Goin' Gig with Prof. Ankit Kalda

What happens when the American Dream gets outsourced to Instacart and Uber? Chad & Cheese dive into the gig economy with Ankit Kalda, Associate Professor of Finance at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business — and occasional Taco Bell survivor.

💸 Can driving for Uber really replace a paycheck?

🧘‍♂️ What do meditation, depreciation, and desperation have in common?

💥 Are states secretly cheering for gig workers to keep UI payouts low?

🥤 And why is Joel always gassy during deep conversations?

Forget your influencer dreams and your Bozo-the-Clown ambitions—this episode digs into why your side hustle might actually be hustling you. Listen in as Chad asks the hard questions, Joel holds back farts, and Ankit politely watches America unravel—one freelance job at a time.

🎧 It’s gig work, baby. But not the good kind.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:32.014)

This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. You know what's up. This is Joel Cheesman, your cohost, followed and joined as always by Chad Sowash, who's riding shotgun. And we are excited to welcome Ankit Kalda, Associate Professor of Finance at the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University. Professor, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast.

Chad (00:45.214)

Thank you.

Ankit Kalda (00:55.109)

Thank you for having me. It's pleasure. looking forward to having a fun chat.

Chad (00:59.57)

All the way, halfway across the world,

Joel Cheesman (00:59.618)

We appreciate it. Joining us from India. Yes. So a lot of our listeners won't know you. Give us sort of the elevator pitch on who, who is Dr. Calda.

Ankit Kalda (01:02.102)

Yep.

Ankit Kalda (01:11.574)

Sure, so I did my undergrad here in India in Econ. I moved to the US back in 2012. I did my PhD at WashU in St. Louis, had a great time. And then joined Kelly as my first job as an assistant professor. Started really liking Bloomington with time, not immediately. But right, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Chad (01:37.362)

different than I'm sure what you're used to, right?

Joel Cheesman (01:39.134)

Indiana

Ankit Kalda (01:41.716)

Yeah, I mean, the university is great, but it's a college town, so it's a bit of an adjustment. But it grows on you, so I've sort of fallen in love with the place and I guess I'm there. God knows how long. Yeah, in my free time, I love to do some meditation and just think about like big questions like, what are we doing on the planet or why are we living, why are we breathing type things?

Chad (01:46.73)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (02:10.82)

And don't whenever whenever Joel looks like he's meditating, it's only because he has bad gas.

Joel Cheesman (02:11.97)

Holy shit.

Joel Cheesman (02:16.266)

Usually I'm passing a taco, a taco bell. Taco bell did not agree with me that day. the way, kids, if you have meditation on your bingo card for the Chad and cheese podcast, make sure that you, chip that off. Cause that, I don't think that's ever been mentioned on the show. So, so yeah, let's, let's get ready for some deep conversations here. so Ankit you wrote, you wrote an article recently called a gig economy gig economy may serve as a substitute for those seeking other more.

Ankit Kalda (02:16.81)

hahahahah

Yeah.

Chad (02:29.098)

That's a good one too. Or your Scrabble deck, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (02:45.294)

permanent work and we obviously talk a lot about the gig economy on this show, what was the Genesis for the article? Give us a summary. What was it about?

Ankit Kalda (02:54.602)

Yeah, absolutely. So the article is based on a research paper that we wrote. So we were essentially just thinking about when somebody gets laid off from their job, how do they cope with that situation? And that's where it essentially all came about. And so traditionally, people have either relied on unemployment insurance or they have relied on just credit to sort of keep up and smooth their consumption, right?

Chad (03:12.394)

Mm.

Ankit Kalda (03:24.65)

I'm not going to get my paycheck today or this month. What can I do about it? I can either rely on unemployment insurance or I can borrow on my credit card or home equity line of credit or whatever to keep up my consumption. But then we started thinking, well, both these alternatives have issues with them. So if you take on a lot of debt, we have seen what happened with the Great Recession back in 2007.

through 2009. And with unemployment insurance, there's all this talk about, if people rely on UI, then their incentives to work declines. And so when gig economy came in, we started thinking of gig economy as providing insurance through a private marketplace, which potentially might not have these downsides which these traditional instruments have had.

And so that's how we sort of started thinking about gig economy. And in the paper, what we do is we essentially look at people who lose their jobs and then look at whether access to Uber allows them to rely less on UI and rely less on credit while they are searching for another job.

Chad (04:52.564)

So from the article, a little bit kind of like brushing over some of what you just said, anecdotal evidence from recent government shutdowns suggest many income shocked workers view the gig economy as a short-term solution to buffer consumption, end quotes. The problem for me is that most situations seem short-term until the bottom falls out of the economy like right now and short-term turns into long-term.

Ankit Kalda (04:55.361)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (05:21.77)

How do we see this affecting not only the workforce, but the state of the union, if people have to string together several jobs and go without contributing to savings, retirement, or even afford healthcare coverage? I mean, how does that actually affect the state of our union?

Ankit Kalda (05:38.669)

Right, yeah, no, that's a great question. And there's a lot of research that talks about like if people lose jobs, there's a ton of costs associated with it, right? So for example, when they come back to the labor force, let's say if there's a three month break, on average they get a job which pays them 30 % less, right?

So forget about savings, forget about consumption, just in terms of the overall labor income that they are going to generate through their lifetime is going to get tremendously affected by if they get displaced. And unfortunately or fortunately, gig economy is not going to be like a perfect solution to it. But I think it can fill in that gap a little bit.

That decline that they are going to see, so if this becomes a long-term issue, so suppose instead of being displaced out of, or instead of being out of workplace for one month, they're out of workplace for a year, I don't think gig economy is powerful enough or offers enough options to them to sort of recover the potential losses that they are going to.

generate from getting displaced.

Chad (07:04.202)

Well, talking more to that, even before we hit this crazy economic time that we're in right now, we see states like Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, the list goes on. Mainly, most of them are southern states. They are hovering around 15 to 20 % poverty even before that.

Ankit Kalda (07:11.615)

Right.

Ankit Kalda (07:26.998)

Right. Right.

Chad (07:30.666)

from my standpoints and from looking at the overall market, especially where it's incredibly povrish, these individuals aren't getting a life. They have to jump from job to job to job to job just to make ends meet. They don't even get healthcare, right? So to me, it really feels like in the pockets of the country that we really need robust economic restructuring, we're getting the gig economy.

Ankit Kalda (07:37.526)

Mm-hmm.

Ankit Kalda (07:46.261)

Right.

Chad (07:57.106)

And the gig economy is just not going to do what we need to do. But yet it's almost like we're being promised over and over and over. We'll just go get another gig. It's OK. It doesn't seem like enough. What do you think about that? Because for me, it's not about the states that are doing incredibly well, right? It's about the states and the people who are in poverty today.

Ankit Kalda (08:17.364)

Right. And that's absolutely right. Because if you think about the long-term solution, I think there are estimates out there that if you're driving or for a ride-sharing platform, if you account for the loss in assets, like the depreciation for your car, then you're not even making, in several places, not even making minimum wage. So in that sense...

Chad (08:22.058)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (08:42.094)

Hmm.

Ankit Kalda (08:43.66)

gig economy cannot really offer like a long-term solution to or like a structural long-term solution to the labor market in places where the labor market is not going strong, right? All we are saying is essentially it just acts as a buffer if somebody already has a stable job and if they lose their job and while they're looking for the next stable job, it's sort of

acts as a stepping stone to the next job, right? I sort of agree with you. I think the way gig economy works right now, I don't believe that even though it's sort of outside the scope of our research, my personal preference or my personal judgment aligns with you that I don't think in the long run it provides

it provides a viable solution to a formal labor market as it stands right

Joel Cheesman (09:48.61)

How does the government track gig work versus full-time employment and other types of employment? mean, every, we always get like unemployment is low, things are great. And I don't think people understand exactly how gig work is calculated into those figures. Can you enlighten us on that?

Ankit Kalda (10:05.672)

Right, yeah. So when you think about unemployment and how unemployment rates are calculated, they are essentially based on the Joltz data, which essentially comes from different states are going to provide this data through their offices that administer UI. So if I'm somebody who goes and I live in the state of Indiana, I go to their UI office.

because UI is administered at the state level, not at the federal level. And so I go to their office and I fill out a form for requesting unemployment insurance that is going to tell the agency and the federal government through the agency that I've been unemployed for however long. But if I end up using gig economy jobs,

and I just don't go and apply for UI, then I'm going to be counted as an employed person and not as an unemployed person. But I think there are a lot of people who use a mix of both. if they do indeed lose their job, they are going to go apply for UI. then that is going to provide maybe 30 to 50 % of their, that is going to replace 30 to 50 % of their original income.

And so they are essentially then going to supplement that with some other jobs, like kid jobs.

Joel Cheesman (11:39.054)

Okay. So is it your consensus that gig work is inflating or is it, so in other words, is it inflating the number or is it deflating the number or is it kind of even out with people that do declare and people that don't declare?

Ankit Kalda (11:55.721)

Right. would think it is, that's an interesting question.

Are people more or less likely to apply for UI? Yeah, so, okay. So I would think it's deflating the number. So that is a direct result from our paper where essentially if you lose your job, then the likelihood that you even apply for UI reduces substantially if you have access to driving for Uber. So in that sense, it is going to deflate the

Joel Cheesman (12:21.304)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (12:25.346)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (12:29.802)

Okay. That was my expectation. Glad you supported that. We talk a lot about Uber and driving sort of those jobs, but it's also impacting thought, you know, jobs and, development and marketing and things like that. I'm curious your thoughts on companies like Upwork and Fiverr, which are public companies. they provide gig work or contract work. They've been really challenged in terms of their stock values and prices.

Ankit Kalda (12:31.82)

Right.

Joel Cheesman (12:59.938)

What in your mind is happening that's challenged those companies to be more successful than they are?

Ankit Kalda (13:08.992)

I think the biggest challenge right now is this debate about whether or not to treat these workers as contractors versus full-time workers and providing benefits. And I mean, to be honest, it's a really difficult problem to solve. Because if you think of, from the company's side, if you force them, like several states have already done,

Chad (13:22.665)

Yes.

Ankit Kalda (13:38.381)

to treat these contractors or these workers as employees and provide benefits, it's obviously great for the workers and we want our workers to get those benefits, right? And there's no question there. I guess the issue lies in how do these companies then absorb the shock, right? Like it is going to be more costly for them. How are they going to respond to that?

Are they then suddenly going to put a cap on the number of workers that they are going to allow on their platform? In which case we lose the flexibility that we have right now with the gig economy where anybody can just, that's the whole point, right? I can work any time and however much I want as long as there's demand for my work. But...

If there's this cost, another way that the companies can deal with this is maybe they can increase the prices and then pass on this cost to their consumers. So while it's definitely great for the workers and we do want that to happen, it's not really clear if you look at all players involved, what or how should this be designed.

Joel Cheesman (14:59.916)

It sounds like what you're saying is that these are both temporary solutions and not lifestyles. In other words, I'm laid off. go drive a car or I go make some banner ads. They're both temporary, regardless of whether they're blue collar, white collar, no collar. And that's impacting or creating a ceiling of how successful these companies can be. Is that what I'm, is that what I'm summarizing? Okay.

Chad (15:00.17)

It's

Ankit Kalda (15:22.826)

That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's another great way to think.

Chad (15:27.338)

unless you have a landscape like today where jobs are going away, especially for hundreds of thousands of white collar workers. But it is interesting though. You talk about absorbing the shock and as we have with tax on tips, right? Or just tipping, the tipping culture that we have in the US anyway. We're talking about Europe before we got on, before we went in the green room.

Ankit Kalda (15:51.328)

Yeah.

Chad (15:53.096)

And Europe has this incredible tip culture where you really don't have to tip, right? But it's something that is almost mandatory because that's how people live, right? And now instead of, and this is where the absorb the shock part comes in that you'd said, is that can the companies absorb the shock? Well, pardon my French, fuck the companies. The employees have been absorbing the shock the entire time. The tips are things that the employer should be paying into anyway.

Ankit Kalda (15:58.028)

All

Ankit Kalda (16:03.072)

Yeah. Yeah.

Chad (16:22.952)

And we're talking about tipping individuals who more than likely don't have health care in the first place. So we are trying to, we are trying to, as consumers, make up for the companies and what they're not doing for the actual employees who are doing the hard work in the first place, while Brian Nicol at Starbucks gets $100 million in signing shares and bonus and that kind of stuff. So there's this huge imbalance. But yet, we've got to worry about the employer's shock.

Ankit Kalda (16:23.509)

Right.

Ankit Kalda (16:28.308)

Right. Yeah.

Chad (16:53.354)

I think we got to get away from that. If a company cannot afford to pay their people a living wage, they don't deserve to be a company. If they can't figure out new models in which to pay their people that way, right? And as Joel had talked about, it's funny, because I remember growing up, and Joel might've been a little different, but I doubt it. It was either being, I wanted to be in a rock band, a professional football star, something of that nature, right? You know, that's what you wanted.

Today, kids are, they want to do gig jobs until they can be an influencer, right? It almost feels like gig jobs are a part of their way to get to where they want full-time job, which is again, our dream job was being on the football field. Their dream job is being on TikTok, right? We're almost, we're setting up,

Ankit Kalda (17:42.604)

That's right.

Joel Cheesman (17:45.102)

wanted to be Bozo the Clown, but that's a different angle.

Ankit Kalda (17:47.599)

Hahaha

Chad (17:50.512)

unrealistic expectations for the next generation. So what do you say about that? Especially being a professor and being in front of these kids, really feels like we're setting up expectations that are something that really aren't attainable.

Ankit Kalda (18:06.324)

Right, yeah. Look, I think there are two sides to this coin. So definitely the advantage with gig work is the flexibility, right? Like there's no other job that I can think of, even though I'm sitting in India on a work day while working at the university, right. But I guess there aren't many jobs that offer the type of flexibility that gig.

Chad (18:21.864)

Just become a professor is what you're saying, right? Yeah, just become a professor. It's just that easy.

Ankit Kalda (18:35.232)

jobs do, right? And that's why we see so many people and like you're saying, so many kids just using gig jobs while they are trying to figure out whatever their dream is and sort of chasing their dream. But coming back to an important point that you raised, with companies, I would agree with you. I mean, I don't know how regulation can be made.

to do that, but I think if you increase the cost on the companies by sort of forcing them to pay higher or forcing them to pay benefits to these workers, chances are they are going to pass on that cost to their consumers, right? So I'm a frequent Uber user, for example, and I mean, I obviously...

would hate to see the prices for Uber go up, right? And that's going to be an issue. Sorry. No, but yeah, guess you are right that these workers are tremendously underpaid and something needs to be done.

Chad (19:35.166)

being a cheapskate, Ankit. Stop being a cheapskate. yeah, professor salary.

Joel Cheesman (19:39.96)

Teacher's salary.

Ankit Kalda (19:59.917)

All I'm trying to say is that the solution to that problem is not that straightforward.

Chad (20:07.338)

So real quick, now in California, they raised the fast food minimum wage to $15 an hour. Everybody was going crazy saying, oh my God, my Big Mac's gonna be $20. What happened? It went up 20 cents, okay? So I understand what you're saying, but I don't believe you. I've heard this mythology for years and it's not playing out in the real world. So should we continue to listen to business school rhetoric or should we actually look at what's happening on the ground? That's the hard part, man.

Ankit Kalda (20:18.293)

Right.

Chad (20:37.328)

And for us, we're trying to find the truth here because we've been told as Gen Xers, all of this trickle down bullshit for years, right? And we're trying to find out what is real anymore. And that's the hard part. So when you take a look at what's happened in fast food in California, what's happened in Seattle for well over a decade now, I mean, they were up at $15 an hour in Seattle over a decade ago. What do you really feel?

is going to happen. Are we going to have to take governments and start to make laws and regulations around this to be able to bump it up? Or do you think we're just going to have to deal with it the way it is right now? And if you can't find a full-time job, you got to Uber to Instacart to whatever else.

Ankit Kalda (21:29.79)

Right. Yeah, I guess there is that notion of having like a base minimum wage even for these types of companies. But I think what complicates the issue is I guess it all just comes back to the fact that these are contractors and not workers, right? And so I guess there's, sorry.

Chad (21:50.74)

Unless they're states where they're workers. Right?

Ankit Kalda (21:55.573)

Sure, sure. Yeah, you're right. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. But I think that is going to be the straight off and I don't know how it is, how it's working out in California where these are then treated as workers in the sense that are we losing out on some flexibility? are there caps that companies are putting in in terms of the number of people that they can absorb within their company, right?

Like I said, it seems pretty unlikely that if you are putting on...

Chad (22:32.35)

Couldn't that be a personal choice though? I mean, we already say how many, when we're doing our taxes, right? We go ahead and we choose. Why couldn't we choose whether we wanna be a contractor versus full-time employee? Now, we'd have to worry about retaliation from an organization. If you were a contractor and then the next year you flipped over to a full-time employee and then got canned.

Ankit Kalda (22:39.626)

Right, right, right.

Ankit Kalda (22:48.67)

interesting right

Chad (22:58.57)

Would there be an option because it almost seems like we're always talking about black and white. You have to be either full time or this and then the state is going to determine what that is where it's like, well, can the people can actually make a choice?

Ankit Kalda (23:03.969)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (23:13.142)

Can I jump in here real quick? Cause this triggered something for me. What really, what was really interesting about the research that you guys did is how much States save from not having to pay out unemployment benefits. And like it's, it's, it's a doge situation, right? Which is obviously on the mind's view, but okay. So if state, let me put my tinfoil hat on real quick. If States are saving so much money.

Chad (23:17.529)

God, he's triggered.

Chad (23:26.25)

Ankit Kalda (23:27.541)

Right.

Chad (23:32.809)

You

Joel Cheesman (23:42.99)

Is there an incentive to make them employees or do what California did? Because states are benefiting so much. Their unemployment numbers stay low because of the gig economy. They're saving money on benefits and uninsured or unemployed insurance. And my second sort of weave around that is, is there an incentive for states to make it harder?

for things like Waymo and robo taxis to take off because if we start, if we unemployed every Uber driver, we have to pay them, we have to pay them an insurance rates. Our unemployment rate is going to go up. Like there's a big negative to letting automation happen in the driving sector. Curious your thoughts as I kind of weave that with Chad's, but it seems to me like there's an incentive for States not to interfere with what's going on unless it's make.

Chad (24:14.366)

Tax them, tax them.

Joel Cheesman (24:35.776)

more gig workers happen because that's good for us and our economy.

Ankit Kalda (24:40.548)

Right. And that is, and I guess that goes back to the point that we were discussing earlier, that this is definitely a benefit, but it's only a short-term benefit, right? So it benefits people while they are looking for other jobs. In terms of long-term solutions, like Chad was earlier talking about states like Mississippi, where you need some structural change to sort of make the labor market stronger.

this thing is not going to work out. So while I do agree with you that there are incentives that states will have to sort of let this continue, but it's only going to help those people who are going from one stable job to another stable job, right? It's not going to be a good long-term solution. So in that sense, states also have an incentive to come up with a solution that is going to work for all long-term.

Chad (25:38.408)

Yeah, the whole UI, the whole kind of like piece of UI too, does that also include healthcare and those types of things? Because again, one of the things that we forget about, we always thinking about money. We don't think about the healthcare. We don't think about how that actually is more costly long-term, right? Because we're, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, but those are things that we can twist and that we can hear in it's...

Joel Cheesman (25:38.648)

How do you see?

Joel Cheesman (25:55.064)

Yeah, that's a great point. If people are sicker, that's costing everything. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a great point.

Ankit Kalda (25:58.987)

Yeah, yeah.

Chad (26:04.104)

It's really hard, mean, and one of the reasons why we love having these discussions is because we like to dig into all the different aspects, or at least try with smart people like you, a couple of dumb guys like us, to talk about those different aspects. So UI, yeah, there are definitely some short-term savings, as you had said, but there are some other aspects where it could really be hurting the economy, and not only just the economy from the standpoint of cost, healthcare costs,

but also individuals being able to work longer because they might have cancer or something of that nature.

Ankit Kalda (26:40.512)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there are winners and losers out of this gig economy. And I mean, which is true for most things in the economy, right? So on one side, these people who looking like who are benefiting in the short run, or maybe let's say if there's a mom of three kids, she doesn't

she really, really needs the flexibility, otherwise she cannot really participate in the labor force, then this is essentially providing her an option to provide her labor and participate in the labor force, right? But on the other hand, you're absolutely right. Then what happens is sometimes there are these people who don't really realize like the...

Chad (27:18.44)

Yeah, good point.

Ankit Kalda (27:28.342)

For example, there was a survey that was done that talked about people would forget to factor in depreciation when they are thinking about how much they are making. And so they seem to think that they are making much more. And because of that, if they end up doing this long term, it ends up hurting them. And so there's always this winners and losers that is going to show up. And I think, again, the...

Chad (27:37.994)

Mm-hmm.

Ankit Kalda (27:56.737)

the solution is not that straightforward, which brings me to another point that you had raised, Chad, that maybe there could be an option. And I thought that was an interesting thought. I mean, not something that I've thought about before, but as soon as you said it, I was like, yeah, maybe there are merits to doing this. I don't know how it would look in terms of regulation, but I can see that look.

Chad (28:22.897)

Mm-hmm.

Ankit Kalda (28:26.272)

these people who are benefiting from the current situation in the short run, they continue to benefit by just opting to be contractors. And then these other set of people who are sort of losing out just because they are not getting health care benefits or other benefits that a long-term employee should get would be able to opt in and sort of get those benefits. So that potentially, I think that Warren's

some serious thought and maybe you've given me something to think about and I'll try to see if we can like formally do some research on this and sort of propose like a policy around this.

Chad (29:06.11)

Boom, wrap the show up, Cheeseman. We're done.

Joel Cheesman (29:07.342)

Chad, Chad's gonna co-author that for you as long as he can do it verbally. Professor, I'm gonna let you out on this one and I appreciate your time in helping us while you're in India. Get out your crystal ball for me. There's so many pieces to this. you peel the onion, there's immigration, blue states, red states, politics. Are you bullish on the gig economy, bearish? Like where do you see it going in the next, let's say three to five years?

Chad (29:14.47)

Fuck.

Ankit Kalda (29:36.14)

I'm actually bullish on it. The way things are going, think people are just valuing flexibility more and more. It comes with its downsides, like we have discussed through the show, but I'm pretty bullish. see it. I think I saw the numbers the other day and gig economy as a whole is growing. The companies that are providing these platforms are growing and I see them growing much more.

the next few years. Having said that, the only thing that I'm... That's going to be interesting to sort of watch out for is what you had raised, which is how is automation going to play a role? And that interaction of gig companies with automation is going to be very interesting. I personally am looking forward to see how that unfolds.

Chad (30:30.356)

So many factors. Yes.

Joel Cheesman (30:30.51)

We'll have to have you back when the robots take over and get your thoughts. Get your thoughts on that.

Chad (30:37.546)

That is Professor Ankit Calda. That's right, IU Kelly School of Business. If our listeners want to connect with you or I don't know, maybe even buy the book, where would you send them?

Ankit Kalda (30:48.716)

My email is public. It's on the university website. Feel free to reach out to me. The paper that this podcast was sort of based on is published in the Journal of Financial Economics, which is also readily available. So I think there's a lot of material out there.

Chad (31:10.782)

Beautiful.

Joel Cheesman (31:11.566)

Thanks, Professor. Guys, my door dash is here, so I'm going to have lunch. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out.

Ankit Kalda (31:13.077)

Awesome. All right, thanks a lot for having

Chad (31:14.316)

Hahaha

We out!