> It seems backward that the government, instead of fixing government policy and laws that disadvantage independent workers, wants to force independent workers to become employees so that the government doesn't have to fix anything. It is abdication of responsibility for social outcomes.
Quite the contrary: the government acts to prevent a ruthless race to the bottom as someone who skips e.g. on health insurance or on worker protection laws (e.g. daily work time maximums) can outcompete someone who sticks to the rules.
Especially with health insurance, the government has to pay the tab of those who skip it and then can't pay for the hospital.
> Many gig workers explicitly do not want to become employees, as there are many disadvantages to doing so.
The only reason I see why people want to voluntarily go gig worker is schedule flexibility - they don't want a regular full time or part time schedule because of children, elder care or whatever. And for what it's worth employment regulations should be made more flexible in that regard, but it must be prevented that employers go and abuse it to exploit their workers (e.g. by arbitrarily cutting their hours).
Quite the contrary: the government acts to prevent a ruthless race to the bottom as someone who skips e.g. on health insurance or on worker protection laws (e.g. daily work time maximums) can outcompete someone who sticks to the rules.
Especially with health insurance, the government has to pay the tab of those who skip it and then can't pay for the hospital.
> Many gig workers explicitly do not want to become employees, as there are many disadvantages to doing so.
The only reason I see why people want to voluntarily go gig worker is schedule flexibility - they don't want a regular full time or part time schedule because of children, elder care or whatever. And for what it's worth employment regulations should be made more flexible in that regard, but it must be prevented that employers go and abuse it to exploit their workers (e.g. by arbitrarily cutting their hours).