Cash and Passions: Why So Many Work More than One Job

Multiple jobholders and experts analyze motivations underlying moonlighting and the potential impact of a $15 national minimum wage on the phenomenon.

“I’ve always worked multiple jobs,” says Carol Cooper.

“I do know a fair bit of people like actually in my office that also have a side gig,” says Jewel Caruso.

“I’ve had two jobs for most of my 20s and then for almost all my 30s so far,” says Kirk Gibson.

Carol Cooper works three part-time jobs in Athens as a certified nurse’s assistant. Jewel Caruso works a primary job in UGA’s Terry College communications office and streams on Twitch for supplementary income. Kirk Gibson works a primary job as the Programs Coordinator for The Giving Kitchen in Atlanta and developed a side hustle making cocktails for his friends and delivering them to their houses.

These individuals are not unique. Although measured multiple jobholding has been decreasing since the 1990s, Dr. Ian Schmutte, professor of Labor Economics at the University of Georgia, points out that the gig economy has made multiple jobholding more difficult to measure.

“When you ask people, they will often just report their primary job,” Schmutte said. “And a lot of jobs in the gig economy, don’t necessarily show up- they’re not payroll employment.”

Some multiple jobholders, like Caruso, take on a second job to pursue a passion that they hope to grow and eventually turn into their only full time job. This is what she is currently doing with Twitch. She holds onto her first job for the income and benefits.

“Terry provides me health insurance; Twitch doesn’t,” she said.

Other multiple jobholders work more than one job because they must do so to make ends meet. Kirk Gibson serves many of these individuals through the Giving Kitchen, which helps food service workers across Georgia by paying their rent and utility bills as they recover from unexpected crises such as injury, illness or natural disaster.

“For the folks who are at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, I would say that second jobs, side hustles, those are survival jobs,” he said.

Gibson says he often sees multiple jobholders in the food service industry working up to 70 hours per week between two jobs.

Employees may not want or need to work so many hours if they earned more money per hour. The election of President Joe Biden and income losses from the COVID-19 pandemic have reignited conversations about raising the national minimum wage to $15/hour.

“Whatever political things you have aside, this has been a year from hell so (raising the minimum wage) would really help people, you know,” said Caruso.

I asked Professor Schmutte about the potential effects the new minimum wage would have on multiple jobholders if it were passed. He told me that fewer people would work multiple jobs if the minimum wage is raised to $15, but employers may cut hours and/or jobs in response to the new law.

“There’s going to be some reduction in employment,” he said. “So then the question is like, is that a little or a lot? And most of the evidence that we have suggests that those employment declines are relatively small.”

Multiple jobholding is a complex topic, and it is one in which the understanding among those who study it is fairly low. Dr. Schmutte predicts that the gig economy will only bring more people into the multiple jobholding market in the coming years, though.

“This is actually something that labor economists have been thinking about; better ways to sort of measure multiple jobholding,” he said.