In NYC, side hustles have a long tradition.
New Yorkers are known to take the time to turn their specialized skills into income. A new national report on “America’s Side-Hustle Capitals” from the online rental marketplace Giggster found the New York–Newark–Jersey City metropolitan area placed fifth in side-hustle capitals.
Giggster looked at 30 major U.S. metro areas based on business density, earnings, pay rates, and purchasing power to create its Side-Hustle Capital Index.
Miami ranked first overall with the highest concentration of small, solo businesses. Southern cities took seven of the top 10 spots for business density. Yet New York City led in average business revenue, San Francisco had the highest overall pay, and Seattle topped as the best pay city relative to local living costs. Giggster found that there was no single metro area that led in every category of the side-hustle economy.
In the New York area, gig work can be a delivery job, home repair, event services, tutoring, pet care, freelance design, or even consulting. Pay can vary widely based on the work offered, the platform used to get gigs, the gig worker’s experience, and expenses.
Recent listings put dog-walking pay at $17 to $35 an hour and independent auto-appraisal work at $100 to $500 a day. One part-time outreach consulting job offered $30 to $35 an hour. Meanwhile, app-based restaurant and grocery delivery workers now earn a minimum pay of $22.13 an hour before tips, although the way compensable time is calculated differs by platform.
Families have had to look for additional income in the current economy, and platform-based gig work has become an essential financial safeguard. This past April, a report by Rachel Swaner from the Community Service Society of New York (CSS) found that 20% of New Yorkers relied on gig apps for financial support over the past 12 months. In a survey of 4,000 residents across New York state between September and October 2025, the report found that “gig work has become a mainstream economic survival strategy, from New York City (23 percent) to Erie County (20 percent). For half of gig workers (51 percent), platform work is their main source of income.”
CSS found that the racial divide is particularly evident: one in four Black residents, or 25%, used gig platforms to generate income, compared with 17% of white residents and 15% of Asian residents. That means Black New Yorkers have become the main workers in the gig labor market, most likely because steadier work is frequently unavailable.
CSS also found that nearly four in five gig workers said apps pushed them to work longer or at specific times through alerts, bonuses and other incentives. Seventy percent said the platform controlled when, where and how much they worked, and two-thirds worried that bad ratings from customers could be because of their race, gender or language.
Swaner noted that “gig workers show strong consensus on wanting government intervention. Over three-quarters (76 percent) said they would feel more secure if the government set rules about how apps treat workers. Of workers who rely on platforms as their main income source, 80 percent want government labor regulation of platforms. Even among gig workers doing platform work for additional income, 72 percent support such state action.”
New York’s fifth-place finish in the Giggster report shows that workers can make good money working gigs in the city, and our varied economy means there are many ways for people to earn income. Yet the people doing gig work — who are disproportionately Black New Yorkers — often face wild swings in income, close digital supervision, and limited worker protections. Gig workers need to be able to count on being able to get fair pay and good work conditions.
