The Center for New York City Affairs (CNYCA) published a report revealing that 873,000 workers in many of New York State’s major low-wage industries (approximately 10% of the total state workforce) are misclassified as “independent contractors”.
This means that one in 10 workers are underpaid.
As a result, these workers earn 30% less than payroll employees and are not given the basic benefits and protections that working payroll workers have in the same industries.
The report found that these workers underclassified and underpaid full-time workers only earn 69% of what full-time payroll workers earn complete.
In addition to that, they are not eligible to be part of key social security programs, including Social Security, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation (in most cases), family leave and paid medical leave.
They also do not have the legal right to bargain collectively with employers, expect overtime pay for working more than 40 hours per week, or receive health and retirement benefits offered by the employer.
In developing the report, authors James Parrott and LK Moe focused on workers currently classified as independent contractors in 10 low-wage industries.
Three quarters of them work in transportation, construction, retail trade, administrative and support services, and in a general category of “other services” that includes workers in nail salons and automobiles.
The c Misclassification affects not only workers, but also the whole society. And it is that government social programs are under pressure by driving thousands of low-paid independent contractors to rely on programs like food stamps and Medicaid because of their low pay and because they are denied employer-based health insurance coverage.
Misclassification also puts you at a disadvantage to employers who respect state labor laws and pay taxes to support social security programs against employers who do not.
Temporary jobs boomed between 2014 and 2019 due to a greater presence of Uber and Lyft drivers. Then, it continued to grow even more with the appearance of COVID-30, due to the increase in restaurant workers, and delivery of packages and food.
Parrott and Moe estimate that there are currently about 190, Low-paid temp workers in New York State whose work is based on online job apps.
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