Delivery Drivers Take Over As Top Snap Recipients As Taxpayers Help Gig Workers Make Ends Meet

The adjacent clip you telephone an Uber thrust aliases bid food delivery pinch an app, there’s a bully chance that nan gig worker you meet is getting authorities benefits.

In 2025, companies specified arsenic DoorDash, Lyft and Uber had nan astir workers receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits among each awesome employers, according to a caller Government Accountability Office report. This marks a awesome displacement from 2020, erstwhile an earlier GAO study recovered that Walmart and McDonald’s took nan apical spots for SNAP recipients.

That uncovering whitethorn look astonishing to astir Americans, who usually spot platform-based activity arsenic a broadside hustle to gain other cash. In fact, these jobs are becoming much basal arsenic a superior root of income, moreover arsenic they neglect to screen basal nutrient and aesculapian expenses for gig workers.

As a clever clever of municipality politics, I see this uncovering an important portion of nan broader image revealed successful a study of much than 1,000 Michigan residents that my institute conducted pinch nan Michigan Metro Area Communities Study.

Roughly 22% of full respondents had engaged successful gig work, and astir half of those said gig activity was basal aliases important to gathering their basal needs.

At nan aforesaid time, information nett programs – paid for by taxpayers – are filling nan spread erstwhile level companies prosecute low-wage workers without offering accepted benefits.

Flexibility arsenic a double-edged sword

Major gig-work platforms, including Uber and Lyft, often picture their jobs arsenic an opportunity for workers to gain income connected their ain position and hours.

In this respect, they’re right. In our survey, 9 successful 10 workers said they weighted nan flexibility, and much than two-thirds reported affirmative experiences overall.

But gig workers besides named pressing concerns, particularly astir transparency, salary and benefits.

The issue, then, isn’t whether workers want flexibility, but whether elasticity allows them to get by successful today’s economy.

In fact, gig activity whitethorn beryllium supplemental, but it isn’t ever optional. With astir half of each Americans saying they struggle to make ends meet, gig activity is apt to summation arsenic a root of financial survival.

At nan aforesaid time, these platforms aren’t substituting for accepted employment. We recovered that comparatively fewer gig workers – only 6% – reduced hours aliases near different occupation to prosecute different gig work.

And erstwhile gig activity becomes a basal root of income, nan deficiency of benefits – from wellness security to disablement security to workers’ compensation – reflects a displacement successful who is turning to nan information net. If awesome platforms won’t salary a surviving costs aliases supply capable benefits connected nan grounds that it’s nan value of “flexibility,” authorities programs often capable nan gap.

In different words, taxpayers are helping ft nan measure to compensate gig workers.

Medicaid enrollment surge

The Government Accountability Office study besides showed that gig platforms are collectively now nan third-biggest U.S. employer pinch workers connected Medicaid, nan nationalist wellness security programme for low-income and abnormal Americans. By contrast, successful 2020 they didn’t make nan apical five.

What’s more, caller changes to Medicaid are apt to exacerbate conditions for gig workers. President Donald Trump’s sweeping taxation and migration measure passed successful 2025 included provisions for nan galore states that had expanded Medicaid complete nan past 15 years. Under nan caller rules, Medicaid recipients look caller and tougher activity requirements that request 80 hours of activity aliases schoolhouse per period to support coverage.

Gig activity counts toward nan requirement, but gig workers who activity for aggregate platforms whitethorn person problem proving eligibility. For example, app interfaces person different formats for reporting hours, and gig workers don’t person a modular salary stub pinch full hours worked.

They besides deficiency a accepted employer interaction aliases a supervisor who would let for easy verification. And their full hours worked don’t ever relationship for hold times, while fluctuations successful personification request tin make income unpredictable.

As is nan lawsuit for Medicaid recipients much generally, nan complexity and paperwork of nan caller activity request whitethorn contradict them coverage, sloppy of whether they activity 80 hours per month. These other hurdles are apt to push much Medicaid recipients disconnected nan rolls and toward different societal programs arsenic aesculapian bills surge and their wide finances go moreover much strapped.

This nonaccomplishment of sum whitethorn besides lead to moreover much dire consequences, specified arsenic accrued hospitalizations that tin consequence erstwhile uninsured group forgo basal aliases preventive care.

Is portability nan answer?

In immoderate states, lawmakers are starting to reside nan increasing inclination of gig platforms utilizing authorities benefits to outsource use costs. Portable benefits connection 1 promising response.

Under this model, level companies aliases users of gig apps lend to worker-owned use accounts that travel workers crossed platforms. In our survey, 61% of gig workers supported this idea, arsenic did much than half of different kinds of workers.

Two states already supply immoderate important lessons from existing models.

In New York state, nan Black Car Fund, initially established for taxi and limo drivers, has covered gig drivers since 2014. It’s a nonprofit, state-authorized benefits money that’s managed by a committee consisting of manufacture representatives, including drivers.

Enrollment successful that programme is automatic for each gig workers and taxi drivers, pinch benefits paid for done a rider surcharge collected instantly via fares. It made headlines successful 2023, erstwhile nan authorities secured a US$328 cardinal colony aft Uber and Lyft withheld salary and benefits from workers. That colony included mandatory paid sick leave, minimum salary and different benefits.

This exemplary has efficaciously shifted immoderate of nan burdens of lower-wage gig activity from taxpayers to users. A centralized excavation of rate gives nan Black Car Fund important purchasing power, allowing it to connection drivers afloat workers’ compensation arsenic good arsenic varying levels of health, dental and disablement sum that drivers tin chose from.

Platform companies don’t lend money astatine present, but if they did, they could make these benefits moreover much generous.

A different attack successful California

As a contrasting example, California shows really overmuch argumentation creation matters.

The authorities opted to activity pinch tech companies erstwhile it crafted Proposition 22, which sought to supply transportation and ride-share drivers constricted benefits while preserving their independent contractor status. Passed successful 2020, it near implementation to nan level companies and offered a narrower group of benefits that aren’t afloat portable crossed platforms.

The California exemplary besides has much barriers toward getting benefits. For example, tech companies only count “engaged hours” toward nan minimum required to entree benefits, which doesn’t relationship for clip waiting for assignments. And because nan strategy isn’t genuinely portable, gig workers who activity for different platforms person much problem qualifying.

One study recovered that only 10% of California drivers are receiving nan healthcare stipend that nan rule established.

The cardinal domiciled of tech platforms successful determining who’s eligible has go a flash point, pinch unions and labour authorities groups reporting wide problems pinch entree and eligibility. In New York, connected nan different hand, a neutral 3rd statement determines eligibility and adjudicates payouts.

While these states person taken different approaches, I judge policymakers should retrieve that they don’t request to dainty elasticity and worker protections arsenic mutually incompatible. In nan absence of cosmopolitan national benefits for gig workers, section and authorities officials tin find ways to guarantee that societal costs aren’t shifted to nan nationalist done taxation dollars and to workers done greater financial insecurity.