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Fact Check: 94 Percent Of Job Growth Under Obama And Biden Was Part-Time And Gig Economy Jobs

Fact Check: 94 Percent Of Job Growth Under Obama And Biden Was Part-Time And Gig Economy Jobs

gig
Fact Check: 94 Percent Of Job Growth Under Obama And Biden Was Part-Time And Gig Economy Jobs Photo: Yelitza Esteva, right, bags groceries for an order April 15, 2020, in Surfside, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) Barack Obama speaks at a rally for Joe Biden, Nov. 2, 2020, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

After the 2020 election, there has been a lot of looking back to four years ago and questions about how and why Trump was elected in 2016. Some observers claim that it was backlash against the first Black president, Barack Obama. Others are pointing to the economy and jobs. Voters wanted permanent jobs — not the temporary, gig jobs ushered in during the Obama-Biden administration. 

In fact, a whopping 94 percent of the 10 million new jobs created during the Obama era were temporary positions, according to a 2016 study by economists from Harvard and Princeton universities. These temporary, contract positions or part-time “gig” jobs were in a variety of fields.

The proportion of workers throughout the U.S. during the Obama era in these kinds of temporary jobs increased from 10.7 percent of the population to 15.8 percent, said research economists Lawrence Katz of Harvard University and Alan Krueger at Princeton, Investing.com reported.

Obama’s gig economy has come back to bite the U.S. Gig-economy workers such as Uber and Lyft drivers may be skewing low unemployment numbers, giving an unrealistic picture of employment rates in the country.

Unemployment numbers may not fully account for gig workers, who may self-report as being “employed” despite not being on a payroll, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Although unemployment is low, wage growth has not increased, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, one of 12 regional reserve banks that make up the centralized Fed. That’s most likely due to the rise of gig workers, Business Insider reported.

The use of independent contractors may skew unemployment figures because companies can hire contractors without adding them to their payrolls. That way, independent contractors are not counted as “unemployed” even though they don’t work consistent schedules. Gig workers typically work on and off during the month, according to a study from the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

The gig economy has in fact increased by 6 million people since 2010, and this has economists worried.

“This type of work comes with additional financial responsibilities relative to health insurance, retirement savings, taxes, paid vacation time and Social Security, when compared with traditional full-time employees,” CNBC reported.

The shift toward a gig-economy is raising concerns around long-term financial security for a growing share of the workforce, according to some experts.

Workers are 15 times more likely to save for retirement when they can do so at the workplace using payroll deduction, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute. Gig workers tend not to do the same.

On top of this, research has shown that independent workers are also more apt to under-report their income, which could lead to smaller Social Security checks in retirement.

Gig work is also undermining hard-fought worker protections, Quartz reported.

Ironically, while Obama is credited with boosting gig workers, as the gig-economy was increasing he pushed while in office for companies to reclassify gig workers as employees. In 2015, for example, the Labor Department under Obama issued a new interpretation of the word “employ,” stating that “most workers” should be included in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which created the right to a minimum wage, and time-and-a-half overtime pay when people work more than 40 hours a week. 

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Obama’s Labor Department urged Uber and Lyft to reconsider how they classify their workers, Vox reported.

Gig workers have been fighting to be classified as employees.

The White House push was abandoned by the Trump administration. Trump’s Labor Department largely tossed Obama’s favorable interpretations of gig workers.