Independent Contracting, Self-Employment, and Gig Work: Evidence from California Tax Data

Annette Bernhardt, Christopher Campos, Allen Prohofsky, Aparna Ramesh and Jesse Rothstein

ILR Review, 2023, vol. 76, issue 2, 357-386

Abstract: The authors use de-identified data from California personal income tax returns to measure the frequency and nature of independent contracting and self-employment in California. They identify this work by the presence of a Schedule C on the tax return and/or the receipt of a Form 1099 information return. The authors estimate that 14.4% of California workers aged 18 to 64 in tax year 2016 had some independent contracting or self-employment income and approximately half of this subgroup also had earnings from traditional W-2 jobs during the year. Only a small share (1.4%) of workers had earnings from online labor platforms (often called gig work). Workers with low earnings were significantly more likely to earn independent contracting or self-employment income and to rely primarily or exclusively on that income. The article explores the characteristics of workers engaging in independent contracting and self-employment and their distribution across family type, geography, and industry.

Keywords: independent contracting; gig work; new economy; tax data; administrative data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00197939221130322 (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Independent Contracting, Self-Employment, and Gig Work: Evidence from California Tax Data (2023)
Working Paper: Independent Contracting, Self-Employment, and Gig Work: Evidence from California Tax Data (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:76:y:2023:i:2:p:357-386

DOI: 10.1177/00197939221130322

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in ILR Review from Cornell University, ILR School
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().