I don't have any evidence to back this, but I wonder if the proliferation of services like Favor, GrubHub, Door Dash, etc. are contributing to the shortage of minimum wage workers, especially in the fast food industry.

I ran for Favor for a year or so around 2015 and it seemed way better than the typical fast food job. Runners can set their own schedule/there are more hours available, probably make more money per hour, have a better working environment (i.e. it's just you in your car as opposed to being stuck in a hot fast food kitchen), and if you have a kid, you can bring them with you (not ideal for the kid, admittedly, but still).

Also, since runners aren't "employees" of the company (they're independent contractors), they can probably still list themselves as unemployed? Not sure the legality, etc. of that, but I'm sure it happens.

Just spitballin here