By Pancho de Guzmán
You Übered me to Sterling last Monday. You were the DoorDash guy who delivered my dinner order the other night. That package from eBay (or maybe Amazon), you left it at my door earlier today. Our HOA is sending you to rake leaves here in our Fairfax City subdivision. If you are one of these, you are a gig worker.
Question: What is a gig?
Answer: The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says a gig is a single project or task a worker is hired for, often through a digital marketplace, to work on demand. The IRS says gig work is what you do, often through a digital platform (an app or a website), to earn income. The work includes, but is not limited to, driving a car for booked rides or deliveries, renting out property or parts of it, running errands, selling goods online, performing creative or professional services, or doing temporary, on-demand, or freelance work.
Q: Am I a gig worker?
A: You are a gig worker if you are an independent contractor who provides a service for a business but are not an employee of the business that contracts you. Typically, you do not get a regular salary, or earn vacation or sick days, or be enrolled for Social Security benefits (like pension when you retire). Instead, you get paid when you finish a job or complete a task, and at the end of the year your income is reported on the IRS Form 1099-NEC (nonemployee compensation).
Q: Can a gig worker like me retire on my gig income?
A: Yes, you can, by accumulating Social Security work credits over the years that you work your gigs.
Q: What are Social Security work credits?
A: Social Security work credits are units used by the Social Security Administration to measure if you can receive benefits. The measurement is based on the self-employment tax you pay to the IRS.
Social Security says (www.ssa.gov) that for the year 2025, you can earn 1 work credit for every $1,810 in self-employment (your gig) income, up to 4 work credits per year. To qualify for retirement benefits, you’ll need 40 work credits (that’s 10 years of work).
Q: What is self-employment tax and how do I pay it?
A: Here are extracts from the IRS website: Self-employment tax is a tax consisting of Social Security and Medicare taxes primarily for individuals who work for themselves.
You must pay self-employment tax if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more. The self-employment tax rate is 15.3% [consisting of] 12.4% for social security (old-age, survivors, and disability insurance) and 2.9% for Medicare (hospital insurance).
As a self-employed individual, you may have to file Estimated Taxes quarterly. You can use estimated tax payments to pay your self-employment tax.
If you have earnings subject to self-employment tax, use Schedule SE to figure your net earnings from self-employment. You must pay self-employment tax and file Form 1040 Schedule SE [Self-Employment Tax].
Important note: To calculate correctly how much tax you may owe for each quarter or for the entire tax year, seek advice from the IRS (www.irs.gov); or consult a competent tax advisor; or use an up-to-date electronic tax program downloaded from an established software vendor. You can get step by step guidance for determining your income and allowable deductions (like use of your car or your home office) to arrive at your net income subject to tax; calculating the tax you may owe; and filing your tax return on the correct IRS forms for paying the tax due. You may also be advised to pay your tax electronically, direct to the IRS.
Q: What retirement income can I expect?
A: Your Social Security retirement benefits can be higher if you stay in the system longer (say for 30 years instead of just 10 years). Or if you defer your retirement at age 62 (that’s the earliest you can claim retirement benefits) for when you are older, say when you reach 70. Here are some generalized Social Security retirement figures for 2025:
The average benefit for a 62-year-old retired worker was around $1,377 per month.
The average benefit for all retired workers was about $2,008 per month ($1,920 last year).
The average benefit for a 70-year-old retired worker was around $2,188 per month.
The specific amount of your retirement benefit will depend on how many years and how much you pay into Social Security, at what age you choose to retire, and many other things, including cost-of-living adjustments.
Check out the useful retirement benefit calculator at the Social Security Administration’s website. Enter some information (your date of birth, this year’s income, age you choose to retire) for an estimate of the monthly amount you will likely receive when you retire.
Q: I’m only a gig worker, so what’s the big deal? A: You are not just any ordinary worker. As a gig worker, you are the link between businesses and their customers, between buyers and sellers. From 2010 to 2015, non-employer businesses in Virginia, mostly in transportation and warehousing, increased by 13% when the nationwide increase was only 10%. That means gig work grew faster here than in all of the USA. Today, out of a total workforce of 4.5 million in Virginia, an estimated 262,000 (6%) are self-employed as their primary job. And in all of the USA, you are one of over 16 million workers who are self-employed. That’s about 10% of all men and women who are old enough to work. You are part of a big deal.
