Addressing the financial vulnerability low-income gig workers face requires new approaches. To better understand how these workers navigate unexpected expenses, Commonwealth collaborated with The Workers Lab Design Sprint Team to design and implement the Workers Strength Fund (WSF) project. The WSF project looked specifically at how access to emergency grants could impact gig workers’ financial challenges. We hypothesized that in certain scenarios, quickly distributing emergency grants of up to $1,000 with limited conditions would have a positive impact on workers’ financial security and that these benefits would exceed their cost. We were also interested in understanding the kinds of workers who would most benefit from these grants and for what types of emergencies.

Emergency cash is a tool that can support workers in reaching financial security if it is implemented with a clear understanding of the problem being solved, the target recipient, and key factors of design such as when and how distributions are made. Based on pilot findings featured in this report, we believe that emergency cash shows significant potential for effective assistance to some low-income and gig economy workers workers, and warrants further exploration to determine how to optimize its impact and replicate it at scale.