Time and Money: Patterns of Nonstandard Work Across the First Year of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic had a well-documented impact on the formal economy, with the extent of these consequences varying across industries and sociodemographic groups. Less attention has been paid to whether the nonstandard economy, including informal and gig work, mirrored this broader economic fallout. We draw on 2019 and 2020 data from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking to assess participation in, time spent on, and money earned from nonstandard work across the first year of the pandemic. We find evidence of an overall decline in participation in nonstandard work during this time. However, our results indicate heterogeneous experiences across nonstandard workers: while almost 30 percent reported decreases in time spent on and money earned from nonstandard work activities, roughly a quarter reported increased time and profits. These patterns further diverge across sociodemographic characteristics and types of work activities. Our findings offer insight into the distinctiveness of the nonstandard economy across the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with patterns that vary from the formal labor market. These findings further discourage viewing nonstandard work as a substitute for the formal economy during a period of economic crisis, as not all workers may have the monetary or technological capital that facilitates increased profits from nonstandard work activities.