#gig-economy

#gig-economy

The Biden administration Federal Trade Commission alum has hit the ground running with announcement after announcement - clearing a backlog of cases left to collect dust under former Mayor Eric Adams, forcefully demanding app companies comply with new worker-protection laws, and pledging to hold corporations and their CEO's accountable to the law. Levine's worker and consumer protection agency has emerged in recent years as a key regulatory force against the fast-growing delivery app industry, which has huge consequences for the city's public realm.

Having a single source of income is often not enough to meet all your financial goals. Whether it's saving for a dream vacation, paying off debt, or simply having extra spending money, you might be looking for ways to earn additional cash. Fortunately, the gig economy has flourished, offering countless opportunities for side gigs that can significantly boost your income. Here are some of the best side gigs you can start today to earn major cash.

If you're looking for a remote job that doesn't require a lot of special skills and education, you might be in luck. Financial influencer Learn with Lukas broke down remote jobs that aren't glamorous but pay real money. These positions require no experience or degrees, making them accessible to almost anyone willing to do straightforward work from home. Here are five boring remote jobs you can do 24/7.

"Along with women, young people between the ages of 12 and 24 are the most financially illiterate demographic," Financial Basics Foundation chief executive Katrina Samios said.

According to the Housing Partnership, the program is expected to support approximately 1,000 workers each year. The lack of regular paystubs, W-2s or 1099s to document income often puts gig workers at a disadvantage when applying for a mortgage to buy their first home, said Jamie Smarr, president and CEO of the New York City Housing Partnership. The economy has undergone significant shifts for middle-class Americans. The goal for our new Pathways to Homeownership program is to help gig workers, freelancers, seasonal workers and the self-employed with non-traditional sources of income become homeowners.

A viral Reddit post purportedly from an employee of a "major food delivery app" may actually be an AI-generated hoax, The Verge reports. The post itself, and an image of an employee ID card the poster, u/trowaway_whistleblow, shared with The Verge, where both flagged as being likely AI-generated when run through online AI detectors and AI assistants like Gemini and Claude.

Many current gig economy jobs are at risk of automation as AI usage expands, Tim Fung, founder and CEO of Airtasker, said in an interview with Business Insider. Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash are already making some deliveries using self-driving vehicles. Fung estimated that human ride-hailing drivers could be eliminated within three to five years. AI is also likely to replace many data science, coding, and engineering workers in the near term, Fung said.

For many workers, driving for Uber and Lyft or delivering restaurant orders for DoorDash is a side hustle - or, in some cases, a lifestyle. But faced with falling earnings and the rise of self-driving vehicles, some are having second thoughts about the job. Some gig workers have told Business Insider for years that a combination of base pay cuts and increased competition for gigs has made the work more challenging.

Many people don't know how an order can arrive at their home in just one day. In China, home deliveries are a craze. Everyone orders things all the time. The Asian giant has the largest online commerce market on the planet, with an average of 125 packages per person, per year. That's one order every three days. Companies compete fiercely. And the deliveries are handled by an army of motorcyclists on electric scooters, each with a metal box on the back.

What I didn't know was that the role would require me to assume multiple fabricated identities, and use pseudo profiles created by the company to engage in intimate and explicit conversations with lonely men and women,

What does it take to become the most successful AI surveillance company in 2025? If you're anything like Flock, the startup selling automatic license plate readers and facial recognition tech to cops, you don't really need much AI at all - just an army of sweatshop workers in the global south. Bombshell new reporting from 404 Media found that Flock, which has its cameras in thousands of US communities, has been outsourcing its AI to gig workers located in the Philippines.

"By the time these changes appear in official statistics, policymakers may already be reacting to yesterday's disruptions, committing billions to programs that target skills already displaced," the researchers said.

Krista Pawloski remembers the single defining moment that shaped her opinion on the ethics of artificial intelligence. As an AI worker on Amazon Mechanical Turk a marketplace that allows companies to hire workers to perform tasks like entering data or matching an AI prompt with its output Pawloski spends her time moderating and assessing the quality of AI-generated text, images and videos, as well as some factchecking.

Finally, a descriptor that just might work. Finding terms to describe those of us who don't have kids is challenging. We're usually referred to as what we're not (non-moms, unparents, people without kids). Cumbersome, clunky, and not very respectful. Beginning with Major League Baseball in the mid-1970s, free agency gave professional athletes the flexibility to develop their careers after their contracts expired. The practice gradually spread to other professional sports and is now well-accepted by sports organizations and fans around the world.

I think there will be fun things that people are going to be doing in the cars that are not just driving. It's making drinks, it's telling stories, it's being the local guy,

Before graduation, she had already lined up an engineering job, but it required frequent moves around the country. I was happy for her, but I was tired of long-distance and wanted to settle down. I also knew that following her to her various job locations would make it hard for me to have my own career. However, I loved her, and that was more important.

"Most Dashers follow the rules of the road and do the right thing. However, we recognize community concerns about safe riding. In a city as dense and dynamic as New York, setting a lower speed limit for e-bikes is a smart and sensible step. That's why we are supportive of the city's new policy of a 15 mph speed limit for e-bikes," reads the company's blog post.

"Well, friends. I did it. I've now had my highest-income month of my life again." So begins a TikTok video by content creator Chelsea Langenstam detailing her "$56,244 income month" breakdown, along with deductibles, as a solopreneur. Langenstam then outlines her various income streams: budget templates, brand deals, referral fees. "I don't share to brag," she says in the video, currently sitting at over 100,000 views. "I share because I want to show you what's possible in real time."

Relying on one gig is like putting all your eggs in one very fragile basket. The most successful gig workers I know have multiple income streams flowing at once. Think about it this way: If you're driving for Uber, you're already in your car. Why not deliver food between rides? If you're freelance writing, why not offer social media management to the same clients? The key is finding gigs that complement each other instead of competing for your time.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history,