Political discussions about the American worker almost always focus on traditional employees—people who work for a single employer, which provides regular compensation in exchange for controlling how, where, and when the employees' work will be completed. Yet the U.S. freelancing platform Upwork has estimated that in 2021 about 36 percent of the American workforce engaged in independent work: short‐term, specific assignments from multiple clients, relatively free from the clients' control or direction. These numbers swelled during the pandemic: The more than 64 million independent American workers in 2022 represented a 57 percent increase from 2019. The phrase independent work often conjures images of supposedly exploited Uber drivers and DoorDash deliverers. But the IRS reports that only about 8.6 percent of all independent workers are employed in gig work—that is, work through online platforms that enable on‐demand services for the consumer and a flexible work arrangement for the provider. The most common occupations for independent workers are in marketing, communications, and computer programming. Freelance or contract work, moreover, exists in almost every industry.
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