staff/susan-n-houseman

Upjohn Working Papers from W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research

Abstract: Data from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking indicate that, over the course of a month, more than one-quarter of adults engage in some informal work outside of a main job. Of these, about two-thirds say that they do informal work to earn money and about one-third say that informal work is an important source of household income. Informal work plays a particularly important role in the household finances of minorities, the less educated, those experiencing financial hardship, those who work part time involuntarily, independent contractors, and the unemployed. Aggregate earnings from informal work are modest but help many households to make ends meet. Informal work cannot compensate, however, for the lack of benefits typical of part-time and contractor work.

Keywords: informal work; gig work; independent contractors; income adequacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J46 J48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iue and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, December 2019, 5(5) 110-131

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