The House Committee on Education & Workforce subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing this week entitled “Empowering the Modern Worker.” This spotlight on independent contracting, with testimony from actual independent contractors, was illuminating and informative. With the Trump administration’s commitment to support the American worker in all its forms, hopefully, this hearing will make a positive difference to the policies and legislation that Congress crafts and votes on, which impact this sector of the American workforce.

Subcommittee Chairman Ryan MacKenzie (R-PA) estimated that 72.7 million independent contractors are part of the American workforce, and that they deserve clarity and consistency in the laws that dictate their livelihoods. MacKenzie acknowledged what decades of presidential administrations of both parties had failed to: The nature and manner of the American workforce have changed, and continue to transform and innovate. As his opening remarks attested:

New platforms, technologies, and business models have transformed the way people earn a living, giving millions of workers more flexibility, autonomy, and opportunity.

 

Whether it’s freelance writers, app-based drivers, or self-employed consultants, these arrangements are helping people find work that fits their lifestyle and goals. In many cases, this flexibility leads to higher job satisfaction and better work-life balance. Unfortunately, outdated policies haven’t kept pace with these changes.

Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) also affirmed the importance of independent contractors in the American workforce and economy.

Independent contractors play a vital role in our economy. Many small businesses are started by individuals who are passionate about something, and independent contractors allow them to pursue their passion while simultaneously investing in local and state economies.

Much of the discussion centered around two bills: The Modern Worker Empowerment Act, legislation currently before Congress that would clearly define and codify independent contracting, and the Modern Worker Security Act, which would open the opportunity for portable benefits to independent contractors. MacKenzie referenced pilot programs or policy changes in Pennsylvania, Utah, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky, which had changed their state laws in order to implement these portable benefits.

Also, enlightening was the detailed discussion about the damage created by the government’s failure to codify independent contracting, as well as the adversarial attacks on the freedom of choice to work as one chooses. American Trucking Association’s Nathan Mehrens, a witness at the hearing, defined these attacks and how shifting standards from one administration to another results in confusion and the stifling of workforce growth and economic viability.

But changing standards from administration to administration pose significant compliance issues for everyone. To ensure that ICs can continue to engage in their chosen vocations, we need legislative solutions urgently.

Mehrens said that passage of the Modern Worker Empowerment Act would be a sound solution to this.

And one such solution is the Modern Worker Empowerment Act which, if enacted, would codify essentially the commonsense framework from the first Trump administration. Make it easier for everyone to know how the law applies.

Witness Kim Kavin, co-founder of Fight for Freelancers, spoke about the deliberate harm done to independent professionals:

Our opponents keep saying it will protect workers by stopping misclassification, but the evidence shows the main effect is hurting independent contractors.

 

Freelance busting now threatens the incomes and careers of tens of millions Americans by way of the federal PRO Act, U.S. Labor Department rulemaking and right now in New Jersey proposed rulemaking that a top labor attorney warns will eliminate every single independent contractor in the state. This is not reasonable policymaking and at this point it’s clear these harms are intentional.

Ranking Member Greg Casar (D-TX) dismissed these assertions in his opening remarks and alleged that this push to codify independent contracting was big corporations lobbying for loopholes. Casar chalked the entire discussion up to “good, old-fashioned corporate tax dodging and union busting.”

Those big corporations always try to sell those loopholes as ‘good for the workers too’.

 

“And that’s exactly what we’re dealing with here today. Huge, profitable, corporations want to create more loopholes through the Congress in our labor law in order to pretend that their own employees are ‘independent contractors’.”

However, expert witness Dr. Liya Palagashvili showed data of the deliberate harm done through California’s law AB5 and its ABC test that is also embedded in the federal Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO) Act and other statewide legislation seeking to restrict the work of independent professionals.

Now, these results are causal, meaning we can definitely say that ABC tests cause these negative outcomes. No other studies to date have found positive employment effects from these laws. The research shows that restrictive ABC tests do not create more work opportunities. They eliminate both independent and W-2 jobs.

Finally, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), author of The Modern Worker Empowerment Act and a former California assemblyman, testified to the toxic nature of AB5 and national legislation that seeks to mimic it. Kiley defined the legislation accurately as,

The government coming in and taking away people’s choices and economic freedom.[…] This law is both politically and economically poisonous.

Ranking Member Casar further dismissed the discussion on portable benefits and tied it to the Republican vote in the House of Representatives on the Budget Resolution.

And here is the hypocrisy in all of this: this week the Republican budget plan aims to take healthcare away from over 13 million American workers. In today’s hearing, Republicans have said that they’re supposedly hosting this so that workers can get a portable benefit. Well, if Republicans vote for their budget bill, millions of these gig workers will lose their healthcare.

This lie about Medicaid being a portable benefit was repeated by witness Laura Padin of the Employment Law Project. Padin’s opening statement was not her own words or expert testimony, but the words of Nicole Moore, President of Rideshare Drivers United and a known union activist. Moore’s words called the concept of portable benefits “fake,” and lumped Medicaid into the list of what she considered portable benefits. 

Padin read,

Congress should not legitimize these fake portable benefit programs. Instead it should strengthen our existing portable benefit programs: Medicaid, Social Security, and unemployment insurance, and promote other real models of portable benefits like union-negotiated, multi-employer health and pension plans.

Naming Medicaid as a portable benefit appeared to be a deliberate misdirect. Medicaid is managed through both federal and state funds, and every state has different standards for eligibility. So, the concept of this government-funded insurance being portable is a misnomer.

During her five minutes of questioning, Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) pushed back on the disinformation from Casar and Padin that Republicans were stripping 13 million Americans of health benefits.

Miller corrected Padin, saying,

You just spouted a Democrat lie. 

 

Americans want benefits for citizens and vulnerable Americans. So I just want to get that out there since we heard that lie spouted again.

Most of the Democrat members directed their questions to Padin, and the framing of the questions reinforced the lie that Medicaid is a portable benefit that Republicans planned to strip in the budget bill. However, Rep. Randy Fine’s (R-FL) line of questioning took a different tack, pinning Padin down on earlier statements that delegitimized independent contracting and gig work.

[S]ome of the testimony is a little bit puzzling. 

 

Ms. Padin: Are you obligated to be an independent contractor? You’re stuck, you can’t quit the job, that independent contracting gig and go get a job? If I’m not happy with the terms of Uber, by law we’re forcing them to stay in that, they’re like indentured servants? Because I don’t understand: full employment would suggest there are other opportunities for them in Florida, [but you say] they’re stuck; [that] we’ve mandated them that they have to work in these horrible conditions that you’ve laid out today?

Padin responded,

There just aren’t those many good jobs out there.

Fine debunked this statement, using the low unemployment rate nationally and in Florida as a case in point.

The data would suggest in 2025 that that’s just not the case.

Where this hearing was most successful was in the independent contractors’ and researcher’s articulation of the reasons why independent contracting is legitimate, attractive, and a financially viable way to work. 

American Trucking Association Mehrens said,

Truckers choose the IC model because it gives them economic opportunities and flexibility. […] Drivers earn good livings, while retaining freedom to decide when and where they work.

Dr. Palagashvili confirmed through research that there was no conflict between W-2 employment and independent contractor work. If anything, the models complemented, rather than competed with each other.

First, not all jobs come in the same size and shape, and that’s a good thing.

 

National data show a steady co-existence of both independent and W-2 jobs, meaning that the two workforces are not in conflict, they operate side-by-side, meeting different needs within a diverse labor market.

What could not be discounted or denied was Kim Kavin’s powerful witness. In response to a question from Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), Kavin shared how she suffered a brutal attack by a mentally ill man who stabbed her and left her for dead. Kavin survived, but was later diagnosed with acute and severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Kavin described how being an independent contractor was her salvation.

One of the things that helped me recover from PTSD was being able to be my own boss, because when you’re your own boss you can control your entire work environment.

 

Nobody is gonna come up behind you in an office, tap you on the shoulder and ask you a question and startle you. Little things like that would be very difficult for me at that time, all day long. But working from home, I could just work. I could write, I could edit, I like to be a writer, you’re right–I enjoy it! I could just do that and I could get better.

Kavin beautifully articulated why protecting the independent contractor model is critical and why having this choice is absolutely essential.

What bothers me so much about what’s going on with this freelance busting, there are so many of us who have stories, maybe not identical to mine, but we have women dealing with cancer diagnoses, that are trying to deal with going to the hospital, we have moms taking care of kids who are in need because they have special needs and they’re looking for flexibility that way, we have members of Fight for Freelancers who are taking care of elderly parents.”

Walberg concluded, “This is an example of choice.”

And choice and freedom are part and parcel of the American Dream.