The Gig and Guard Economy

The support economy rests on four occupational groups that together employ 24.9 million Americans — 16.2% of the total workforce. They are, in order of size: food preparation and serving (13.6 million), building and grounds maintenance (4.5 million), protective services (3.7 million), and personal care (3.2 million). Every restaurant meal, every clean office floor, every guarded lobby, and every child in day care depends on these workers. They are the largest low-wage bloc in the American economy, and they received the largest pay increases.

Food Preparation and Serving is the giant of the support economy: 13,613,490 workers at a median of $34,130. In 2014, this group earned a median of $19,130. In a decade, the median has risen 78.4% — the largest percentage increase of any major occupational group in the BLS data. The increase accelerated dramatically after 2019, when the median was $24,220. Between 2019 and 2024 alone, food service wages rose 40.9%. This is the minimum-wage revolution in one number: a combination of state and local minimum wage increases, pandemic-era labor shortages, and employer competition has lifted the floor of America’s largest service sector from the high teens to the mid-thirties.

Building and Grounds Cleaning (4,496,150 workers, $36,790 median) has followed a parallel trajectory, rising 58% from $23,270 in 2014. Personal Care and Service (3,159,940, $35,110) rose 65%, though its employment actually shrank from 4.15 million in 2014 — largely due to the pandemic’s impact on personal services like hair salons, fitness, and child care. Protective Services (3,654,910, $50,580) is the exception: it starts from a higher base and has grown a more modest 36%, but it includes police officers ($76,290) alongside security guards ($38,370), creating a group whose median obscures vast internal disparity.

The five-year window from 2019 to 2024 produced wage increases in the support economy that are without precedent in the modern BLS data. These are not modest adjustments. They are structural repricings of occupations that had been effectively frozen at or near minimum wage for decades.

Waiters and waitresses saw the largest increase: from $22,890 to $33,760, a 47.5% gain. This reflects both rising base wages and the post-pandemic shift toward higher tipping. The occupation lost 276,000 workers (from 2.58 million to 2.30 million) as some servers left permanently for other careers during COVID — a supply contraction that gave the remaining workers more bargaining power. Bartenders followed at +41.6%, also benefiting from reduced supply and increased tips. Both occupations show extreme internal inequality: a waiter at the 10th percentile earns just $18,500, while a waiter at the 90th percentile earns $62,510. The difference is almost entirely tips, which depend on the restaurant’s price point and location.

Maids and housekeeping cleaners gained 39.5% ($24,850 to $34,660), a group that was devastated during the pandemic when hotels emptied and cleaning services were cancelled, then saw wages surge as demand recovered and the workers who had left were slow to return. Fast food workers gained 34.0% ($22,740 to $30,480), driven by the $15/hour campaigns that have now been adopted by McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, and many others — not out of generosity but because they couldn’t staff their restaurants without it. California’s $20/hour minimum for fast food workers, which took effect in April 2024, pushed the wage even higher in the country’s largest state.

Security guards gained 29.3% ($29,680 to $38,370). The occupation grew from 1.13 million to 1.24 million, adding 115,000 positions as corporate offices, retail stores, hospitals, and event venues expanded their security presence post-pandemic. Guard wages are still low in absolute terms, but the occupation has differentiated: armed guards earn more than unarmed, hospital security earns more than retail, and specialized roles like corporate security or event security can approach $50,000+.

Food service alone employs 13.6 million workers — nearly as many as the entire blue collar workforce of construction, production, and maintenance combined. It is a world unto itself, with its own hierarchy, its own economics, and its own paradoxes.

At the base are fast food and counter workers: 3,780,930 workers at $30,480. This is America’s third-largest occupation by headcount (behind retail salespersons and home health aides), and it is overwhelmingly staffed by workers under 25, workers without college degrees, and workers for whom this is a first or second job rather than a career. The P10 wage of $22,620 represents the minimum wage floor; the P90 of $38,800 represents the ceiling for even the most experienced counter worker. The spread is just $16,180 — one of the most compressed in the entire economy. There is almost nowhere to go.

Restaurant cooks (1,452,130, $36,830) and food preparation workers (888,770, $34,220) occupy the middle, while waiters (2,302,690, $33,760) and bartenders (745,610, $33,530) have medians that appear similar but hide wildly different realities due to tipping. At the top of the food hierarchy sit chefs and head cooks (182,320, $60,990, P90: $96,030) and food service supervisors (1,187,460, $42,010). A head chef at a high-end restaurant in New York or San Francisco can earn well into six figures. But the path from line cook to head chef is long, physically brutal, and survived by few.

The sheer scale of food service employment shapes the entire national wage distribution. When 13.6 million workers earn a median of $34,130, it pulls the all-occupation median down. If you removed food service from the data entirely, the national median would jump by several thousand dollars. Food service is not merely a low-paying sector — it is large enough to define what “low-paying” means for the country as a whole.

Protective services is the most internally divided group in the support economy. It contains two entirely separate labor markets operating under one roof, and the BLS data makes the divide quantitatively precise.

On one side are the sworn officers: police ($76,290 median, P90 $115,280), detectives ($93,580), firefighters ($59,530, P90 $101,330), and correctional officers ($57,970, P90 $93,000). These are public-sector workers with union contracts, pension benefits, defined career ladders, and wages that place them solidly in the middle class. Police supervisors earn $105,980 at the median and $165,050 at P90. Fire supervisors earn $92,430 median, $142,300 at P90. These are occupations where overtime, hazard pay, and step increases can push total compensation well beyond the base salary.

On the other side are the private security workers: 1,241,770 security guards earning a median of $38,370, with a P10 of $29,800. These are the workers standing at the entrance of retail stores, monitoring surveillance cameras in office lobbies, and patrolling parking lots at night. They have no union protection in most cases, few benefits, and career progression that tops out at a security supervisor role ($58,610 median). The gap between a police officer ($76,290) and a security guard ($38,370) is $37,920 per year — nearly the entire annual income of the guard. Both wear uniforms. Both provide security. One earns roughly twice what the other does, largely because one works for the government and the other works for a private contractor.

The protective services group also includes 143,590 lifeguards and recreational protective workers ($33,720) — mostly teenagers and seasonal workers — and 90,180 crossing guards ($37,700). Including these in the same occupational group as detectives and fire chiefs is a reminder that the BLS categories are broad enough to encompass entirely different worlds of work and compensation.

Personal care occupations have undergone the most dramatic transformation in the support economy — not because wages have surged (they have, +65% in a decade) but because the workforce has been declining even as demand grows. Personal care employed 4,154,360 workers in 2014. By 2024, that number had fallen to 3,159,940 — a 24% decline driven largely by the pandemic’s destruction of in-person service businesses and the subsequent inability of many to fully restaff.

Childcare workers (520,180, $32,050 median) are the starkest example. Employment fell from 561,520 in 2019 to 520,180 in 2024, and wages rose 32.3% from $24,230. But $32,050 is still less than what a warehouse stocker earns ($37,090) and less than what a fast food supervisor earns ($42,010). A childcare worker is responsible for the safety, development, and well-being of young children — a role that requires patience, training, and often early childhood education credentials — and earns less than virtually any blue collar worker in the country. The P10 of $22,900 translates to roughly $11 per hour. This is the market telling childcare workers that their labor is worth less than stacking boxes.

Hairdressers and cosmetologists (295,460, $35,250) represent the gig-economy face of personal care. Many are classified as independent contractors or booth renters, meaning the BLS wage data captures only a portion of their actual earnings (tips and cash payments are often underreported). Fitness trainers (303,620, $46,180) are a bright spot, with a P90 of $82,050 that reflects the premium for specialized personal training in high-income markets. But the group overall — including nonfarm animal caretakers ($33,470), recreation workers ($35,380), and residential advisors ($39,180) — pays modestly.

The personal care workforce’s decline is especially troubling because the demand for these services is growing. An aging population needs more home care, more childcare for the next generation, and more personal support services. The labor market’s response has been to raise wages — but not enough to reverse the exodus. At $32,050, childcare is still a poverty-wage job, and until it isn’t, the sector will continue to hemorrhage workers to warehouses and delivery routes that pay more for less emotionally demanding work.