Statistics • Benefits and Social Protection
The Self-Employed Benefits Gap 2026: What Platform Earners Fund Themselves
Updated 8 Oct 2026
The self-employed fund 22–38% of gross income themselves for benefits an employer would otherwise provide; with tax, the total set-aside is 47–68%.
Cite this page
PlatformTaxHub. "The Self-Employed Benefits Gap 2026: What Platform Earners Fund Themselves." 4042 Solutions Group LLC, 2026. platformtaxhub.com/statistics/self-funded-safety-net-2026
The charts and figures on this page may be reused with credit to PlatformTaxHub and a link to this page.
Key Statistics
01
The Benefits Gap and the Total Set-Aside
Benefits an employer would otherwise provide come to 22–38% of gross income; with the tax reserve, the total set-aside is 47–68%.
Health cover
Retirement
Sick pay fund
Disability cover
Benefits gap
22–38%
of gross income
With the tax reserve: total set-aside
47–68%
of gross income
02
Payroll Contributions in the United States: Employee, Employer and Self-Employed
A US employee pays 7.65% in payroll tax and the employer pays another 7.65%; a self-employed person pays all 15.3%.
Each half is 6.2% towards Social Security and 1.45% towards Medicare. The Social Security element applies up to $184,500 of earnings in 2026; the Medicare element has no ceiling, and earnings above $200,000 carry a further 0.9% with no employer match.
Half of the self-employment tax is deductible against income, so the cash effect is smaller than double.
03
What an Employee Gets, and What the Self-Employed Get Instead
In the United Kingdom, sick pay, paid holiday and an employer pension contribution are employee rights the self-employed do not receive; in the United States, no federal paid leave applies to either.
United Kingdom
An employee gets
Statutory Sick Pay from day one of absence, at the lower of £123.25 a week or 80% of average weekly earnings. 5.6 weeks of paid holiday. A minimum 3% employer pension contribution under auto-enrolment.
Self-employed
None of the three. New Style Employment and Support Allowance can be claimed by the self-employed, but sick pay and holiday are employee and worker rights.
Sick pay moved to day-one payment on 6 April 2026.
United States
An employee gets
No federal right to paid holiday or paid sick leave at all; both are employer choices. The employer pays half of Social Security and Medicare.
Self-employed
The same absence of federal paid leave, plus both halves of the payroll tax.
Federal position. Several states and cities require paid sick leave; those rules are separate.
Nigeria
An employee gets
Employer and employee contribute to the Contributory Pension Scheme. In the formal health scheme the employer pays 10% of basic salary and the employee 5%.
Self-employed
Covered by the Personal Pension Plan, which replaced the Micro Pension Plan in September 2025. Contributions split 50/50 between retirement savings and a contingent portion that can be drawn after three months.
Personal Pension Plan guidelines, September 2025.
04
The Position Most Earners Are Starting From
47.6% of the world’s population has no social protection benefit at all.
47.6%
of the world’s population has no social protection at all
Source: ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–26
30.0%
of US private-industry employer costs go on benefits, or $14.07 an hour
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026
70%
of the world’s population lacks comprehensive social insurance, by the ILO’s estimate
Source: World Bank, Charting a Course Towards Universal Social Protection (2022)
About half
of surveyed online gig workers had no pension or retirement scheme
Source: World Bank, Working Without Borders (2023)
41%
of US adults who did gig work in the prior month said their income varied at least occasionally from month to month, against 26% of those who did not
Source: Federal Reserve, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2024: Income and Expenses (2025)
31%
of US gig workers said that without gig income they would have trouble making ends meet
Source: Federal Reserve, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2024: Employment and Gig Work (2025)
Sources
- Benefits gap total: PlatformTaxHub, 2026.
- Context figures: the organisations named on each figure, read on their own pages in September 2026.
- ILO (2024). World Social Protection Report 2024–26
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). Employer Costs for Employee Compensation – June 2026
- IRS (2026). Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates
- World Bank (2022). Charting a Course Towards Universal Social Protection: Resilience, Equity, and Opportunity for All
- World Bank (2023). Working Without Borders: The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work
- Federal Reserve (2025). Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2024: Employment and Gig Work
- Federal Reserve (2025). Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2024: Income and Expenses
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