While social distancing measures are essential in limiting the impact of a pandemic, such measures are often less feasible for low-income groups such as precarious workers who continue to travel on public transit and are less able to practice social distancing measures. In this paper, based on in-depth remote interviews conducted from April 2020 through June 2020, with more than 130 gig and precarious workers in New York City, we find that precarious workers experience three main hurdles in regard to accessing unemployment assistance that can be broadly categorized as knowledge, sociological, and temporal/financial barriers. Drawing on worker interview responses, we have named these responses: (1) Didn’t Know, (2) Didn’t Want, and (3) Can’t Wait. These challenges have led workers to turn to gig and precarious work, further highlighting the inequities of the pandemic. As a result, for some workers, so-called “side hustles” have become their primary social safety net.

虽然社会疏远措施对于限制大流行的影响至关重要，但对于继续乘坐公共交通工具且无法采取社会疏远措施的不稳定工人等低收入群体而言，此类措施通常不太可行。在本文中，基于 2020 年 4 月至 2020 年 6 月对纽约市 130 多名零工和不稳定工人进行的深入远程访谈，我们发现不稳定工人在获得可大致分为知识、社会和时间/财务障碍。根据工人访谈的回答，我们将这些回答命名为：(1) 不知道，(2) 不想，和 (3) 等不及了。这些挑战导致工人转向零工和不稳定的工作，进一步突出了大流行的不平等。因此，对于一些工人来说，所谓的“副业”已成为他们主要的社会安全网。