Independent Work, Real Opportunity: The Gig Economy and the Future of Entrepreneurship (House Small Business Committee hearing, April 21, 2026)

Summary

Transcript of an April 21, 2026 House Small Business Committee hearing, Small Business Committee Document Number 119-035, on gig work and independent entrepreneurship. Chairman Roger Williams and Ranking Member Nydia Velázquez opened. Witnesses were Kristin Sharp of the Flex Association, Lisa Alvarez Acevedo of Joyce Florist of Dallas, Elaine Buxton of Confero Inc. in Cary, North Carolina and Rosa Thurnher of Aztec Travel Inc., doing business as El Ponce, in Atlanta. Representatives Velázquez, Goodlander and Tran sent written questions to Sharp and Thurnher, and their answers are printed in the appendix.

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“Independent Work, Real Opportunity: The Gig Economy and the Future of Entrepreneurship (House Small Business Committee hearing, April 21, 2026).” Original at www.govinfo.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/independent-work-real-opportunity-the-gig-economy-and-the-future-of-en-c9e45eda66/, SHA-256 16d781db956a7a2ba0af415ad0b5504727789f16db1e03eb48c654c76db87a42.

Full text

INDEPENDENT WORK, REAL OPPORTUNITY: THE
GIG ECONOMY AND THE FUTURE OF
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

HEARING
BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION

HEARING HELD
APRIL 21, 2026

Small Business Committee Document Number 119–035
Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov

U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
63–521 WASHINGTON : 2026

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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas, Chairman
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota
DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
MARK ALFORD, Missouri
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota
TONY WIED, Wisconsin
ROB BRESNAHAN, Pennsylvania
BRIAN JACK, Georgia
KIMBERLYN KING-HINDS, Northern Marina Islands
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
JIMMY PATRONIS, Florida
CLAY FULLER, Georgia
NYDIA VELÁZQUEZ, New York, Ranking Member
MORGAN MCGARVEY, Kentucky
HILLARY SCHOLTEN, Michigan
LAMONICA MCIVER, New Jersey
GIL CISNEROS, California
KELLY MORRISON, Minnesota
GEORGE LATIMER, New York
DEREK TRAN, California
LATEEFAH SIMON, California
JOHNNY OLSZEWSKI, Maryland
MAGGIE GOODLANDER, New Hampshire

SEAN DILLON, Majority Staff Director
MELISSA JUNG, Minority Staff Director

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CONTENTS
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Roger Williams ................................................................................................ 1
Hon. Nydia Velázquez ............................................................................................. 2

WITNESSES
Ms. Kristin Sharp, Chief Executive Officer, Flex Association, Washington,
DC .......................................................................................................................... 5
Ms. Lisa Alvarez Acevedo, President, Joyce Florist of Dallas, Dallas, TX ......... 6
Ms. Elaine Buxton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Confero Inc., Cary,
NC ......................................................................................................................... 8
Ms. Rosa Thurnher, Owner, Aztec Travel Inc dba El Ponce, Atlanta, GA ......... 9

APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Ms. Kristin Sharp, Chief Executive Officer, Flex Association, Washington,
DC .................................................................................................................. 37
Ms. Lisa Alvarez Acevedo, President, Joyce Florist of Dallas, Dallas,
TX ................................................................................................................... 43
Ms. Elaine Buxton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Confero Inc.,
Cary, NC ........................................................................................................ 46
Ms. Rosa Thurnher, Owner, Aztec Travel Inc dba El Ponce, Atlanta,
GA .................................................................................................................. 50
Questions and Answers for the Record:
Questions from Hon. Velázquez to Ms. Kristin Sharp and Answers from
Ms. Kristin Sharp ......................................................................................... 54
Questions from Hon. Goodlander to Ms. Kristin Sharp and Answers from
Ms. Kristin Sharp ......................................................................................... 58
Questions from Hon. Tran to Ms. Kristin Sharp and Answers from Ms.
Kristin Sharp ................................................................................................ 60
Questions from Hon. Velázquez to Ms. Rosa Thurnher and Answers from
Ms. Rosa Thurnher ....................................................................................... 62
Questions from Hon. Tran to Ms. Rosa Thurnher and Answers from
Ms. Rosa Thurnher ....................................................................................... 64
Additional Material for the Record:
Defense Credit Union Council (DCUC) .......................................................... 66
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) ................................................... 68
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) ...................................................................... 69
Community Service Society (CSS) ................................................................... 96
Responsible Online Commerce Coalition (ROCC) .......................................... 108

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INDEPENDENT WORK, REAL OPPORTUNITY:
THE GIG ECONOMY AND THE FUTURE OF
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2026

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room
2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Roger Williams [chair-
man of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Williams, Meuser, Alford, Wied, Jack,
King-Hinds, Patronis, Fuller, Velázquez, McGarvey, Scholten,
McIver, Cisneros, Tran, Simon, Olszewski, and Goodlander.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay. Before we begin with the hearing,
I have a few announcements I would like to make. First, I would
like to welcome, and he is in a meeting right now, Representative
Clay Fuller from the great State of Georgia to our Committee. He
previously served as district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Ju-
dicial Circuit and was appointed by President Trump to serve as
a White House fellow from 2018 to 2019. I am excited to hear the
insight and perspective he will contribute to this Committee on be-
half of his constituents and main street in the 14th Congressional
District of the great State of Georgia.
Next, for all of our members, there will be two Committee
roundtables in May for your information. The first is on May 4th
in my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. Representative Van Duyne
and I are excited to host all of you in the great State of Texas for
that. And the second roundtable is on May 22nd in Baltimore,
Maryland, home of the Big O, as they say, Representative
Olszewski. And you want a 30-second advertisement on that and
ask everybody to come?
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Please, everyone
come. We will try to replicate the amazing Fort Worth experience
in Baltimore. We would love to have you all.
Chairman WILLIAMS. There you go. Well, we are looking for-
ward to both those, so contact your Committee staff for logistics
and more information about those roundtables as the date gets
closer.
I now call the Committee on Small Business to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the Com-
mittee at any time.
I now recognize myself for my opening statement.
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Welcome to today’s hearing, ‘‘Independent Work, Real Oppor-
tunity: The Gig Economy and the Future of Entrepreneurship.’’ The
gig economy is broadly defined as an economy in which people earn
income by providing on-demand work, services, or goods. Regard-
less of one’s views on gig entrepreneurship, the truth is that it has
become an increasingly large part of each of our everyday lives, es-
pecially for younger generations.
Today, gig entrepreneurship takes as many forms as commonly
facilitated through digital platforms, like apps and websites. Of
course, ridesharing and delivery are major parts of the ecosystem,
but there are so many other industries that are part of the gig
economy. Some gig platforms are tailored towards housework,
handyman projects, running errands, or cleaning. At the same
time, other platforms cover the professional services such as IT,
graphic design, and other freelance work.
One reason people turn to the gig work is to gain flexibility and
control in their work schedules. Whether they are a student, grand-
mother, or aspiring entrepreneur, they can mold their gig work
schedule to match their availability. The gig economy supports
American entrepreneurship by providing the flexibility and the in-
come needed to launch small businesses. It also allows entre-
preneurs to get started quickly by leveraging a built-in customer
base to kick-start their businesses.
The motivations that lead people to gig work, such as flexibility
and self-ownership, also drive self-employment and entrepreneur-
ship. And in 2025, as much as 36 percent of the U.S. workforce,
or 70 million Americans, engaged in a gig of freelance work, which
generated roughly $1.5 trillion in annual earnings, which is why it
was so surprising that the Biden-Harris administration launched
an all-out attack on the gig economy. Under the Biden-Harris ad-
ministration, gig entrepreneurs were threatened with IRS audits if
they did not report Venmo or PayPal payments over $600. And the
Biden-Harris Department of Labor issued rules that issued regu-
latory complexity threatening to upend the gig economy altogether.
Thankfully, President Trump has reversed this decision and
changed the reporting threshold in the Work Families Tax Cuts
Act. And President Trump also boosted the gig economy in Amer-
ican workers through no tax on tips. When small businesses and
entrepreneurs have the economy to shape their own work, they are
better positioned to learn—or to earn, build, and succeed on their
on their own terms, leading to a more resilient American economy.
I want to thank our witnesses today for joining us and look for-
ward to the conversation ahead.
And I now recognize the distinguished member and my friend
Representative Velázquez for her opening remarks.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
and welcome to all the witnesses.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal told the story of a small busi-
ness owner who previously drove with a rideshare app and now
runs his own car service. Stories like his show how digital plat-
forms can reduce barriers to entry for entrepreneurship by low-
ering upfront costs and providing an avenue for connecting with cli-
ents. If it weren’t for the difficult business environment this admin-
istration has created, this story would have been a great dem-

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onstration of how digital platforms help build independent busi-
nesses.
Joe Biden is not in the White House. Donald Trump is. This is
his economy. He owns it. Unfortunately, his business is now among
the many American small businesses that are being hurt by sky-
rocketing gas prices. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 21
percent increase in gas prices in March, the largest 1-month in-
crease since 1967. High energy costs caused entirely by the Presi-
dent’s illegal war in Iran are the main reason that inflation tripled
last month. Now that car service owner is making about 40 percent
less on each ride to the airport. To make up for the lost income,
he took on more trips. To get better gas mileage, he bought a
newer car. He will likely have to increase his fares. He may even
have to cut his services for the elderly people he drives to doctor
appointments and grocery stores.
This damage to a successful entrepreneurial venture did not have
to happen. As the Committee has heard time and again, this ad-
ministration’s bad policies have damaged America’s small busi-
nesses unnecessarily. With their income being eaten up by the rap-
idly increased cost of living, gig workers and small business owners
are cutting back spending on things like restaurant meals, along
with many other Americans who have reported increased concern
over high prices. In fact, this month, American consumer sentiment
plummeted to its lowest level ever since the survey started 74
years ago. The measures sank across all groups, regardless of age,
income, and political party.
Consumers tightening their belts increases the financial pres-
sures faced by local businesses, especially restaurants. As we will
hear today, restaurants already operate on thin margins. Those
margins are even thinner now because the President’s tariffs raised
the cost of everything from food to textile containers.
Now the impacts of the President’s war in Iran are rippling
through our supply chains. Higher fuel prices raise the cost of
transporting all goods, including food, and the impact is already
being felt in the broader economy. That means everyday Americans
are paying the price for this administration’s reckless decision
whether they get their next meal through an app, at a local res-
taurant, or from a grocery store.
For restaurant owners and their employees, rising prices mean
fewer orders and unsustainable financial institutions. For commu-
nities, fewer restaurants mean less of the vibrant public spaces
those businesses provide. For all of us, it means fewer opportuni-
ties to thrive, take risks, create new careers and businesses, and
support others in their entrepreneurial ventures.
I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I will now introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Ms. Kris-
tin Sharp. Ms. Sharp is the chief executive officer of Flex Associa-
tion, advancing policies that support a modern flexible workforce.
Before joining Flex, she was CEO of Jobs for the Future’s Edu-
cation Quality Outcome Standards Board and co-founded Shift: The
Commission on Work, Workers, and Technology, a project that ex-
amines the impact of AI on work. Earlier in her career, Ms. Sharp
worked on technology innovation and national security policy in the

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U.S. Senate. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science
from the University of Michigan and master’s degree in political
science from Duke University.
Our next witness is Ms. Lisa Alvarez Acevedo. She is the presi-
dent and owner of Joyce Florist of Dallas, a locally-owned small
business serving customers across the Dallas, Texas, area. Her
daughter also went to TCU. And Ms. Alvarez Acevedo, along with
her mother Gloria, bought Joyce Florist in 1998. Today, Joyce Flo-
rist of Dallas employs around 10 full-time and part-time staff mem-
bers and produces high-quality floral arrangements and gifts, all
while providing friendly, reliable service to their community.
Thank you for being here. And also, you studied at Texas Women’s
University.
Our next witness is Ms. Elaine Buxton. Ms. Buxton serves as
president and chief executive officer of Confero Inc., a national cus-
tomer experience research and measurement firm. Ms. Buxton, co-
founded Confero in 1986. Confero Inc. helps business improve cus-
tomer service and performance through data-driven insights and
analytics. Ms. Buxton serves on the board of directors for the Bet-
ter Business Bureau of East North Carolina and the U.S. Chamber
of Small Business Council. She earned a bachelor’s of science de-
gree in business administration from the University of North Caro-
lina at Chapel Hill and a master of business administration from
Meredith College.
I now recognize the Ranking Member from New York, Ms.
Velázquez, to briefly introduce our last witness appearing before us
today.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Rosa Thurnher is an Atlanta-based entrepreneur, mother, and
owner of El Ponce and Tiendita, and partner in Bar ANA. Her ca-
reer spans over two decades of building community-focused hospi-
tality concepts rooted in culture and connection. A graduate of the
James Beard Foundation’s Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership
Program and board member of the Independent Restaurant Coali-
tion, she is a passionate advocate for the hospitality community.
Rosa began her hospitality journey with El Bar, and today that
same space is home to Bar ANA, where she is a partner supporting
the next generation of entrepreneurs by creating space and oppor-
tunity.
Rosa’s dedication extends beyond her business ventures. She is
deeply committed to empowering women and the Latino commu-
nity and fighting for environmental sustainability and human
rights. Her goals center around building a more sustainable and
equitable future for generations to come.
Welcome, Ms. Thurnher. Thank you for being here.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay. Thank you again to all of our wit-
nesses.
And before recognizing the witnesses, I would like to remind
them that their oral testimony is restricted to 5 minutes in length.
That is an important number around here. It is not 6, it is not 4,
it is 5. And if you see the light turn red in front of you, it means
your 5 minutes have concluded and you should wrap up your testi-
mony. And if you keep going, you will hear this. That means it is
over with, okay? But you will do fine.

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I now recognize Ms. Kristin Sharp for her 5-minute opening re-
marks.

STATEMENTS OF MS. KRISTIN SHARP, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF-
FICER, FLEX ASSOCIATION; MS. LISA ALVAREZ ACEVEDO,
PRESIDENT, JOYCE FLORIST OF DALLAS; MS. ELAINE
BUXTON, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
CONFERO, INC.; AND MS. ROSA THURNHER, OWNER, AZTEC
TRAVEL INC DBA EL PONCE

STATEMENT OF KRISTIN SHARP, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
FLEX ASSOCIATION
Ms. SHARP. Chairman Williams, Ranking Member Velázquez,
and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear here today. My name is Kristin Sharp and
I am the CEO of the Flex Association. Flex represents America’s
leading rideshare and delivery platforms and the people who count
on them.
Across dozens of platforms, from mobility to freelance to creative
marketplaces, millions of Americans are earning, shopping, and
building businesses through technologies that simply didn’t exist a
generation ago. In 2024, the app-based industry contributed more
than $212 billion to the U.S. economy. For consumers, the platform
industry has delivered savings, access, and convenience. For work-
ers, it is a powerful opportunity to be your own boss with real con-
trol over your time and money. And for the restaurants and local
businesses deliveries come from, it expands markets and reaches
new customers.
Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and
app-based platforms have been one of the most powerful tools they
have. The marketplaces connect small businesses to digital cus-
tomers and help them compete with bigger firms by providing crit-
ical support, on-demand workers, logistics, digital payments, tar-
geted marketing tools. And as a result, millions of American busi-
nesses have modernized how they operate and found new pathways
to scale.
Nearly two-thirds of customers have used an app-based platform
for grocery delivery, 60 percent for package delivery, and the aver-
age American now takes rideshare 16 times per year. These aren’t
abstract statistics. They represent real customers walking through
digital doors of businesses that they might not otherwise have
reached.
The scale of the app-based industry has provided millions of
Americans with an essential lifeline to navigate financial uncer-
tainty. Digital platforms offer immediate flexible income—no
lengthy hiring process, no restrictions on the number of platforms
one uses, just a smartphone, an idea, and the ability to start earn-
ing immediately. For parents, students, workers between jobs, this
flexibility fills gaps that traditional employment can’t. Nearly 9 in
10 workers with children say app-based work makes it easier to
balance family and work, and 69 percent say that it has helped
them earn money in an emergency, In an unpredictable labor mar-
ket, on-demand earning provides real-time stability.

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But here is something that rarely gets mentioned: app-based
work is quietly one of the most powerful engines of entrepreneur-
ship in the American economy today. It helps workers practice
skills like multitasking and evaluating new opportunities. It helps
them accrue startup capital to launch an idea or business. And it
creates the confidence to take risks by being a ready supply of tem-
porary income while getting a business up and running or riding
out a slow period. That’s why a recent study of U.S. tax records
found that app-based workers start new companies at more than
three times the rate of the general working age population and why
those businesses generate 39 percent higher gross profits in the
first year than those started by the general population.
It is opening doors for people who have historically been locked
out of entrepreneurship: younger workers, low-income workers, vet-
erans, and those taking care of children or elderly parents. So
when someone drives through Uber or delivers through DoorDash
or shops with Instacart, they may not be making ends meet. They
may be developing the skills that they need to start succeeding in
business.
So what do we ask of policymakers? Reflect reality. There is en-
couraging progress on this front. Last year Congress passed the No
Tax on Tips Initiative, ensuring that tipped app-based workers pay
lower taxes. The Flex Association also applauds the Department of
Labor’s decision to propose commonsense pro worker classification
rules. This rule helps preserve the flexible independent work model
that underpins the app-based economy that millions of Americans
rely on today.
The modern labor market is defined by constant change. Work-
ers, especially younger ones, get this. Last year, more than half of
millennial and Gen Z Americans earned money outside a primary
job, often as a solo entrepreneur with many income streams. So
protect that flexibility. Don’t shoehorn independent workers into
conventional employment against their wishes and strip away the
flexibility they’ve chosen.
We support the Small Business Administration’s efforts to track
and streamline regulatory requirements for independent workers,
and we would be pleased to work with the SBA to strengthen edu-
cation around tax filings, digital business formation, and income
growth for solo entrepreneurs.
The nature of work is changing, but it brings so much oppor-
tunity. If we want an economy that works for today’s small busi-
nesses, we should support the systems that people are already rely-
ing on to build them. App-based work is a key piece of that puzzle.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Lisa Alvarez Acevedo for her 5-minute open-
ing remarks.
STATEMENT OF LISA ALVAREZ ACEVEDO, PRESIDENT, JOYCE
FLORIST OF DALLAS
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Chairman, Ranking Member, and dis-
tinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the oppor-
tunity to testify today. My name is Lisa Alvarez Acevedo and I am
the owner of Joyce Florist of Dallas, a Dallas-based company.

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When I purchased Joyce Florist 28 years ago, I had a dream of
creating a family business that would allow me to support my fam-
ily and spend time with them. That dream is now a reality. I can
proudly say that Joyce Florist is a four-generation family business
which started with my mother and I working alongside one an-
other. When my mother retired, my daughter Alyssa stepped in to
work with me. Even my grandchildren pitch in and carrying the
family legacy forward. I am proud to say that today Joyce Florist
employs 10 full-time and part-time staff members and remains
deeply connected to our local community in Dallas.
Starting a business is hard enough between permits, paperwork,
and all the costs that come with operating a business. Platforms
like DoorDash make that path a little easier by giving entre-
preneurs tools to reach a broad base of customers. Entrepreneur-
ship gave me the freedom to build something on my own terms and
platforms like DoorDash are making that path more accessible for
the next generation of small business owners.
For years, Joyce Florist relied on traditional wire services to han-
dle deliveries, but they did not meet our business’ real needs. Two
years ago, we partnered with DoorDash and the experience has
been remarkable. While Joyce Florist has long been a neighborhood
institution, DoorDash is helping the business evolve and grow in
meaningful ways. DoorDash helped our small business reach more
customers and keep local dollars moving through our community.
Staff no longer have to coordinate deliveries. This eliminates com-
plexity and saves thousands of dollars in overhead.
Our partnership with DoorDash lets my team focus on what we
do best, creating beautiful arrangements and serving our cus-
tomers. During peak periods, like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day,
this efficiency is especially valuable. We can relocate team mem-
bers in-store and customers and order fulfillment during the rush
rather than trying to have them all deliver and work with logistics.
DoorDash also introduced us to an entirely new customer base.
Even after decades in business, people are still discovering Joyce
Florist for the first time through the platform. In 2025, Joyce Flo-
rist made over 60,000 in sales on the DoorDash Marketplace. My
experience is not unique. According to DoorDash, 88 percent of
merchants say the platform has helped them reach new customers
they otherwise would not have been able to access. And U.S.-based
merchants collectively made over 40 billion in sales on DoorDash
Marketplace in 2024.
Dashers themselves have played a role in that growth. Many
have told us they discovered our shop and event center through de-
liveries and later returned as customers. We have built strong rela-
tionships with Dashers, welcoming them and even offering treats
for their children when they bring them in.
Platforms like DoorDash are strengthening mainstream. They
give small business like mine the tools to compete, to grow, and to
stay rooted in the communities we serve. Joyce Florist thrives by
blending tradition, initiative and entrepreneurship. DoorDash is
the latest chapter in that story.
I want my grandchildren to inherit a business and an economy
where entrepreneurs have every tool to thrive. Small business own-
ers like me already face enough cost and regulatory complexities to

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keep our doors open. The tools that help us save time and serve
customers better should not be made harder to use. Instead, they
should be encouraged.
I thank the Committee for encouraging policies that allow small
business and platform partners to continue working for the benefit
of our communities.
Thank you for your time. I am happy to answer any questions.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Elaine Buxton for her 5-minute opening re-
marks.
STATEMENT OF ELAINE BUXTON, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CONFERO INC.
Ms. BUXTON. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of the
Committee, thank you so much for the opportunity to tell my story
here today. My name is Elaine Buxton and I am president and
CEO of Confero, which is a customer experience research company.
We are based in Cary, North Carolina.
My company has been in business since 1986, helping clients im-
prove customer experience, compliance, and their own operations.
I am here to share a simple small business perspective. App-based
platforms and digital tools have made it much easier for companies
like mine to find the right support, expand when needed, and serve
clients without taking on fixed cost before the business is there.
Long before people used the phrase ‘‘gig economy,’’ my company
was already coordinating projects across many markets. Back then
that meant telephone, landline, paper forms, mailed reports, and a
lot of manual work. Our projects vary by client, location, timing,
urgency, and complexity, so that was very hard to manage. Today,
digital platforms help us manage that work more efficiently.
Over nearly four decades, my company has stayed competitive by
adapting to new technology, changing client needs, and new ways
of doing research. These tools also help level the playing field by
giving small businesses access to reach and capabilities that used
to require a much larger organization.
In my company, these platforms serve more than one kind of
need. They help us find project-based support in different markets,
connect with research participants when appropriate, and access
specialized help, like graphic design, digital marketing, research,
editing, data analysis, and fractional finance support. And for com-
panies like mine, this really matters. If small businesses lose ac-
cess to lawful, flexible arrangements, we will face higher costs, less
agility, less reach, and fewer chances to grow.
In some kinds of research, flexibility is not just about cost, it is
about what makes the work even possible. For example, imagine a
restaurant chain rolling out a new menu item and they want to
know quickly whether customers in different places are getting it
prepared and served the same way all across their units. That may
mean a brief one-time visit in many locations. It would not make
sense for a small business to hire employees all over the country
for a task that may take only a few minutes and may only happen
once.
In my experience, these platforms do five practical things for my
business. They help us find talent and research participants. They

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help us move faster when opportunities come up. They help us con-
trol costs by bringing in support only when we need it. They help
us compete with larger companies. And they support entrepreneur-
ship more broadly.
I also want to be clear that flexibility works best when it comes
with responsibility. People should know what the opportunity is,
what it pays, what is expected, and when it will be paid. Compa-
nies using these tools should be transparent and should protect
against fraud and abuse. I support clear, practical rules that small
businesses can understand and follow without gray areas, without
pages of legal interpretation, and without needing a lawyer just to
know what the rules mean.
From my perspective as a small business owner, the real ques-
tion is not whether every person should fit into one single model.
The real question is whether policy will leave room for lawful, flexi-
ble arrangements that work for both small businesses and the peo-
ple who choose to engage with them while still keeping the rules
clear and understandable.
I also want to say how grateful I am to the SBA. I would like
to take a moment to thank you for helping get my company
through COVID. As you can imagine, most of our clients have cus-
tomer-facing locations and as they were closing up, we got a lot of
emails saying we have to stop doing research. We don’t have any
customers right now, we have to stop doing research. I lost 80 per-
cent of my revenue in 10 days and I can’t tell you how helpful it
was to have COVID relief, EIDL loans, PPP, all the things that the
SBA helped to usher in to keep us going and to encourage us to
try to stay in business. And now that we have come out of COVID
and we are growing again and our clients are growing again, the
SBA enabled a competitive working capital loan for us while we are
growing again. So I would just like to especially thank the SBA for
that.
For small businesses, app-based platforms are not a luxury. They
are practical tools that help us grow, compete, and adapt. Pre-
serving room for lawful, flexible arrangements while promoting
clear rules and responsible practices will help more small busi-
nesses succeed.
Thank you so much.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Rosa Thurnher for her 5-minute opening re-
marks.
STATEMENT OF ROSA THURNHER, OWNER, AZTEC TRAVEL
INC. DBA EL PONCE ON BEHALF OF THE INDEPENDENT RES-
TAURANT COALITION
Ms. THURNHER. Thank you, Chairman Williams, Ranking
Member Velázquez, and members of the Committee. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify. My name is Rosa Thurnher. I own El
Ponce Mexican Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, and I am a proud
board member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition rep-
resenting more than 500,000 independent restaurants and bars
across the country.
I am here to talk about the delivery marketplace as that is what
pertains to my business strongly. There are three core problems for

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independent restaurants. First, the costs are very high, too high
and unpredictable. Second, we have lost control of our customer re-
lationships. And third, the system is not transparent or competitive
and the data that drives it is not shared with the businesses that
depend on it.
Those three things together are putting independent restaurants
in a very fragile position. Restaurants like mine operate on mar-
gins of 4 to 6 percent in the best of times. Today, every major cost
is up food, fuel, labor, rent, insurance, and credit card fees. And on
top of that, delivery platform fees can reach as high as 30 percent.
That is not a small pressure. It fundamentally changes whether a
restaurant can survive. So we are forced into impossible decisions:
raise prices and risk losing customers or absorb the cost and erode
our businesses. Across the country, operators are shrinking por-
tions, changing menus, and stretching staff, not because we want
to, but because we are trying to stay open.
At the same time, we have lost control over one of the most im-
portant parts of our business, our customers. When someone orders
through a delivery app, I don’t know who they are. I can’t contact
them if something goes wrong, I can’t invite them back, and I can’t
build loyalty. The platform owns that relationship, not the res-
taurant. In today’s economy, data is currency, and that data is
being withheld from the very businesses creating the value. With-
out access to our own customer data, we can’t build relationships,
make informed decisions, or compete on a level playing field.
And then there is visibility. Whether a customer sees my res-
taurant often depends on whether I am paying for promotions, of-
fering discounts, or meeting performance metrics that I don’t fully
control. When I stopped paying for advertising, my sales dropped,
not because demand disappeared, but because I was no longer
being shown to customers. That is not a level playing field. It is
a system where access to your own customers is conditional.
There are also real operational consequences. Drivers are often
working across multiple apps at once, which leads to delays and
poor customer experiences. When food arrives late or in poor condi-
tion, the customer blames the restaurant even though we don’t con-
trol the delivery. And many of us are dealing with unauthorized
listings, menu scraping, and misuse of our brands online. These are
issues we didn’t agree to and cannot easily fix.
Meanwhile, this is a rapidly growing market worth tens of bil-
lions of dollars. But independent restaurants are not sharing fairly
in that growth. Instead, we are absorbing more cost while a small
number of platforms gain more control. That is why transparency
matters.
Recently, the FTC announced it is exploring a potential rule-
making on delivery fee transparency. From where I sit, that is long
overdue. Right now, we are navigating complex and constantly
shifting fees without clear disclosure or real leverage. It makes it
extremely difficult to plan, to price or to understand what we are
actually paying. The Independent Restaurant Coalition strongly
supports this effort and will be submitting comments. Delivery can
and should be a part of a healthy restaurant ecosystem, but only
if the marketplace is fair, transparent, and competitive.

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Independent restaurants are one of the largest employers in the
country. But more than that, we are deeply rooted in our commu-
nities. When you spend money at an independent restaurant, that
money stays local. It supports workers, farmers, and small busi-
nesses nearby. That is very different from a system where more
and more value is extracted out of communities and consolidated
into a handful of large technology platforms.
Restaurants are also more than places to eat. We are gathering
spaces. We are part of the cultural fabric of our neighborhoods.
And in moments of crisis, whether it is a pandemic, a natural dis-
aster, or a community need, restaurants are often among the first
to step up and serve. But those contributions depend on businesses
that can actually sustain themselves. Right now, too many cannot.
Thank you for having me and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
Now we move to the member questions under the 5-minute rule.
Ms. Sharp, in this Committee we have had time and time again,
we have heard time and time again about how overly burdensome
regulations constrain small businesses. These same regulations cre-
ated red tape that limits individuals’ opportunities turn flexible in-
come, particularly for gig and platform and entrepreneurs. The
Trump administration has prioritized removing these barriers, in-
cluding changes to the independent contractor definition, no better
support gig and platform-based entrepreneurs. Further, President
Trump’s working families tax cuts are bringing more money back
into Americans’ pockets.
So my question from your point of view, how have the policy
changes like this directly benefited gig entrepreneurs and the plat-
forms that support them?
Ms. SHARP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The changes to the De-
partment of Labor rule is welcome news for independent workers.
And Flex supported this commonsense change largely because it
streamlined the complicated and multifactor test of the previous
administration into one that was clear and simple for both busi-
nesses and workers to understand.
There has been quite a bit independent research about the
changes that California had, which were some of the most strin-
gent in the nation, about worker classification. And the research
showed that after California required more people to be classified
as employees, total income for independent workers dropped by 10
percent without a corresponding increase in traditional employ-
ment. And so there is very clear evidence that it hinders the ability
to work flexibly in the way that is so crucial and important to this
population of workers.
We do see through survey data that independent workers prefer
to be independent contractors by overwhelming margins, some-
where between 77 and 85 percent at various times. And 90 percent
of app-based workers choose the work specifically because of the
flexibility. So we are very grateful to the Department of Labor for
its new rule and thinking through what will be—what will help
workers feel like they are supported and not have the rug pulled
out from under them.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Ms. Alvarez Acevedo, small businesses
often face challenges when it comes to hiring, managing costs, and

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scaling up operations. Many of you touched on that and the gig
economy and the use of apps-based platforms over an alternative
providing flexible demands and access to talent. Now, based on
your experience, how has using the gig economy through DoorDash
helped Joyce Florist adapt to the changing needs of the business?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Well, for—thank you, Mr. Chairman.
For us in particular, it has really helped us. It has really helped
grow us. It helps us get our deliveries out in a quicker timeframe.
And we also have the opportunity to continue to bring in a new
customer base because we have new people using the app that
didn’t know us before. And so it really is important to have our
Dashers because they are able to come in, pick up those arrange-
ments, and get them there within the hour, usually within about
30 minutes, opposed to us routing those deliveries and getting
them out, which takes half a day because we have several going
out at the same time. And so using DoorDash, we are able to get
those out immediately.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Okay, thank you.
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Thank you.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Ms. Buxton, throughout our nation’s his-
tory, small businesses have grown by adapting to change and find-
ing new ways to compete. And today, the gig economy continues to
transform how small businesses and entrepreneurs operate as a
whole. So my question is, as someone who is successfully adapting
to this shift, can you describe how your business has embraced gig
entrepreneurs and the impact that it has had on your operations
and your growth?
Ms. BUXTON. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the
question.
The gig economy has helped our growth because we are a small
business, but we serve large companies. A lot of large companies
want to work with small business because we are nimble, we have
new ideas, we innovate, but a lot of times we don’t have access to
all of the people that are needed. So we have been able to grow by
using various consultants, fractional CFO. We can bring on a
project manager for a project that we only need for a couple of
weeks.
So now, for example, instead of having to do work for a client all
year round, we can do work for them for 2 weeks for a quick in-
and-out type of project, which is really very helpful to our clients
and it has helped us grow our business. We would not have been
able to make those investments in employees in advance without
having the projects coming in. So the gig economy has really helped
us get access to capabilities.
Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you. And my time is up.
And I now recognize Mr. McGarvey from the great State of Ken-
tucky for 5 minutes.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, appreciate that.
And Ms. Sharp, I am going to start with you. You know, obvi-
ously, in my home State of Kentucky, there is a lot of people who
use the gig economy and use it to have meaningful employment ca-
reers and opportunities that they enjoy. I was looking at some of
your information for your company and my question is, I am curi-
ous, what percentage of the gig workers are full-time? Not nec-

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essarily like 40 hours a week for Uber or DoorDash or whatever
app is their main source of income, but what does that full-time
worker look like?
Ms. SHARP. Thank you, Congressman. That is a great question.
We see through extensive survey data and conversations with
workers that about 80 percent of workers work fewer than 20
hours per week, 65 percent work fewer than 10 hours per week.
The average tends to be between 8 and 10 hours per week. And we
see that people are often combining multiple different income
streams and using this income to sort of reinvest in other busi-
nesses or think about developing the entrepreneurial skills that
they will need in other contexts. We often see people who have a
traditional full-time job and also are augmenting their income or
they are supporting something——
Mr. MCGARVEY. That is what I have seen. And so it is about
20 percent.
Ms. SHARP. Twenty percent work 20 or more hours per week.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Right.
Ms. SHARP. But even that is not—of that 20 percent, it isn’t all
full-time.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Yeah. So we are about 20 percent. And do you
know what percentage of those full-time gig workers have health
insurance? Do you keep that kind of information about your work-
force?
Ms. SHARP. Yes, to some extent. It is a variable workforce by
definition. This is a workforce that is often transitional and jump-
ing in and out of doing independent work.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Ballpark figure.
Ms. SHARP. Ballpark is a little over 50 percent, though, again,
that fluctuates. We often see people who are working in this indus-
try that have spouses that have a traditional job that also have
other sources of income besides their gig income. And so it does dif-
fer.
Mr. MCGARVEY. And that is what I am getting at is, right, if
you have got about 50 percent who have health insurance, they
might be on Medicare, they might have a spouse who has health
insurance——
Ms. SHARP. Veterans benefits, et cetera.
Mr. MCGARVEY. Right. So totally understand that. But then for
anybody else, not a veteran, not having a spouse, not having Medi-
care, there is basically only two options, right? They can go and
they can apply for Medicaid or they can go to the ACA Market-
place. And I think this is one of my big fears, especially what we
see in my home State of Kentucky right now. In the One Big,
Beautiful Bill that cut a trillion dollars to Medicaid, largest cut to
Medicaid in our country’s history, the Kentucky Hospital Associa-
tion has already predicted the impact is going to be massive. Thir-
ty-five rural hospitals are going to close. It is going to impact every
community, urban and rural.
And it is not just that, though. There is kind of—there is a dou-
ble hit here. There is the cut to Medicaid directly and then there
is letting the ACA tax credits expire. I have talked to so many peo-
ple and we have been on the phone with people who are in tears
telling us their stories. One of the people I talked to, a woman

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named Ann, she and her husband, both independent contractors,
all right, they have the ACA to keep herself and her family, her
19-year-old disabled son afloat. But when I spoke with her, she
said that the ACA expired, that her tax—her premiums are going
to go from $350 a month to $1,275.69 per month. Talked to another
couple, again, in the gig economy. They are paying 625 per month
before the tax credits expired. Now those premiums are going to
$2,501 per month.
And this is the kind of thing, if we want to have a gig economy,
if we want to let people actually go out and have these sources of
work where they can make income, but we are cutting their ability
to have medical care and health insurance, then we are making
it—not we, the President, President Trump is making it harder to
get by. And the problem is he doesn’t seem to care.
Just the other day he said, and this is a, quote, ‘‘It is not possible
for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, and all those
individual things at the federal level because,’’ quote, ‘‘we are fight-
ing for wars.’’ That is a choice he is making. When he comes to us
and asks for $500 billion to appear out of thin air, but people don’t
have healthcare and people don’t have childcare and people don’t
have the supports they need in their jobs, that is the problem. And
it is going to affect people in the very gig economy that you are
talking about today.
Ms. Buxton, in the little time I have left, I have seen reports that
the hours worked on gig platforms increased in 2025 as the job
market cooled off. Have you seen any increase in registrations for
work on your platform?
Ms. BUXTON. Well, we use multiple platforms to find people to
do research because it is very specialized. We may need people that
have participated, that use a particular brand or like to go to a
particular store or any of those sorts of things. So we have to use
multiple platforms. We have seen an increase in interest since the
pandemic because people went home, worked from home, and they
had a lot of flexibility and now they are searching for that.
Mr. MCGARVEY. And my time has expired. Appreciate that. We
didn’t get to talk about tariffs, which I know are also impacting all
of your drivers. If people can’t—if businesses can’t afford food and
people can’t afford that food, then they are not going to go pick it
up.
Appreciate it and yield back.
Ms. KING-HINDS. [Presiding.] I now recognize Mr. Alford from
Missouri for 5 minutes.
Mr. ALFORD. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Chair-
man Williams and Ranking Member Velázquez.
This Committee exists to champion main street. We say it over
and over again. I hope it is going to sink through because this is
why we are here today. We are discussing one of the fastest grow-
ing drivers of entrepreneurship in our economy, the gig economy.
It is often misunderstood. It is not just ridesharing or delivery serv-
ices. It includes freelancers, online sellers, independent contractors,
and small business owners across nearly every spectrum and sector
of our economy. And at its core, the gig economy is about oppor-
tunity. It allows Americans to earn income, build skills, start busi-

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nesses without the traditional barriers of high startup costs or rigid
work schedules.
For many, it is a first step towards entrepreneurship. And gig
work gives individuals the ability to test ideas, build a customer
base, generate income while they develop their own businesses.
And that kind of flexibility is especially important for young entre-
preneurs, parents, and those transitioning between careers.
I have three grown children and two of them are heavily involved
in the gig economy. They are supporting, self-sufficiently, I might
add, which is great as a parent to see them thrive in the gig econ-
omy. We are seeing the impact.
Millions of Americans are now participating. This is not replac-
ing the traditional workforce. It is transforming it. It is creating a
system that by which individuals have more control over their
time, their income, their future. And I am encouraged that policies
under the Trump administration have supported this growth by re-
ducing regulatory burdens, by clarifying independent contractor
status, and by ensuring that gig workers can keep more of what
they earn.
But we need to make sure that this momentum continues. Con-
gress should be focused on preserving flexibility, reducing unneces-
sary red tape, and making sure that digital platforms remain a
pathway to opportunity rather than presenting barriers. At the end
of the day, the gig economy is not just how people work. It is about
how people build something of their own.
Ms. Buxton, I am a former realtor, and I am well aware that
many of our friends on the left somehow consider independent con-
tractors such as realtors, my wife is a realtor, my oldest son is a
realtor, but some see that as exploitative, that they want to throw
up roadblocks to make everyone a W-2 employee. For one thing, it
would be easier to unionize those employees. Can you talk about
any issues that you have had with the restrictive laws around inde-
pendent contractors?
Ms. BUXTON. Yes. My company conducts research all over the
U.S. and so there is the federal law and then 50 other different
labor laws in each state, and they are not consistent with each
other. Particularly there is one called the ABC test, where the B
portion of determining if someone is an independent contractor has
to do with is the contractor providing something that is integral to
your business? Well, research is integral to my business, and I
need to engage research respondents to be part of the research.
But, you know, if they are integral, am I not operating correctly?
I think what happens is the policies are intended for larger, dif-
ferent kinds of organizations in the gig economy and not for compa-
nies like mine. Or like I engaged a pet sitter through Rover to take
care of my pet while I am here. I don’t think those kinds of rules
were built for smaller type platforms. I think everything is directed
at the larger ones.
Mr. ALFORD. Thank you for that answer.
Ms. Alvarez Acevedo, when Joyce Florist started, you did not
have access to the DoorDash or other delivery apps. How has ac-
cess to these new apps contributed to the growth of your business?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Thank you for your question. Our
very first year with DoorDash, we grew 10 percent/. Ourselves,

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grew 10 percent. And they are growing over and over every year
as we continue to work with them. It has definitely been a wonder-
ful opportunity for us. Even in commissions, it is a lower cost that
we pay opposed to wire services that we have used in the past, and
our deliveries get there much quicker.
Mr. ALFORD. Thank you very much. I am out of time. Appre-
ciate you coming here on your own time, your own dime to make
America great again through small businesses, the fabric of Amer-
ica.
And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Thank you.
Ms. KING-HINDS. Thank you.
I now recognize Mrs. McIver from New Jersey for 5 minutes.
Mrs. MCIVER. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank
you to our Ranking Member for holding this hearing today. I want
to thank each of our witnesses for traveling here today and being
with us today, especially on a cold day.
Many people say the gig economy gives workers flexibility and a
chance to be their own boss. But for a lot of modern workers and
small businesses things look really different right now. Right now,
just a handful of large food delivery platforms control who gets
work, customers, and income. As a result, small restaurant owners
are being squeezed and workers have few protections and not much
power to negotiate.
My district, New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District, is home to
more than 1,000 restaurants and thousands of gig workers. They
depend on food delivery platforms to continue to have a thriving
business, find customers, and put food on their own tables. If we
want to support entrepreneurship and economic mobility, we must
make sure the gig economy works for everyone, not just a few. That
includes not just the platforms, but also the workers and small
businesses who keep it going.
With that, Ms. Thurnher, I would love to turn to you. Thank you
so much for your testimony. Just want to give you a few—a little
bit of opportunity to expand on some of the things you talked about
in your opening statement.
One, you mentioned in your testimony that delivery drivers often
work for several food delivery apps just to get by. What does this
suggest about whether gig workers can earn a steady, livable wage
in this system?
Ms. THURNHER. Thank you for the question. I can’t necessarily
speak for drivers, but I can say my experience as an operator,
when I see a driver come in and pick up two different orders from
two different platforms, often they will be flagged to wait for an-
other order, that is going to delay the quality of the first order. It
lets me know that they are juggling this because they have to. That
is an assumption on my part, but I see it over and over again that
they have the two signs in their car window that they are driving
for both. They are juggling orders.
And I think that a lot of the drivers that we encounter have very
different levels of experience. I can say that from a restaurant
point of view, I think that there should be a little bit more screen-
ing, a lot more training. You are dealing with food. We have a lot
of regulation on restaurants because we can—it can be dangerous

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to feed people. You have to know what you are doing, and I think
that that should also go for the apps.
Mrs. MCIVER. Yeah, thank you for that. We have heard con-
cerns about the concentration of market power among a few domi-
nant delivery apps, obviously. Based on your experience, how does
having only a few major platforms affect your ability to run your
business?
Ms. THURNHER. It is a huge obstacle for us, mainly because we
are competing against them for our own delivery. During COVID
obviously, everything went outside of our doors and we signed up
with platforms that we would never have signed up with. So at one
point, we were on four apps; we still are, but those are integrated
into our point of sale, which makes it easier. But four iPads, four
printers, and then those apps are getting consolidated. So, for in-
stance, I have never signed up with Postmates, but my restaurant
is listed on Postmates because Uber has bought them.
I think that there is just not transparency. The customers don’t
know that I am not dealing directly with some people. So I think
the transparency is not there. I don’t have the ability to contact my
customers. I don’t have the ability to mitigate when things go
wrong. And for us, joining the apps, originally pre-COVID was for
marketing to reach new people. And at that point it was about 5
percent of my business. And currently it is now 20 percent of my
revenue. And if I cut those ties, then I lose a large share of my rev-
enue every month.
Mrs. MCIVER. Yeah. As these platforms have become more pow-
erful over the time, have you seen any way different that they treat
small businesses?
Ms. THURNHER. I think they know that we are stuck in a pat-
tern with them. I think that they have huge marketing budgets,
which we all pay for. So, you know, when I see the Super Bowl ad
with a celebrity, it actually hurts me because I think small busi-
nesses are hurting. As far as I know, restaurants are in worse
shape than during COVID.
Mrs. MCIVER. Yeah.
Ms. THURNHER. And so right now we could really use plat-
forms that call us partners to act like partners.
Mrs. MCIVER. That is true. Yes. Thank you so much for that.
With that, I yield back my time, Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. [Presiding.] The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Ms. King-Hinds from the great Northern Mar-
iana Islands for 5 minutes.
Ms. KING-HINDS. So I am from the Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands. And sometimes these conversations
with regards to policy and opportunities are very interesting to me.
I come from a place where there is very limited opportunities and
people right now are struggling to even have any types of income.
We don’t have much of a gig economy to speak of.
And, you know, one of the challenges is that we still live in a
place where direction—we don’t have physical addresses and so
having online platforms like this is a challenge. Most people give
directions like, hey, go down two streets, make a right at the coco-
nut tree. You see that yellow house? You know, and so it is hard
to have these types of platforms. Right?

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And we do have young entrepreneurs. One, his name is Cameron
Atelik, who is trying to develop an app. And I, you know, want this
to be an opportunity to encourage somebody like him to focus on
figuring out how we break into this new industry.
And so this question is for you, Ms. Sharp. How do digital plat-
forms help reduce barriers to entry such as capital requirements,
access to customers, or other administrative burdens for aspiring
entrepreneurs? And in what ways do they support small businesses
beyond just providing delivery or logistics for services? I want him
to hear this so that he can be encouraged to focus on and hopefully
create this type of industry back home.
Ms. SHARP. Thank you for that question, Congresswoman. I
think that you have hit on a couple different really important
things. The first and foremost is that generationally, we are seeing
younger people embrace digital platforms and digital work to learn
entrepreneurship skills so enthusiastically. So the fact that you
have constituents who are doing that doesn’t surprise me.
There are three basic ways that digital platforms support entre-
preneurship. The first is experimentation. Through a platform you
are able to try out multiple different kinds of work. You can jump
on and off at your leisure and work whenever and wherever you
want to, often around other kinds of work. So that is one.
Secondly, it provides a ready, easy on ramp to earn money imme-
diately. There is no waiting, there is no application, there is no 2
weeks before you hear back from a potential boss. You are the boss
and so you learn how to operate in that sense. It used to be many
years ago in this country that people’s first jobs, often in the serv-
ice industry, were things where you learned about the chain of
command. And now we see people learning how to be their own
bosses and how to, you know, do things, like multitasking and eval-
uating the cost-benefit of working with or through different plat-
forms. And those skills of entrepreneurship are so critically impor-
tant.
And then finally, it decreases risk in starting a business if you
have ready fallback income. And that has been crucially important
for people as well.
Ms. KING-HINDS. So I hear you and Ms. Buxton give out statis-
tics and just being industry subject matter experts. And so given
that the CNMI is heavily dependent on the tourism industry, I
wanted to hear what your thoughts are or any data that you have
or experience with regards to areas that rely on tourism—that are
tourism-dependent, right, and how—I want to hear about how the
gig economy platforms adapt to seasonal or tourism industry dif-
ferent demand patterns.
Ms. BUXTON. For me?
Ms. KING-HINDS. Either, both.
Ms. BUXTON. Well, an example for my business right now is
that we work for a very large amusement park organization that
is only open in the summer. So we can only conduct research and
only need to conduct research over a few weeks’ period of time. So
on our end of things, we need to find people who are interested in
going and who would enjoy going.
From the point of view of the person who took on this project,
they would get a free day in the park. They could take their kids.

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They can enjoy it and it is something they do because they want
to, not because they had to, and it gets us access to consumers.
They are actually engaging with a product or a place that really
value being able to go there. So the ability to scale projects like
that or to conduct projects in a short period of time is only possible
because of the apps.
Ms. SHARP. Yeah. And I think the same that, in my 8 seconds
left, the ability to scale up and down quickly and meet demand as
demand changes is really important.
Ms. KING-HINDS. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Cisneros in the great State of California for
5 minutes.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all our
witnesses for being here today.
Look, my Republican colleagues and this administration continue
to talk about how great everything is, how great they are doing.
But I disagree. Things aren’t that great. The economic decisions
from this administration are increasing costs and making life hard-
er for working Americans. There is widespread uncertainty among
small businesses. Last month the Consumer Price Index spiked at
3.3 percent. Year over year consumer sentiment is at a record low.
Small business bankruptcies are up 67 percent. The Fed’s Beige
Book from last week saw shrinking margins and energy and fuel
costs sharply rising. Prices are going up due to tariffs and insur-
ance premiums and healthcare costs are skyrocketing.
The White House staged a photo op with a DoorDash grandma
to tout the so-called wins. But she is hard at work and has a
GoFundMe now to cover her husband’s medical expenses for cancer
treatments. She shouldn’t have to make over 14,000 deliveries for
her family to afford healthcare. But this administration made his-
toric cuts to healthcare and they are about to double down on the
next reconciliation package to cut healthcare even further. They
are looking for ways to pay for an unpopular war and for immigra-
tion enforcement that also hurts our labor market and small busi-
nesses. And even more jarring is the president’s budget hurts can-
cer research funding.
When you look at the gig economy, half of the participants join
to earn extra income. Involuntary part-time work or workers who
want full-time work but are not given full-time hours are the high-
est participants in the gig economy. Twenty percent of those who
took a pay cut, reduced hours, or lost their jobs have turned to gig
work. So a large portion of folks are not turning to gig work out
of choice, but out of necessity, only to make roughly 50 to 65 per-
cent of what they would make in traditional rules. And on top of
that, they are being squeezed by tariffs, gas and energy prices, in-
flation, and increasing healthcare costs. The gig economy can be
great for some, but in the current economic reality, people are hurt-
ing.
So with that, Ms. Acevedo, over 80 percent of all cut flowers sold
in the United States are imported. In 2025, that was $2.26 billion
in imports. What impact did the tariffs have on the floral industry
and on your business?

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Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Thank you for your question. Like all
companies, we are navigating the tariff landscape, and we have
seen the value in our partnership with DoorDash because we are
able to reach more customers. So focusing on designing beautiful
flowers is staying our focus.
Mr. CISNEROS. But have your costs risen? Has the cost of flow-
ers risen?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Yes, they have.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you.
Ms. Thurnher, what was the impact of tariffs on restaurant in-
dustry and on your business?
Ms. THURNHER. Thank you for the question. As an owner of a
Mexican restaurant, pretty much across the board: tomatoes, avo-
cados, chiles, masa from corn, that is heirloom from Mexico, te-
quila, mezcal, limes. Pretty much everything I sell has increased.
I would say our bottom line costs are 35 percent higher than they
were 3 years ago.
Mr. CISNEROS. And so you have had to raise your prices as
well?
Ms. THURNHER. We have had to raise prices. We have had to
cut items from our menu. We have biweekly meetings to look at
what is selling and what is not. So we reduce offerings. We try to
trim where we can. We cut down on waste. Restaurants are very
nimble, but we are being stretched very, very thin.
Mr. CISNEROS. I introduced the Cut the Burden, Keep the Ben-
efits Act, which would allow small businesses to express their con-
cerns directly to the SBA’s Office of Advocacy regarding all govern-
ment actions, including tariffs. They could then assess the impact
of these policies on small business and advocate within the federal
government against these negative impacts. Is this something this
Committee should be considering in support of small business? So,
Ms. Thurnher, would you like to be able to call the SBA and say,
hey, these tariffs are having an impact on my business?
Ms. THURNHER. Yes. I would welcome any opportunity to give
feedback to the SBA on how they can support small businesses.
Mr. CISNEROS. Ms. Acevedo, the same to you. Would you like
to be able to contact the SBA and say, hey, your policy—this is how
your policies are affecting my business?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Absolutely. Our costs just rose by 5
percent.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you very much.
Ms. Thurnher, it is my understanding that independent res-
taurants need stability to operate. What is the impact of incon-
sistent and drastic immigration enforcement actions that damage
property or disrupt day-to-day operations?
Ms. THURNHER. Thank you for your question. I know that our
workforce heavily relies on immigrants from farm to table in all as-
pects of food. So I know that it has been heavily disruptive to sup-
ply chains as well as a community of fear.
Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you very much.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Patronis from the great State of Florida for
5 minutes.

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Mr. PATRONIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank y’all for
being here.
I was in the restaurant business for 30 years. Family is still
there. COVID taught us a lesson. Thank God we opened up in Flor-
ida. But we had a feeling we didn’t know where our business was
going to be because of COVID. So when we opened back up, man,
we signed up for every single delivery service that was available
just to try to scramble, to try to keep the business open. And it was
definitely a culture change for us.
We are an independent restaurant. Initially, the delivery services
were taking a piece of the action, which was not attractive to us.
So we just as soon just let people just order and come pick up.
Now things have changed. So, one, thank you for what I think
you have done to the convenience for the industry. And that was
just more of a statement, not really asking for a response, but I
guess it is probably more towards Ms. Sharp.
Take my mother, for example, 90 years old, still incredibly inde-
pendent. Where do you see the ease for seniors with independence
to be able to leverage these services? I mean, my mom loves
Facebook. She loves texting, but you try to get her an engagement
app, it is probably not going to happen, but I am sure that is a po-
tential market.
Ms. SHARP. Thank you, Congressman. I think that is a really
interesting question to raise, and I think I would answer it in two
ways. First, there are sort of many user interface things that plat-
forms have tried to institute to make it as easy for consumers as
possible. So you might go back with your mother and work with
her to see.
Secondly, I would say that within rideshare and delivery, there
are increasingly options where you can order for a family member
or——
Mr. PATRONIS. Oh, yeah.
Ms. SHARP.—sort of have deliveries in that sense. And part of
the benefit of this industry is that it has truly increased accessi-
bility for those elderly or with disabilities. It has truly lessened the
problem of food deserts and access in rural areas. So there are all
kinds of things that you raise there.
Mr. PATRONIS. Where do you see evolution of delivery through
automation, say, with drones?
Ms. SHARP. Oh, that is a great question. So we see that there
is opportunity for interaction between automated vehicles and the
human populations of deliveries and drivers, and largely that is be-
cause the automated vehicles can take over some of the things that
are less attractive for humans to do. So the short, routine, lower
paid tasks can be taken over by drones or automated vehicles while
saving the longer, more complicated, higher paying rides for human
drivers. And we do see that happening.
I also will note that while there is such experimentation and in-
novation going on in the AV industry right now, we are nowhere
near being able to use those things at scale. And so there will, for
the immediate and even longer term future, there will be real com-
binations. We think of it as multimodal and the ability to extend
the delivery radius, extend the opportunities for workers.

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Mr. PATRONIS. And then this probably is just more or less a
comment. As a parent who has children that definitely are more
technologically savvy than I am, I think it is what it is. You can’t
give the kid a credit card on this app because of the abuse they
will go through. It is just too easy to order DoorDash and they
abuse the hell out of it, Mr. Chairman. And next thing you know,
you have got $200 worth of charges on your credit card and you
are thinking your credit card has been stolen. No, it is your child
just got ahold of it.
So I know this is not uncommon in the industry. I know you are
laughing, but this is obviously something that I feel like, you know,
when it is time to call to try to change some of these settings or
circumstances, you know, a little more consumer-friendly because
the parents call bent out of shape and a lot of times it is like—I
don’t know, it is frustrating. I feel like sometimes, I know it is cap-
italism, but it is also, you know, a need to kind of work with par-
ents, too. I guess I am probably just more venting than anything
else.
Ms. SHARP. Well, as a parent of a middle and high schooler, I
sympathize with you, Congressman. But as an advocate of all of
the opportunities that platforms offer for partner restaurants and
shops, workers, and consumers, I can’t say that I am going to want
to stop consumer demand.
Mr. PATRONIS. I understand. Just think I should point it out.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ranking Member Velázquez from the great State
of New York for 5 minutes.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Thurnher, I heard your restaurant has gone from getting 5
percent of your business from apps to now 20 percent. My question
to you is, is it feasible for you to provide customers with an option
to place delivery orders directly through your restaurant’s website?
Ms. THURNHER. Thank you for the question. Yes, we did build
our own website during COVID and we compete against the apps.
So if you search for Mexican delivery, you see apps no matter what.
If you search for El Ponce, you see the apps first.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. What more can app companies do to promote
a diverse range of options such as directing more traffic to newer
independent restaurants to help them compete?
Ms. THURNHER. Well, I think part of the problem is the algo-
rithm that is used within the apps. We have a lot of metrics that
are a little bit unfair in my opinion to small operators. If we don’t
have pictures on all of our items, if we don’t have the app on all
of the time, there are things that push us down and we don’t re-
ceive the Most Loved status which would push us to the top. If we
don’t spend marketing ads within the app, we are not at the top.
So we continually get pushed down.
I think what they could do is make it more fair, cater to people’s
choices. You know what your customers are looking for. You could
just give them clear options that don’t rank based on pay to play.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Do the apps’ marketing efforts sometimes con-
flict with yours?

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Ms. THURNHER. Yes, definitely. We are trying to do Google Ads
now. I feel that we are paying to be on a platform that is using
our funds, that we make them to advertise against us and that
feels unfair.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Can you talk to us about methods that you
have seen third-party delivery app companies using to grow their
share of the food delivery market?
Ms. THURNHER. Well, I think it is very similar to rideshare,
and I am a victim of this. You put your card into a platform and
you feel kind of like that is the option. You open up your phone
and you automatically default to whoever you have given your in-
formation to. I know not everyone wants to put their card in a mil-
lion apps, so I understand that, but they do have subscription mod-
els and passes where people get free delivery discounts. And so I
feel that the subscription model is locking people into a platform
that we can’t compete against the budget of the marketing that
they have.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Thank you. Ms. Sharp, with DoorDash and
Uber Eats commanding almost the entire third-party food delivery
market, less visibility on these apps can be financially devastating.
How do app companies work to ensure restaurants have opportuni-
ties to rectify any issues before their listing drops down in search
results or their storefront is deactivated?
Ms. SHARP. Thank you, Congresswoman. I appreciate the oppor-
tunity to provide a different perspective on some of these things be-
cause I do think it is important to have both perspectives as you
are considering an issue.
In some of the issues that have been raised so far, there has been
a focus on particular impressions or reactions that a particular res-
taurant has had. And I do want to point out that these are market-
places and marketplaces need to appeal to the worker, the res-
taurant partner, and the consumer at the same time. And so they
are constantly working to ensure that restaurant partners are
happy.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. But let me ask you a question. How do you
rectify for a restaurant that might not be at fault because the de-
livery guy was not able to deliver it on time, or maybe deliver at
all, maybe they didn’t find the address? Then you are going to pun-
ish the restaurant because the person who made the order was not
satisfied.
Ms. SHARP. There are a couple different ways. There are hot-
lines available to both workers and to restaurants to be able to
communicate and there are in app communication tools. There is
also extensive transparency up front about what the tiers and pric-
ing are for different tools within the marketplace. So every res-
taurant is free to pick and choose the things that work best for
their restaurant if a restaurant hasn’t hit on the particular com-
bination of things that will make them most successful. So we are
happy to work with them to improve that.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. So that is a real issue right now. I hope that
you are looking at it and seeking solutions that benefit everyone.
Ms. SHARP. It is absolutely to everyone’s benefit that these mar-
ketplaces appeal to all of the participants.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady’s time is up.

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I now recognize Mr. Meuser from the great State of Pennsylvania
for 5 minutes.
Mr. MEUSER. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you to our wit-
nesses very much for being here with us.
The Trump administration has taken many meaningful steps to
protect the gig economy and its workers by eliminating tax on tips,
for instance, and rolling back the Biden era $600 reporting thresh-
old on gig transactions. American businesses and employees of
yours can keep more of what they earn while contributing mean-
ingfully to the U.S. economy.
So I will just start with you, Ms. Sharp, if I can. Can you de-
scribe any federal policies or regulations that you believe are hin-
dering or would help the growth of the gig economy and gig entre-
preneurs?
Ms. SHARP. Two that you hit on, Congressman, are critically im-
portant and that is the industry is enthusiastically supportive of.
And one is no tax on tips, which allows tipped-based workers to de-
duct up to $25,000 in taxable income resulting in app-based work-
ers paying lower taxes. We did around Tax Day, a quick poll of
app-based workers and found that of those who knew about the
policy, 69 percent saw savings and 47 percent saw substantial tax
savings. As a result of that policy. So that is one that has been in-
credibly helpful.
Secondly, the second thing you raised is the Department of La-
bor’s new proposed rule regarding independent contracting, which
dramatically streamlines the complexity of worker classification
rules and ensures that app-based workers and other kinds of inde-
pendent workers are free to pursue the flexibility that is so impor-
tant to them.
Mr. MEUSER. That is great. Do you think that has motivated
them to work more as well?
Ms. SHARP. I mean, I think that there is a general trend in our
society right now to have more than one source of income and sort
of multi-earning and it is encouraging that kind of entrepreneur-
ship. We see, particularly with younger millennials and Gen Z, that
there is real enthusiasm for having more than one source of income
and building that ability to be their own boss.
Mr. MEUSER. That is great. That is great. I want to ask you
this as well. You really just hit upon it, how well the raising of the
threshold for the gig economy.
Ms. Acevedo, let me ask you, the Department of Labor under the
Trump administration advanced the rule to provide greater clarity
around independent contractor status. Can you explain why clear
and flexible worker, excuse me, classification is so important for gig
entrepreneurs who value independence and control over their
schedules?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Well, I think the flexibility alone
makes a big difference. For us personally, we are able to—even
with our own customers, when they call in and they want some-
thing to go out quickly and our drivers are already on a different
run, we send them through DoorDash to be able to pick that up
and get it out quickly.
Mr. MEUSER. Yeah.

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Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. So we are really excited to have the
platform and to use it to our advantage.
Mr. MEUSER. Excellent.
As well, Ms. Buxton, let me ask you, if I can, what more could
the SBA be doing, in your view, to help traditional small busi-
nesses owners become aware and adopt the digital tools that that
are can be used so effectively?
Ms. BUXTON. The SBA already does a number of things. For ex-
ample, next month they are having a virtual summit around Small
Business Day and there is a lot of training that goes on during
that. I think a lot of companies are really seriously focused right
now on AI, but they really also need to focus on how they can use
these platforms to grow their business. So I think there is an edu-
cational component either through SBA or SCORE or something
like that.
Mr. MEUSER. That is wonderful. And my last minute, it is inter-
esting how many of your employees or those who work as contrac-
tors in the gig economy become entrepreneurs, start their own
businesses. And in a way, you know, I hate—not for everyone, but
that is what America is all about, we are an entrepreneurial nation
and spirit.
Maybe Ms. Sharp and then Ms. Acevedo, either one of you just
explain how that affects you. Do you lose people? Do you gain new
businesses? Right, if the employees want to do the things on their
own?
Ms. SHARP. Actually, no. We see app-based digital platform
work as a launchpad into entrepreneurship and find it exciting
when somebody learns those skills through a platform and then ap-
plies them in, as you say, a traditional brick-and-mortar business.
I mean, I think that is exactly the essence of the American Dream,
to learn a skill and then be able to advance your career and make
more money because of it.
Mr. MEUSER. Right. They are baking pies, not cutting them up.
So I appreciate that.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Tran from the great State of California for
5 minutes.
Mr. TRAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member, for holding this hearing. Thank you to our witnesses for
being here today.
The gig economy is a major economic pillar of how millions of
Americans work, earn income, and even launch small businesses.
In Southern California, I see this every day. From rideshare driv-
ers navigating L.A. traffic to delivery workers in Orange County to
freelancers building their own client base, this model has opened
new doors for flexibility and small business growth. For many peo-
ple, especially those shut out by traditional employment, gig work
can be a lifeline.
However, we cannot talk about opportunities without talking
about accountability. Before I came to Congress, I was a lawyer de-
fending workers who had been harmed by their workplace. So I
know what it looks like when a company prioritizes growth over
safety and profits over people. I have seen it and fought against it.

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And unfortunately, I am seeing this problem when it comes to the
gig economy.
Over the past decade, we have seen deeply troubling reports
about sexual assault and harassment connected to rideshare com-
panies and on demand delivery services. According to a New York
Times investigation, Uber receives a report of sexual assault or
sexual misconduct in the United States every 8 minutes. California
alone has been the site of some of the most high-profile cases in
this litigation. In its most recent safety report, Uber acknowledged
more than 2,700 cases of sexual assault from 2021 to 2022 alone.
Independent follow-up investigations found that many drivers ac-
cused of misconduct remained active on the platform even after
complaints. And just this past February, a federal jury ordered
Uber to pay 8.5 million to a woman who was sexually assaulted by
her driver.
This isn’t just a consumer safety issue. Gig workers also face as-
sault, discrimination, and harassment on the job, and they also de-
serve protection. But many operate without the basic safeguard
that exists in traditional workplaces. I am all for supporting inno-
vation, flexibility, and entrepreneurship that gig workers create.
But a business model built on flexibility cannot double as a shield
from accountability.
The persons who show up at your door should be who they say
they are. Their background should be properly vetted. And if some-
thing goes wrong on either side of the equation, the company that
profited from that transaction needs to answer for it. That is not
anti-innovation. This is basic consumer protection. And if these
companies can’t do both, then Congress needs to make sure they
do.
Ms. Sharp, millions of Americans use gig platforms every day for
rideshares, food delivery, and furniture assembly. But we have
seen serious safety failures, including sexual assault cases. What
standard background checks do your member companies require?
And also, are those checks continuous or just a one-time screening?
Ms. SHARP. Thank you, Congressman. I appreciate you raising
the issue. And I think that we can all agree that even one sexual
assault is too many.
Our industry prioritizes very much the safety of all participants.
As a marketplace that needs to maintain and attract the business
of everyone involved, we find that we are constantly looking at
ways to improve the safety and accountability of the platforms in
everything from driver and rider matching interactions where you
have to ask the person’s name when you get into a car to an emer-
gency button that connects through GPS directly to emergency
services in the case that something goes awry. As digital platforms
and technology platforms, we are constantly iterating and con-
stantly looking at those things.
In terms of background checks, we want to ensure that all driv-
ers are verified and authenticated as much as possible. And every-
one has to have a driver’s license and a background check in ad-
vance of going onto a platform. And then we work continuously to
spot check as necessary and continue taking feedback from con-
sumers, feedback from drivers, feedback from riders in order to im-
prove those systems.

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Mr. TRAN. Thank you, Ms. Sharp. And as a follow-up to that,
we have seen cases where individuals credibly accused of mis-
conduct were able to continue working or simply join a different
platform. That is really troubling to me. What systems are in place
across all of your member companies to flag and remove bad actors
and to prevent them from simply moving to another platform?
Ms. SHARP. Every platform has extensive verification and au-
thentication processes and we very carefully try to ensure fairness
in deactivation for both riders and drivers.
Mr. TRAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize for the second time, we talked about you before
you got here, Congressman, Congressman Fuller, our new member
from Georgia, for 5 minutes.
Mr. FULLER. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to be part of this
Committee. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues
here, my Democrat colleagues as well.
I am a husband to a small business owner, so these issues are
near and dear to my heart. So I want to turn my first question to
you, Ms. Acevedo. Your business might have saved me when I was
a law student in Dallas and got my then fiancé some Valentine’s
flowers when I probably forgot about that holiday. So thank you
very much.
So your family has been in the floral business for decades there
in Dallas. And in the past, the only way for local florists to expand
their reach was to rely on traditional wire services, a system that
made few people at the top very wealthy, including a current gov-
ernor and former member of this body, but often squeezed small
businesses like yourself who were actually doing the work. So I
wanted to ask you, and I know you may have talked a little bit
about this before, but how has the emergence of the gig economy
platforms disrupted that old model and provided a more competi-
tive, viable alternative for your family’s business?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Thank you for the question and
thank you for ordering.
I think it is—it is a wonderful way DoorDash has brought in just
a really good way of partnering with them and expanding our busi-
ness, as well as saving on those traditional fees. Those fees are
really high and then we have all the other things that come with
it, like membership fees and those types of things. And with
DoorDash, it is one small fee and it covers everything. Not only
does it cover everything, we truly believe that they are our partner.
We had a situation just recently with one of the wire services
where my daughter made a delivery on her way home. And that
delivery, we were told the person didn’t get it, which they did. And
immediately, we received a message saying, you are not getting
paid for this order. In the 2-1/2 years we have been with DoorDash,
we had one incident where we had a Dasher come in, pick up the
flowers, walk out, and then cancel the order. It was our first time.
It was super quick to go to the iPad and call them and say, hey,
we have this situation we have never had before. And they said,
immediately, we are going to pay you for the order. Make another
one. We will send another Dasher, no problem.

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That is a partnership to me and to our small business. And it
makes a huge difference when we really do feel like a partner and
not like an outsider opposed to some of the wire services that we
work with. And on top of that, we are actually exiting some of
those wire services as we speak because our partnership with
DoorDash has been such an incredible change.
Mr. FULLER. Well said. Beautifully said. And let me ask, if Con-
gress were to step in and regulate those platforms that you were
just describing as some want to do, are you concerned that small
businesses like yours would be forced right back into the arms of
those companies that you were talking about?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. It definitely would be. If they were to
stop these platforms, we would have to go back into that harsh sit-
uation with wire services that really don’t partner with us. They
are there to make their money. They are there to—if I could show
you just one of the invoices, it would be horrendous. So it would
really take away from our business.
But like I said previous, our very first year, we grew by 10 per-
cent just using DoorDash. And we continue to grow every quarter
just using DoorDash. And on top of that, our deliveries get there
super quick.
Mr. FULLER. Always important, especially when husband for-
gets or something like that, so. And it sounds like from your testi-
mony, the partnership that you are describing is a free enterprise,
voluntary, strategic decision that you are making to reallocate your
workforce to serve in-store customers during rushes. Would you
agree with that?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Absolutely. It also helps us employ
even more people. During last year when we first started—or 2
years ago when we first started with them, we had to actually turn
the machine off because we could not keep up. And we were super
excited, but we couldn’t keep up. And then we were able to plan
better, have more people come in just to handle the DoorDash part
of our business, which, again, grew us by 10 percent in just 1 year.
Mr. FULLER. Amazing.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. Thank you.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Olszewski from the great State of Maryland
for 5 minutes.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
Ranking Member. And I want to thank all of our witnesses for join-
ing us today.
As we all know, the rising cost of living and a sluggish job mar-
ket is pushing more and more Americans to jump into this gig
economy that we are talking about today. We know it is also chal-
lenging business owners like those we heard from today, who are
grappling with the higher costs of fuel, labor, rent, and insurance.
Of course, we can’t have a complete conversation on the impact of
rising costs on businesses without mentioning the expiration of the
Affordable Care Act’s tax credits, which we know is exacerbating
the affordability crisis and pushing so many Americans to pursue
second and even third jobs just to pay the bills. More than 5 mil-
lion small business owners and self-employed Americans are cov-

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ered by the ACA. More than 4.4 million of those receive tax credits
worth an average of $1,500.
It is also worth mentioning that gig and self-employed workers,
including the more than 527,000 of those in Maryland, are often
paid subminimum wages while taking on the primary risks and
cost of doing business under the name of their highly profitable
parent companies.
At the same time, we need to consider the impact the gig econ-
omy has on small employers. Nowhere is this more evident than
the restaurant industry working in partnership with food delivery
drivers like Uber Eats and DoorDash. I say ‘‘partnership’’ because
I think it is in the interest of all of us and this country and work-
ers to make sure that that is exactly what it is, partnership be-
tween the parent companies and their drivers and also these com-
panies with their relationship with other small businesses across
the country.
Ms. Thurnher, you raised some interesting points about the im-
pact of delivery apps on already razor-thin margin margins. We
know that restaurants aren’t just job generators. They are commu-
nity gathering places. They sponsor local sports teams, they sup-
port local ag, and so much more. We want to make sure that we
are having a fair, transparent, and competitive framework that ex-
ists for both industries.
And so I will start by asking you, you mentioned a few policies
through your testimony, screening, training, transparency, the abil-
ity to connect with customers. Can you go a little deeper about
what federal policies you think would help create that more sus-
tainable collaboration or what those policies might look like to help
facilitate that environment?
Ms. THURNHER. Yes, thank you for the question. At a min-
imum, I would ask that we focus on three things. First would be
fee transparency. Restaurants and consumers should know exactly
what fees are being charged and why and from whom. No hidden
markups, no opaque algorithms.
Secondly, I would say data access is important for small busi-
nesses to know who their customers are and to be able to market
to them. If a customer orders my food, I should have the right to
know who they are so I can serve them, correct problems, and build
a relationship. The platforms have no legitimate business reason to
deny me that.
And third, a fee fairness. Commission rates should be capped at
a level that allows a business operating on 4 to 6 percent margins
to participate without losing money on every order. Several cities,
including San Francisco, have already done this successfully. I am
asking Congress to extend that protection nationally.
And I am not asking to turn back the clock. We appreciate these
apps. They are integral to our business. I am just asking for a floor
of fairness that lets independent restaurants compete on the merits
of their food and not the depths of their wallets. And while we have
an opportunity with the FTC asking for Congress to make these
rules, I think it is urgent and imperative that we do so soon.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. I appreciate that and I also appreciate it, as
the Ranking Member mentioned, the revenue growth from 5 to 20
percent, so, obviously, a big portion of your business. But you men-

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tioned sort of the fee schedule generally, with these fees accounting
for more and more of your bottom line, I imagine, what is the long-
term business outlook if the existing regulatory framework remains
completely unchanged for your business?
Ms. THURNHER. Well, I can see a decline in our to-go orders.
We had to make a decision to—previously when we first signed up
with apps, we did not have the ability to change menu prices. We
were contractually bound to offer the same prices as in the store.
Now we are allowed to increase, which we have had to do. So if
you order directly from me, you are paying quite a bit less for each
dish. So we are twisting the value perception. Someone could be
very upset that they receive a $7 taco that they can see on my
menu as $4. Those types of things I think erode trust and erode
customer loyalty, which is the bread and butter of restaurants.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. So customers ordering online may be paying
both more for the product plus the service delivery fees.
Ms. THURNHER. Correct.
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Interesting.
Ms. Sharp, with my remaining time, I know DoorDash began a
pilot program in Maryland to help with health, dental, vision, re-
tirement, and paid time off through portable benefits. Can you just
give us a quick update on that and what your response is to what
many say about the program, about it not sufficiently meeting the
needs of healthcare costs and potentially being a way to perma-
nently enshrine contractor status for gig workers?
Ms. SHARP. Well, thank you, Congressman. Appreciate the
question. You are right that portable benefits have been an exciting
new experiment and innovation in your state, so we very much ap-
preciate the partnership there. And you identify portable benefits
are a set of benefits that follow the worker rather than——
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman’s time is up.
Ms. SHARP.—rather than——
Mr. OLSZEWSKI. We will follow up. I yield back my time, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields his time back.
I now recognize Mr. Wied from Wisconsin for the for 5 minutes.
Mr. WIED. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our wit-
nesses for being here today as we discuss the future of
entrepreneurialism, which is what makes our country so great.
You know, from delivery drivers to website developers, freelance
workers provide invaluable services for small businesses across our
nation. Many entrepreneurs are drawn to these jobs due to the
flexibility they offer in determining how and when they work. This
flexibility is especially appealing to younger generations, with over
half of Gen Z participating in freelance work.
Since the beginning of the Trump administration, freelancers
have seen both regulatory and tax relief. These reforms, many of
which were included in the working families tax cuts, were de-
signed to allow hardworking Americans to keep more of their hard-
earned money. Provisions like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime
are particularly beneficial for freelance workers, who rely on this
additional income. And hardworking Americans are taking advan-
tage of that.

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The numbers speak for themselves. More than 6 million filers
have claimed no tax on tips, with an average of over $7,100 in re-
funds. More than 25 million filers have claimed no tax on overtime,
saving an average of over $3,100. These are real, these are tan-
gible, and they are wins that workers across our country can take
to the bank.
So I will start my first question, Ms. Sharp. What benefits are
independent workers seeing from provisions from the working fam-
ilies tax cuts in regards to the no tax on tips? Can you just expand
on that?
Ms. SHARP. Congressman, they are seeing lower taxes. We see
69 percent of people in the app-based industry have reported pay-
ing lower taxes as a result of no tax on tips, 47 percent paying sub-
stantially lower.
Mr. WIED. Oftentimes we think of freelancers, you know, that
work in major cities like here. But could you just tell us about, you
know, your experience with those in rural areas throughout our
country?
Ms. SHARP. Yes, thank you. That is a great question because
there is often an assumption that the digital world operates mostly
in cities. And what we have seen is that it is a pretty even distribu-
tion between rural, suburban, and urban locations. Platforms serve
rural Americans with providing income for somewhere between 20
and 30 percent of all adults that live in rural areas. And these are
meaningful supplemental income supports when options for full-
time work are sometimes limited. So we also see 6 in 10 rural
adults are consumers of app-based platform products and services,
increasing mobility, increasing access to food access and goods, and
saving time by having the goods and services come to you.
Mr. WIED. Thanks.
Ms. Buxton, so gig entrepreneurship is increasingly popular, of
course, among Gen Z and millennials. Can you discuss how digital
platforms like yours lower the barrier to entry to become an entre-
preneur?
Ms. BUXTON. Well, learning how to, as Ms. Sharp was explain-
ing, learning how to operate yourself as a business, how to be re-
sponsible, how to be part of an ecosystem that requires you to ac-
cept what you want to do and then go do it or cancel it if you are
not going to do it. So it creates an opportunity for people to learn
the ups and downs of being their own business, if you will. It also
gives people an opportunity to be exposed to different industries
that they may not have ever been exposed to or different types of
work as they are researching what they may want to do, and they
may actually find that there is a way for them to make something
better, and then they go out and make it better from there.
Mr. WIED. Very good. Well, thank you all for this great discus-
sion.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Scholten from the great State of Michigan
for 5 minutes.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much
to our witnesses here today.

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Ms. Thurnher, your testimony highlights several challenges of
participating in the gig economy. As a restaurant owner, you note
that having your business on multiple food delivery platforms is a
defensive business strategy, more a matter of survival than choice.
I know you have gone over this, you know, in the question and the
testimony today, so thanks for bearing with me. But if you were
to advise a new restaurant owner on navigating food delivery apps
today, what would you tell them based on what you have learned?
What would your advice be to them?
Ms. THURNHER. Thank you for that question. I do give people
advice. There are, outside of just delivery, there are ghost kitchens,
there is catering. The apps want us to allow people to order from
their table in the restaurant through the app. I am not sure why,
but there is just this encroachment on data. And I advise people,
like, whatever you can do to set up your own platform so that you
can target and market to your customers, to do that. The reality
is we do need to participate with these apps. They own the market
share. 99 percent of delivery orders are ordered through these par-
ties.
So I advise them to look at what they can afford to do. What are
your highest margin items? Don’t put your full menu on the apps.
Make sure that you are accounting for the containers that every-
thing has to go in, because that is another expense that we don’t
have in the dining room. And to just make sure that you have to
test things that they could sit for 45 minutes before someone eats
them and not be unsafe or ruin the quality.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Right, right. Great, great advice. There is also
a lack of transparency with these platforms that make it difficult
to plan for the long term and grow your business. Many platforms
have unforgiving algorithms resulting in deactivations of busi-
nesses or delivery workers if they are rating fall below a certain
threshold, which again, are not clear. Right?
Given the nature of these algorithms, how would having access
to information, including this customer data, benefit your business
and the ability to navigate these services?
Ms. THURNHER. I think that customer data is key. We do our
own delivery and pickup, which actually DoorDash and Uber fulfill
through our point of sale for a flat fee. So I feel like that is a much
fairer system. I can call my customer. I don’t know that there is
a problem unless they call the store.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Yeah.
Ms. THURNHER. So I find out maybe 2 or 3 days later that
something was missing from an order. Two or 3 days later is too
late. So when a customer is upset and hungry and they don’t get
what they expected, we try to mitigate that immediately or we
would lose that customer.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Mm-hmm. Great. We know the cost of goods
for families and small businesses continue to rise due to tariffs and
inflation.
Ms. Thurnher, again, do you typically have to raise your menu
prices on the app to cover their fees? And if so, do you worry about
reducing the number of orders you receive or suppressing your list-
ings on the app if you have to raise your prices, you know, due to
this?

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Ms. THURNHER. Yes. I mean, that is very clear within the
metrics of the categories that push you up to the highest visibility.
If your pricing is not the same as your menu, then you are pushed
down, and that is a pretty clear policy. However, we would be out
of business if we didn’t add prices to our menu items. I don’t see
how we could sustain. We have 4 to 6 percent profit margin. If we
are giving those fees directly to them and absorbing that with the
volume that we do, there is absolutely no way we would survive.
Ms. SCHOLTEN. Yeah. Thank you.
I yield back.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Jack from the great State of Georgia for 5
minutes.
Mr. JACK. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And be-
fore we begin, and I also want to thank, I should say, our witnesses
for your testimony today.
Before we begin, I want to recognize from my district, we are
talking about apps today in the app-based economy. We should
note sitting behind you are students from Carrollton High School
who won the congressional App Challenge for Georgia Third Con-
gressional District. So to Omar, Wade, Alaina, Juliet, just over
your right shoulders, they are the winners of the App Challenge
from my district and we are very excited for them as they take this
next step to develop new applications. So congratulations to
Carrollton High School. Eight years in a row, they have won.
But if I could start with Ms. Sharp, I deeply appreciate your tes-
timony. And I love learning about the history of industries. And I
am curious what you would cite as kind of the dawn of the app-
based industry. And I am incredibly impressed with its rapid, rapid
growth and the future it holds. But I am curious what you would
start—or what you would suspect is the dawn of it? When did it
begin?
Ms. SHARP. Thank you for that question, Congressman. As we
discussed a little bit in this hearing, this is an industry that is on
the cusp of entrepreneurship and has been leading the way and is
not even a generation old. The first app platforms in the delivery
industry was Grubhub 20 years ago and rideshare, Uber maybe 15
or 17 years ago.
And it has taken off exponentially, largely because the industry
and platforms deliver a win-win-win for all of the participants. So
riders, get easy access to mobility and getting where they need to
go. Drivers get flexible income that they can work whenever, wher-
ever, and however they want to. And restaurant partners are able
to extend their delivery radiuses, grow to new customers, appeal to
people that they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to appeal to as
a result. And so the industry really is a marketplace that draws
together all of those different stakeholders in a way that increases
the growth for everybody.
Mr. JACK. Last year we passed the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act
and within it we, and as you have spoken today, included no tax
on tips, especially for app-based earners. Could you share with this
Committee how that has perhaps helped the industry grow and re-
cruit more people into it, knowing that they can receive no tax on
tips?

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Ms. SHARP. We have seen immediate pickup in the No Tax On
Tips Initiative with about 69 percent of participants in the industry
reporting that they’ve seen lower taxes as a result of the policy and
47 percent seeing substantially lower taxes.
Mr. JACK. Thank you.
Ms. Alvarez, I really appreciated your testimony and, frankly,
very inspired about the growth of your business over the last multi
generations, but you think about the growth you have experienced
the last few years because of DoorDash and what it has offered to
you. Twice in your testimony you referenced the challenges small
businesses face with permitting and paperwork and just burden-
some regulations. Could you share with the Committee any per-
sonal experiences with which you have dealt with burdensome reg-
ulations and how best this Committee could focus on alleviating
those burdens for you?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Thank you for your question. We ac-
tually rebuilt Joyce Florist 5 years ago. So we have a new building
and there were a lot of permitting issues. There were a lot of issues
in general with just building the building and delays because we
had more than one person we were working with, that we worked
with several different people within our city. And so it would be
wonderful to have just one person that we dealt with that would
know everything about the entire process.
At one point we waited 6 weeks for one meeting just to have our
building moved forward, closer to the street, which it was not be-
fore. And so just meeting after meeting and just different barriers
that we had. So it would be great to have one point of contact per-
son that we could kind of work with throughout to have the same
information instead of different people with different information.
Mr. JACK. Thank you very much.
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Thank you.
Mr. JACK. And if I could just ask you, too, with respect to
DoorDash, what led you to DoorDash? Was it just the business
model they offered or were there other, you know, applications you
were interested in?
Ms. ALVAREZ ACEVEDO. Well, when we were first approached
about it, we were surprised that they were going to allow us to sell
flowers. We were super excited to have a different avenue. And
then we were also excited that the fees were minimal compared to
wire services. And so we decided to take the chance and we abso-
lutely love it.
Mr. JACK. Taking a risk, it pays off. That is what is the—that
is what is so inspiring about small business and entrepreneurship.
So applaud each and every one of you for your testimony.
And thanks to the Carrollton students for winning our App Chal-
lenge. I will introduce you to you all after this hearing.
And I yield back to our Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Ms. Goodlander from the great State of New
Hampshire for 5 minutes.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
to our witnesses for being here today for this really important hear-
ing.

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Before I got to Congress, I worked in the Antitrust Division at
the Justice Department. So I spent my days thinking about cor-
porate monopolies and the impact of monopolies across our econ-
omy on hardworking people and on small businesses.
Ms. Thurnher, I wanted to pick up on your very powerful written
testimony where you really point out what we are dealing with
here when we think about the market for just the role that these
big corporations are playing in your lived experience and in the im-
portant work you are doing to maintain a small business.
The three dominant American delivery platforms, or U.S.-based,
I should say, DoorDash, just the profits are pretty eye-popping. In
the last 5 years, you point out, we have seen a fivefold increase in
corporate profits from DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. Mean-
while, as you point out, independent restaurants have seen—first
of all, we have lost almost more than 9,500 small independent res-
taurants in this country and we are seeing razor-thin and often
negative margins.
Ms. Thurnher, I wanted to ask you if you could speak to the im-
pact of consolidation in this market on the work that you are trying
to do and your small business.
Ms. THURNHER. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to share.
This is a common problem happening across industry. So it is
really affecting us in our power to negotiate. A free market is a free
market when you have multiple players. This feels like a duopoly,
similar to what is happening with Sysco and U.S. Foods of the
world. We have less and less choices of who can provide us serv-
ices, which they tend to give deals to larger chains to people who
have more buying power. And while I understand that behooves
them, we are the soul of America’s cities. Entrepreneurship is the
heartbeat of America. And if we only want to be left with corpora-
tions, then we can just choose to turn our head the other way. Oth-
erwise, I think that we need some regulation because this is defi-
nitely not a fair market, in my opinion.
Ms. GOODLANDER. So less choice, higher prices. You point out
in your testimony that all three of these massive platforms operate
without any federal cap on commission fees, with no requirement
to share customer data with restaurant partners like you, and no
mandate for pricing transparency either to the restaurants or to
the consumers. Can you just speak to the impact that commission
fees and uncap commission fees have had on your ability to keep
the lights on at your restaurants?
Ms. THURNHER. It has definitely changed many things since,
as I stated previously, pre-COVID, it was a very small percentage
of our business and we viewed it as marketing. And so as long as
it wasn’t a total loss, we were gaining exposure to customers, which
I think is a benefit of this market.customer’s attention.
I do think the issue now is that our costs on everything are much
higher and if we don’t increase our prices to absorb the percentage,
then we will not be able to either offer that service. We would lose
a lot of market share. A lot of new people who move to our area
find us on apps because that is their first exposure. When they are
moving in and unpacking, they don’t want to cook or they can’t,
their kitchen isn’t ready, so they are ordering delivery.

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COVID really put us in a position where that was all of our busi-
ness and then it really got all the customers into this pattern. I
think that you can see in that delivery growth that we just talked
about. Their sales are growing while our margins are shrinking
and our businesses are closing.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Ms. Sharp, I wanted to pick up on just the
sky high and rising costs of gas right now and how your member
companies are thinking about the basic question of whether you
are going to adjust your pricing algorithms to account for rising gas
prices into the compensation that you offer for rideshare and deliv-
ery drivers.
Ms. SHARP. Thank you, Congresswoman. This is an emerging
issue and it is a little early to have full statistical analysis.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Oh, I am not asking for that. Just as a gen-
eral matter, do you commit to—do your member companies commit
to actually adjusting pricing algorithms to account for sky-high gas
prices?
Ms. SHARP. Our member companies already have relief pro-
grams that work with drivers to partner with gas companies in
order to provide deals and discounts.
Ms. GOODLANDER. Well, I see my time is up. Thank you to our
witnesses. I will be following up with questions for the record and
hope we can get your commitment to ensure that your drivers are
paid fairly.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back.
I would now like to thank our witnesses for their testimony and
for appearing before us today. Without objection, members have 5
legislative days to submit additional materials and written ques-
tions for the witnesses to the Chair, which will be forwarded to the
witnesses. I ask the witnesses to please respond promptly.
If there is no further business, without objection, the Committee
is now adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:57 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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APPENDIX

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File and source

File: CHRG-119hhrg63521.pdf
Size: 41,945,733 bytes
SHA-256: 16d781db956a7a2ba0af415ad0b5504727789f16db1e03eb48c654c76db87a42
Our copy: CHRG-119hhrg63521.pdf
Original: www.govinfo.gov