Gig Workers Need a Solid Floor and Portable Benefits
We can’t let gig-worker protections remain dependent on each new administration’s priorities. We need to experiment with new approaches, from passing strong state classification laws to scaling employer-of-record systems that give gig workers stability.
Platform companies have found novel ways to unravel the sophisticated system of worker protections that American workers spent 80 years building. (Yuki Iwamura / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Gig-economy workers have very few legal rights or protections at the federal level due to a single, endlessly contested question: How do courts and regulators define a gig worker on any given day?
In most states, without their own strong worker classification rules or gig-worker protections, the answer depends heavily on who is in the White House.
Since the rise of platform work in the 2010s, the Department of Labor's definition of gig worker status has shifted with each new administration. The Trump administration has made that pattern explicit again, moving to reinstate and expand its 2021 rules with new provisions that could strip protections from millions of workers, including a new group of workers covered by the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act. The proposed changes would also have consequences for Family and Medical Leave Act coverage.
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