Behind the Receipt: How the Gig Economy Harms Workers

It’s late Thursday night and students are congregated in the only places still open — the Information Commons, fluorescently lit dorm lounges and the occasional yard chair overlooking Lake Michigan. The unspoken hero of the night — a balding man from the DoorDash app is making the harrowing trek across campus, a faded receipt clutched firmly in his hand. 

The receipt isn’t long, no more than a few lines: the food, service fee, taxes and the occasional weather impact fee. But the receipts leave out the most important line: The cost of making the delivery happen. 

From gas and added mileage to higher insurance premiums and more frequent tire replacements, delivery service workers are constantly shouldering the cost the companies often deliberately overlook. 

The missing line isn’t an accident; it’s the sadistic business model of companies like DoorDash, UberEats and Grubhub. It’s now what’s commonly referred to as the gig economy.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, which left 8.7 million Americans without a stable income, journalist and editor Tina Brown coined the term “gig economy” when describing how these workers would seek out several smaller jobs or “gigs” to make up for lost income.

However, what was once a side-effect of the most severe collapse in American economic stability since the Great Depression has seemingly become completely integrated in the workforce. 

Nowadays, the gig economy sells flexibility as a convenience to both customers and workers alike, obscuring how classifying workers as independent contractors shoves all of the risks, costs and unpredictability onto them. 

Platforms adhering to the gig economy blueprint maintain control over pay and working conditions while avoiding the obligations typical to most employers, like the minimum wage, labor protections, overtime pay, unemployment insurance, workers’ comp and paid sick leave. 

There seems to be no better place than Chicago to see the real-time ramifications of this emerging economic ecosystem. 

The gig economy isn’t just some niche side hustle for the working class of Chicago, but instead is deeply reliant on the city’s public infrastructure, which is some of the most renowned in the United States.

In November 2024, 58,498 rideshare drivers completed more than 7.5 million passenger trips in Chicago alone. Now the number of drivers has reached 90 thousand, making it more important than ever to recognize how significant a role app-based labor plays in the city. 

However, the freelance nature of rideshare and food delivery leaves a vacuum, ensuring there’s always another driver in the queue desperate enough to accept worse terms than the last. As app-based gig labor becomes increasingly normalized, companies like Uber and DoorDash are jumping at the opportunity to market their exploitation as a freedom for workers.

As much as the gig economy speaks of freedom, if workers were truly independent, they would be able to negotiate their rate, a right currently not afforded to them. This malicious business tactic undermines the inherent competition of an independent contracting field.

The gig economy more broadly harms wage workers across America. 

By allowing for subsections of the workforce to be compensated with subminimum wages, the gig economy depresses the wages of regular employees. With roughly 36% of employed Americans participating in the gig economy — around 58 million people — the effects on the national economy are staggering.

Now, the night is winding down, students return to their dorms and the lone doordasher makes his way back to his beat-up 2007 Honda Civic. The key turns, the engine groans — a short, braying noise — before sputtering out. 

A man who provides so much to the community around him, from food to cold medicine, is stranded in yet another unforgiving and wintry Chicago night.

Left with no recourse from DoorDash, this isn’t just a one-off event — it’s the gig economy.