Gigaverse's target market is the digital-platform end of the US gig and independent workforce: rideshare and delivery drivers, online taskers and shoppers, content creators, freelancers, online sellers, and side-hustlers. Across every credible source this audience skews younger, lower-income, and more racially and ethnically diverse than the overall US workforce, with a heavy immigrant concentration at the app-based ride-hail and delivery end specifically. It is not a monolith: the same population spans a survival-driven necessity pole (drivers and short-task workers for whom gig income is the rent) and a high-education, by-choice skilled-freelancer pole, with the income gradient being the single cleanest and most consistent finding in the literature. The headline framing discipline for this report: there are two distinct kinds of percentages and they must never be averaged or summed together. PARTICIPATION rates answer "what share of group X does gig work" (each bucket has its own denominator and the buckets do not sum to 100%). COMPOSITION figures answer "what share of gig workers is group X" (these approach 100% within a source). The richest single participation source for the platform-specific audience is Pew Research Center's "The State of Gig Work in 2021"; the freshest authoritative participation refresh is the Federal Reserve's SHED 2024 (released May 2025); the best government composition source for the platform end is the BLS electronically-mediated-work cut (2017 data). Where a source published only a direction and not a clean per-bucket percent, that is stated rather than invented. The strongest unifying insight for product and messaging: income inconsistency is the most defensible psychographic wedge — roughly half of all gig workers (and up to ~61% of platform/short-task workers) wish their pay were more consistent (Fed SHED 2024) — and gig workers are measurably more financially fragile than non-gig peers on every Fed SHED metric. Underneath that wedge sit at least four distinct psychographic segments with different products and different messages.
PARTICIPATION: each bucket is its own denominator and does NOT sum to 100%. Three sources at three vintages and three 'gig' definitions are shown side by side. Pew (platform-only) and Edison (broad) show a steep decline with age; Fed SHED (broadest, newest, includes online selling/odd jobs) shows a much FLATTER gradient. Use Fed SHED 2024 as the current refinement of the older Pew/Edison gradients.
| Pew 2021 (online platforms only): 18-29 | 30% |
| Pew 2021: 30-49 | 18% |
| Pew 2021: 50+ | lower than 18% ('even smaller'; no exact % published) |
| Fed SHED 2024 (broadest, newest): 18-29 | 26% |
| Fed SHED 2024: 30-44 | 24% |
| Fed SHED 2024: 45-59 | 21% |
| Fed SHED 2024: 60+ | 12% |
| Edison 2018 (broad gig): 18-34 | 38% |
| Edison 2018: 35-54 | 25% |
| Edison 2018: 55+ | 11% |
Source: Pew Research Center 'The State of Gig Work in 2021' (2021); Federal Reserve SHED 2024, Table 5 (released May 2025); Marketplace-Edison Research Poll 'The Gig Economy' (2018)
COMPOSITION: shares of all independent workers by generation; the four 2023 cohorts sum to ~100%. No source gives a clean composition in standard 10-year bands for the platform end specifically, so generation cohorts (MBO) are the honest representation. The Boomer+ figure is a residual not stated explicitly by MBO. Gen Z's share is climbing fast (15% in 2022 to 28% by 2025), so the younger-combined share is materially higher today than the 2023 snapshot.
| Millennials (2023) | 33% |
| Gen X (2023) | 29% |
| Gen Z (2023) | 19% |
| Baby Boomers + older (2023, residual; not stated by MBO) | ~19% |
| Millennial + Gen Z combined (2023) | 52% |
| Gen Z alone — trend 2022 / 2023 / 2025 | 15% / 19% / 28% |
Source: MBO Partners, State of Independence in America 2023 (Gen Z trend from the 2025 report)
COMPOSITION: best government source for the platform end. The White/Black/Asian RACE buckets are mutually exclusive and sum to ~100% on their own. Hispanic/Latino is an OVERLAPPING ethnicity (Hispanics can be any race) — it is NOT additive with the race buckets and is reported separately, per standard federal practice. No public source gives a clean mutually-exclusive race+ethnicity partition that sums to exactly 100% for this audience; no 'Other' residual was manufactured. Data is 2017 and now ~9 years old (BLS is revising the CWS), so treat as the best-available but dated composition.
| White (race) | 75% |
| Black / African American (race) | 17% |
| Asian (race) | 6% |
| Hispanic / Latino (overlapping ethnicity — NOT additive) | 16% |
| Memo — Black + Latinx combined share of platform workers (NELP) | ~42% |
| Memo — Black + Latinx share of overall US workforce (comparator) | <29% |
| Memo — White share of ALL employed (comparator) | 79% |
Source: BLS Contingent Worker Supplement, May 2017, 'Electronically mediated work' (Monthly Labor Review, Sept 2018, Table 4); NELP summary (2021)
PARTICIPATION: each bucket is its own denominator and does NOT sum to 100%. This is the richest, most current race breakdown for the digital-platform audience (Pew 2021, n=10,348; not superseded by any newer release of equal granularity). All sources agree directionally — Hispanic/Latino and Black adults participate at meaningfully higher rates than White adults. Asian was not separately reported in Edison.
| Pew 2021: Hispanic / Latino | 30% |
| Pew 2021: Black | 20% |
| Pew 2021: Asian | 19% |
| Pew 2021: White | 12% |
| Edison 2018 (broad gig): Hispanic / Latino | 31% |
| Edison 2018: Black / African American | 27% |
| Edison 2018: White | 21% |
Source: Pew Research Center 'The State of Gig Work in 2021' (2021); Marketplace-Edison Research Poll (2018)
RELIANCE / DEPENDENCE, not a population composition: among people who do gig work, the % in each racial/ethnic group for whom it is their primary (vs secondary) income. Each race is its own denominator. Useful for the 'essential income' angle, not for sizing the audience.
| Black / African American — gig is primary income | 55% |
| Hispanic / Latino — gig is primary income | 47% |
| White — gig is primary income | 41% |
| All gig workers — gig is primary income | 44% |
Source: Marketplace-Edison Research Poll 'The Gig Economy' (2018), demographic table
COMPOSITION (nativity/language), mixed geographies. CRITICAL: there is NO clean, current, nationally representative dataset on the nativity/language of US app-based DRIVERS specifically. The NYC figures (86-90%+ immigrant) are the most immigrant-heavy driver market in the country and an UPPER BOUND, not national. Lyft's 2024 self-report is the best NATIONAL driver-specific language figure. The 2014 taxi/chauffeur foreign-born figure is an occupation proxy (ACS does not code Uber/Lyft) and is likely a floor today. Delivery skews more Latin-American/Spanish; NYC rideshare skews South-Asian/Caribbean; Seattle rideshare skews East-African — so Spanish is the largest non-English language nationally but is not dominant in every metro.
| US app-based drivers who are immigrants — national estimate (NELP) | ~56% |
| US taxi drivers & chauffeurs foreign-born — occupation proxy, likely a floor (2014) | 47% |
| NYC app-based ride-hail drivers who are immigrants (TLC admin data) — UPPER BOUND | >90% ('more than nine out of ten') |
| Lyft US drivers — speak English at home (2024) | 57% |
| Lyft US drivers — speak a language other than English at home (2024) | 43% |
| Lyft US drivers — Spanish at home (≈ three-fourths of the 43%) | ~32% of all drivers |
| NYC driver survey completion language (LEP proxy): English / Spanish / Bengali | 78% / 14% / 8% |
Source: Lyft 2024 Economic Impact Report (2024); NELP 'Rigging the Gig' (2020); Parrott & Reich / NYC TLC (2018, 2016 ACS); Center for Immigration Studies / ACS (2014)
PARTICIPATION: does NOT sum to 100%. The gender direction FLIPS by definition — do not present a single gender split without saying which. Pew's narrow online-platform measure shows women slightly higher (rideshare/delivery skew male, but Pew's 'ever earned, any task' net catches more women). Broader 'gig economy / side hustle' definitions show men higher.
| Pew 2021 (narrow platform): Women — ever earned via gig platform | 17% |
| Pew 2021: Men — ever earned via gig platform | 15% |
| Edison 2018 (broad gig): Men | 31% |
| Edison 2018 (broad gig): Women | 18% |
| Bankrate 2023 (side hustle): Men | 43% |
| Bankrate 2023 (side hustle): Women | 35% |
Source: Pew Research Center 'The State of Gig Work in 2021' (2021); Marketplace-Edison (2018); Bankrate Side Hustle Survey (2023)
COMPOSITION: shares of the workforce that are men vs women; sums to ~100%. The workforce is now near gender-balanced, with women's share rising over time (Upwork: women 39% in 2018 to ~46% in 2023).
| Men (MBO Partners 2023) | 51% |
| Women (MBO Partners 2023; ≈1% other/unstated) | 48% |
| Women share of freelancers (Upwork 2023) | 46% |
| Men share of freelancers (Upwork 2023, implied) | ~54% |
Source: MBO Partners State of Independence 2023; Upwork Freelance Forward 2023
Education is BIMODAL and that is the key finding. A high-education skilled-freelancer pole (postgrad share rising fast and running well above full-time employees) coexists with a low-education over-representation at the driver/tasker pole. Pew treated education as a weak differentiator vs income/age/race and did NOT publish clean per-band participation %; McKinsey published direction (less-than-HS over-represented) but not clean per-band %. Those gaps are flagged, not invented. The high-education figures are shares within Upwork's freelancer population. Avoid the content-mill '31/35/35/51%' education set attributed vaguely to 'Statista 2021' — it does not match any primary table and was not used.
| Freelancers with a postgraduate degree (Upwork 2021) | 20% |
| Freelancers with a postgraduate degree (Upwork 2022) | 26% |
| SKILLED freelancers with a postgraduate degree (Upwork 2023) | 37% |
| Full-time employees with a postgraduate degree (2023 benchmark) | 20% |
| Freelancers providing skilled / knowledge services (Upwork 2023) | 47% |
| Low-education (less-than-HS) pole (McKinsey 2022): over-represented vs 36% overall independent-worker average | direction only — clean per-band % not published |
| Pew 2021 per-education-band participation % | NOT available in public summaries — not fabricated |
Source: Upwork Freelance Forward 2021/2022/2023; McKinsey American Opportunity Survey 2022; Pew 2021
PARTICIPATION: does NOT sum to 100%. This monotonic lower-income skew is the single strongest and cleanest income finding in the literature. Dollar thresholds are Pew's own tier definitions.
| Lower income (family income < $42K) — ever did gig work | 25% |
| Middle income ($42K–$125.9K) — ever did gig work | 13% |
| Upper income (> $125.9K) — ever did gig work | 9% |
Source: Pew Research Center 'The State of Gig Work in 2021' (2021)
COMPOSITION within each source (sums to ~100%). DIRECTION is robust across all sources: a clear minority treat gig as primary/main income. The 21%–44% spread is almost entirely a DEFINITIONAL artifact — narrow platform-driving definitions yield ~21–31% primary; broad freelance-inclusive definitions yield ~37–44%. Best single anchor for currency + rigor: Fed SHED 2024 (large government probability sample). Lower-income gig workers are far likelier to rely on gig as their main job (42% vs 31% overall, Pew).
| Fed SHED 2024 — gig activity is MAIN job | 21% |
| Fed SHED 2024 — supplemental (not main job) | 79% |
| Pew 2021 — gig is MAIN job (platform-specific) | 31% |
| Pew 2021 — side / supplemental | ~68% |
| Pew 2021 — MAIN job among LOWER-income gig workers | 42% |
| Edison 2018 (broad def.) — gig is PRIMARY income | 44% |
| TransUnion 2024 (broad def.) — gig is PRIMARY income | 37% |
Source: Federal Reserve SHED 2024 (released May 2025); Pew 2021; Marketplace-Edison 2018; TransUnion gig survey Aug 2024 (n=1,013)
PARTICIPATION: % of ALL US adults who have EVER done each type. Does NOT sum to 100% and is NOT a composition of the gig workforce — it is share of the total adult population (16% of all adults have ever done any gig platform work). Pew does not publish a clean composition partition, so these were not converted into 'X% of gig workers are drivers.'
| Restaurant / store delivery (e.g., DoorDash) | 7% of all adults |
| Household tasks / errands | 6% of all adults |
| Ride-hailing / rideshare driving | 5% of all adults |
| Grocery / household-item shopping & delivery | 4% of all adults |
| Package delivery (e.g., Amazon Flex) | 3% of all adults |
| Any gig platform work (ever) | 16% of all adults |
Source: Pew Research Center 'The State of Gig Work in 2021' (n=10,348)
MULTI-SELECT among gig workers (a worker can pick more than one), so does NOT sum to 100%. Closer to a workforce composition than Pew's population-participation numbers, but still not a clean partition. Most current workforce-composition view available.
| Rideshare driving | 23% |
| Freelancing / digital online service | 19% |
| Restaurant delivery driving | 19% |
| Grocery delivery / other types | not separately published |
Source: TransUnion gig economy survey, Aug 2024 (n=1,013)
Two different concepts that must not be conflated. Pew's 61/39 is single-vs-multiple TYPES of gig work (someone doing both rideshare and delivery counts as 'multi'); it is a composition that sums to ~100%. Gridwise's ~41% multi-apping is single-vs-multiple APPS among drivers specifically (app-telematics data, not a population survey; corroborating surveys range 41–53%).
| Pew — did exactly one TYPE of gig work | 61% |
| Pew — did two or more TYPES of gig work | 39% |
| Gridwise — drivers who multi-app (2+ platforms) | ~41% (up to ~53% in some surveys) |
| Gridwise — single-app drivers | ~59% (down to ~47%) |
Source: Pew 2021 (gig-type diversity); Gridwise Analytics 2024 (driver multi-apping)
GEOGRAPHY IS THE WEAKEST LEG and these are flagged accordingly. Pew (the best demographic source) does NOT publish urban/suburban/rural percentages — only that urban/suburban residents are 'slightly more likely' than rural, a gap Pew calls small relative to age/race/income gaps. State-participation rankings come ONLY from secondary aggregators with undisclosed methodology — directional, not authoritative. There is no clean primary federal dataset for gig participation by state.
| Urban / Suburban vs Rural participation | no clean % published — urban/suburban 'slightly more likely' than rural (Pew) |
| Florida — state participation (directional only) | ~22% |
| California — state participation (directional only) | ~20% |
| Texas — state participation (directional only) | ~18% |
| Illinois — state participation (directional only) | ~18% |
Source: Pew 2021 (urban/rural, qualitative); secondary aggregators e.g. TeamStage / template.net compilations (state rates, 2024, low confidence)
AGREEMENT / well-being rate WITHIN each group — a paired comparison, NOT a composition. Gig workers are measurably more financially fragile than non-gig peers on every metric. This is the evidence base for Gigaverse's core problem statement.
| Doing okay / living comfortably — gig vs non-gig | 65% vs 75% |
| Paid all of prior month's bills — gig vs non-gig | 79% vs 85% |
| Had 3 months emergency savings — gig vs non-gig | 50% vs 56% |
| Wished the pay were more consistent — all gig / platform & short-task workers | 49% / up to 61% |
| Said gig increased the volatility of their income (SHED 2019) | 27% |
| Wished they had health-insurance benefits from the work | 28% |
Source: Federal Reserve SHED 2024 (released May 2025); the income-volatility figure (27%) is from Federal Reserve SHED 2019 — the 2024 survey does not report this metric.
AGREEMENT / ownership rates among gig/independent workers; independent items, NOT a composition. LOWER confidence — several are vendor/industry surveys (Legal & General, Betterment, Schwab/Statista) or fintech estimates, not government statistics. Treat as directional. These quantify the retirement-readiness gap Gigaverse exists to close.
| Full-time gig workers with NO retirement savings | 27% |
| Gig workers who feel they lack effective access to retirement plans | 53% (71% among women) |
| Full-time giggers who feel unprepared to maintain lifestyle in retirement (Betterment) | ~70% |
| Gig workers who are unbanked or underbanked (industry estimate — low confidence) | 40%+ |
Source: Statista via Charles Schwab; Legal & General; Betterment; fintech/industry estimates (2018–2024)
Four segments sit under one unifying wedge — income inconsistency. They need different products and different messages; do not average them.
These are overlapping psychographic archetypes synthesized from different sources (MBO work-orientation, Pew motivations, generational data), NOT a measured population partition. The ~ranges are illustrative and are not intended to sum to 100% — a given worker can map to more than one.
Mindset. Gig income is survival, not a side project. Financial life is reactive, cash-flow-driven, and lived largely paycheck-to-paycheck. Retirement is abstract and deferred. Skews lower-income, Hispanic, younger, and parents.
What it means for Gigaverse. Pain points are immediate: income inconsistency, inability to absorb a shock, and meeting basic needs this week. For Gigaverse, the wedge is income smoothing, automatic micro-saving, an emergency buffer, and instant/predictable cash — NOT long-horizon retirement framing.
By the numbers. 52% gig to cover income gaps and 23% say earnings are 'essential' for basic needs (Pew 2021); 31% say 'without it I'd have trouble making ends meet' (Fed SHED 2024) and 27% report gig increased their income volatility (Fed SHED 2019); 80% of primary-income gig workers couldn't easily cover a $1,000 surprise and 45% score high on the Edison Anxiety Index (vs 24% of non-gig employed); 42% of lower-income gig workers call gig their main job (Pew); over-indexes in the 40%+ unbanked/underbanked estimate and among the 27% with no retirement savings.
Mindset. Has or wants other income; gig is a deliberate top-up and hedge. Younger-skewing, digitally native, financially curious, and aspirational about wealth-building and 'control of their own financial future.' The highest-propensity early adopter for Gigaverse.
What it means for Gigaverse. Frame the product as a goal and wealth-building engine — Roth IRA, auto-invest, 'turn the side hustle into a nest egg.' Reach them on TikTok/YouTube with finfluencer-style education and lean into autonomy/optionality language.
By the numbers. 56% gig to 'save up extra money' and 39% say earnings are 'nice to have, not needed' plus 35% 'important' (Pew 2021); 60%+ participate specifically to supplement income (Edison/TransUnion); 29% of side-hustlers feel they'll 'always need' it (Bankrate); maps to the 72% of Gen Z and 79% of Millennials+Gen Z who get financial advice from social media and the 52–53% who trust finfluencers (Schwab/PYMNTS 2024–25).
Mindset. Chose independence on purpose, identifies as a business-of-one, and is generally satisfied. Higher-earning and likelier banked, but structurally exposed on benefits and retirement infrastructure. The gap here is access and tooling, not motivation.
What it means for Gigaverse. Position as the '401(k) you never got' — portable benefits and an RIA layer for the self-employed. Emphasize control, tax optimization (Solo 401k / SEP / Roth), and professional-grade tools rather than hand-holding.
By the numbers. 63% of independents are 'by choice' with only ~10% reluctant (MBO 2024–25); 79% of full-time freelancers chose it by preference and 84% cite schedule flexibility (Upwork 2023); 72–77% 'very satisfied' (MBO); 47% provide skilled/knowledge services (Upwork); yet 53% feel they lack effective access to retirement plans (Legal & General) and ~7 in 10 full-time giggers feel unprepared for retirement (Betterment).
Mindset. Two faces: (a) older workers gigging into or near retirement, and (b) the reluctant, forced-in minority. More bank-traditional, lower digital-finance trust, and anxious about longevity and outliving savings. Smaller and harder to convert digitally.
What it means for Gigaverse. Messaging should be reassurance- and security-led — catch-up contributions, guaranteed-income/annuity-style framing, and simplicity — rather than growth or optionality.
By the numbers. Boomers participate at 36% and 40% plan future gig work (TransUnion); gig workers expect to retire ~3 years later (67 vs 64, MacroMonitor); ~22% gig because they 'lack other job opportunities,' rising to 34% among the income-reliant (Pew); reluctant independents are ~10–19% (MBO); only 13% of Boomers trust social media for money advice.