What effect does lowering net self-employment (SE) income potentially have on a gig worker's retirement planning? Since gig workers pay SE taxes to social security and medicare, they will receive the same benefits as W-2 employees in the same industry. No effect. All retirees get the same social security benefits regardless of their lifetime income. Because SE taxes are calculated from net income, self-employed taxpayers may end up with smaller social security benefits than W-2 employees in the same industry. Generally, self-employed workers get larger social security benefits when they retire, since they are paying 15.3% to SECA instead of 7.65% to FICA