Removing barriers for the new world of work

By 2025, 1099, gig, self-employed, and contingent workers will make up more than 50% of the American workforce. Despite this growing prevalence, government, financial, and corporate systems have not adapted to these new ways of working. We launched SteadyIQ to combat this blindspot, helping institutions better serve the laborforce - as it is today.

Our flagship VOI solution, the Income Passport, helps partners across industries streamline benefits administration, quantify earnings, reduce fraud, expand access to credit, and increase equity.


How did we get here?

When the pandemic hit, self-employed, contingent and 1099 workers became eligible for unemployment insurance for the first time. Yet, despite being eligible, workers faced significant barriers accessing it - especially accessing it in a timely way.

Historically, the primary method of verification for public benefits was through recent pay stubs or tax returns. By law, 1099 earners are not required to receive a pay stub, and with volatile and inconsistent incomes, their previous year tax returns were typically out-of-date and inaccurate.

The result was that workers applying for pandemic unemployment insurance had to cobble together receipts, screenshots of payments, bank statements, and more. On the other end, state caseworkers had to find their way through this documentation, without anything standardized or uniform to rely on. In the end, state agencies saw their backlogs grow, while applicants waited upwards of 16 weeks or more to receive their benefits.

The pain point became clear: new ways of working require new ways of verifying. 1099 earners need a solution for proving their income that’s as simple as a W2 paystub. We developed the Income Passport to meet this need.