Last month, the personal finance website Bankrate released a survey finding, unsurprisingly, that Millennials are the generation most likely to have a side hustle (and likely the only generation to call it such, but there weren’t any stats on that). According to Bankrate, some 44 million Americans say they maintain some source of income on the side in addition to their main job. Younger Millennials (aged 18 to 26) were the most likely group to have reported a side hustle, with 28 percent of them having some sort of side gig. A quarter of this group, according to the survey, makes an extra $500 or more from their side hustle each month, and just under two-thirds (61 percent) work a second job at least once a week.
This phenomenon isn’t surprising—and neither are its causes. The Millennial generation entered the workforce during one of the worst economies in modern American history, the effects of which continue to follow us throughout our careers. We make less than our parents did at the same age, and wages today for a 30-year-old are lower than they were for a 30-year-old back in 2004. Today, more Millennials live in poverty than older generations did at the same age. And of course, there’s the student debt crisis: the average student debt burden is now over $35,000 per borrower. Recent polling revealed that just 13 percent of Millennials believe they are “getting ahead” economically, while 64 percent feel they are “getting by” and 23 percent feel they are “falling behind.” Economic opportunity can be particularly grim for black and Latino youth: in 2016, the black youth unemployment rate was nearly double the white youth unemployment rate, and Latino youth faced higher-than-average unemployment numbers too. So it’s no wonder that Millennials feel pressured to take on an extra job (or two or three) to make ends meet.
And yet, in spite of all the concerning evidence explaining the roots of the Millennial side hustle sensation, many choose instead to glorify the troubling trend of needing multiple jobs to survive, praising our enthusiasm, and even pushing back on the “entitled Millennial stereotype”—if we’re working three jobs, it’s hard to call us lazy. An article from Bankrate accompanying the survey results exemplifies this disconcerting take. Noting how much Millennials earn from side hustles, the author of the Bankrate article writes: “Looks like we can afford that avocado toast after all!” Another sentence seems to suggest the reason for an increase in hustling among Millennials is because we’re an internet-savvy generation: “It makes sense that Millennials are hustling harder than other generations; we’ve grown up with social media and the internet, so we’ve got a firm grasp on not only how to properly filter an Instagram post, but how to really grow our green in a gig economy dominated by apps and other on-demand services.”
While there’s certainly some truth to the fact that much of the gig economy is only available to only those with smartphones or internet savvy, the article misses the point. The Millennial generation’s affinity for the side hustle isn’t some random generational quirk—it’s a natural consequence of an economy that doesn’t work for us. We do not voluntarily take on two or three jobs for fun (or an extra slice of avocado toast), we do it out of necessity. We do it because our student loan debt is so staggering, we need a second job to keep up with our payments—often only chipping away at accrued interest rather than the principal of the loan itself. We do it because our primary job isn’t enough anymore, and pays us below a living wage. We do it because we have to. And while there may be some Millennials who choose to take on extra jobs in order to counteract the narrative that we’re lazy or entitled, the reality is the side hustle is for most a means of survival.
The side hustle is not a choice, it’s a survival tactic—and to say otherwise is dangerous and distracts us from finding solutions to the very real problems that have forced younger Americans to piece together multiple jobs just to get by. We do need to start hustling—hustling to find ways to make the economy work for young people.
Hannah Finnie is the Senior Policy and Communications Associate at Generation Progress, the youth engagement arm of the Center for American Progress.