Math Is Hard
25,000,000 - 72,000,000 = a ludicrous freelance-busting result for America's independent contractors.
Back in 2021, I wrote an op-ed in The Hill with the title “PPP vs. PRO: A textbook case of cognitive dissonance in Washington.”
Here’s how that op-ed began:
“Democrats care deeply about me and therefore want to save my small business.
Democrats care deeply about me and therefore want to outlaw my small business.
These are the contradictory messages Americans like me are receiving from Washington, D.C., where President Biden announced last week that the Paycheck Protection Program is changing to better help small businesses like mine. Just two days later, though, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced that Democrats plan to take up the Protecting the Right to Organize Act next week. It’s a bill containing language intended to outlaw small businesses like mine.
You read that correctly. This week, they want to save me, so that next week, they can destroy me.”
It’s now three years later, and we are all back to doing doughnuts in the cognitive-dissonance roundabout, this time with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Earlier this week on the campaign trail, Harris focused on two main things.
First, she promised that if she’s elected president, she’ll make the PRO Act the law of the land:
The PRO Act is the same federal bill I wrote about three years ago. It still contains the same freelance-busting regulatory language that unionists believe will help them rebuild their all-time-low memberships. In a nutshell, it would change the rules so that under federal labor law, if an independent contractor is in the same line of business as any company that cuts her a check, then the company either has to end the business relationship altogether or turn her into a unionizable employee.
This is an outcome most independent contractors do not want. We like being our own bosses. And we don’t want to lose our clients—which is what happened when this regulatory language got a test run in California. Harris supported it back then, too.
The upshot in California was a lot of existing business going bye-bye for independent contractors. This policy decreased self-employment, decreased overall employment, and failed to grow unions. People in more than 600 professions ended up in the crosshairs.
If this same policy were implemented nationwide—which is what the PRO Act would do—it would threaten the livelihoods of as many as 72 million Americans who earn some or all of our income as independent contractors. As a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board wrote:
“This is not a mere technical redefinition: it would substantially unravel and change large segments of the US economy and adversely affect millions of service providers who currently view themselves as independent contractors governed by their own entrepreneurial decisions.”
But fear not, because just one day after Harris promised this week to pass the PRO Act, her campaign leaked the news that if she’s elected president, she’ll create tax incentives for people to start brand-new small businesses:
So, let me try to get this straight.
The plan is to wreck my small business, leaving me with no income, then give me a tax break to start a new business—with what money?—while barring me from doing any business that's in the same line of business as my new business clients.
Okey dokey.
Harris’ plans for independent contractors seem to be based on the economic acumen of Monty Brewster, as played by Richard Pryor:
“Everybody go back to work, because this is a business, and we’re in the business of being in business, and we’re doing business, and nobody’s business. Do it! Business.”
Seriously, doing the math for the whole country, these two policy plans that Harris is touting would create, by her own estimate, at most 25 million new small businesses. At the same time, they could destroy as many as 72 million livelihoods.
25,000,000 - 72,000,000 = a ludicrous freelance-busting result for America's independent contractors.
I know math is hard, but I’m pretty sure that’s what the experts call a big whopper of a net negative.
This Isn’t Rocket Science
High school math drove me crazy. I was a nerd who got good grades, so I routinely ended up in the hardest classes. English, science, art—didn’t matter. They put my brainy butt in those seats and told me it would all come in handy someday.
I remember once getting so confused in calculus class that I leaned over at my desk and looked sideways at the blackboard. Then, I raised my hand to get the attention of Mr. Powers McLean.
Yes, that was his real name. Powers McLean. When he wasn’t in the classroom teaching the foundational elements of differential equations, he was outside teaching the fundamentals of golf. He turned to me, seeming somewhat annoyed that I was interrupting his lesson, and more than a bit surprised that I had a question, or that I was interested in engaging with him on any level whatsoever.
I said something to the effect of: “I can solve these problems, but I don’t understand what good it does for me to know any of this.”
It was sincere confusion on my part.
Mr. McLean did not appreciate my candor.
So, I get it. Math is hard. One of my friends from that class ended up getting a dual degree in mechanical engineering and rocket science. That dude ended up working for NASA. He can build actual things that go where they’re supposed to go in space.
I, on the other hand, grew up to be a writer and editor. While Vice President Harris was out on the campaign trail this past Labor Day weekend, I was on my backyard deck, trying to decipher schematics from China while twisting my torso into ungodly positions as I assembled a table and chairs that arrived in 5,630 parts.
With great pride, I can tell you that when I was done, I only had three washers left over, and I had dropped just one Allen wrench into a muddy grave beneath the deck. All the chairs stayed upright and swiveled properly when I sat on them.
That’s my level of functionality—way different from what’s generally required to be president of the United States—and even still, I’m smart enough to know that 25,000,000 - 72,000,000 = bad.
I’m also smart enough to know that:
I need to make money to pay for things like the table and chairs;
After 30 years as a staffer and an independent contractor in the writing and editing business, I make a lot more money as an independent contractor;
If the PRO Act becomes law, none of my clients will create a full-time unionizable job for me, because I don’t do full-time work for any of them (nor do I want to—I like being my own boss);
At age 52, my odds are pretty much zero of being able to start a new business that will be equally successful in some field that’s unrelated to my current business.
In other words, I don’t have to work for NASA to know that the kind of freelance busting Harris supports is just plain wrong.
No amount of new small business creation will make it any better.
Today’s Lesson
When the government labels independent contractors, it puts us into a category called nonemployer firms. That means businesses with no employees.
Look at how many of us there are:
On behalf of America’s tens of millions of independent contractors—and especially on behalf of all the Gen Zers who say they aspire to hang out a shingle, become their own boss and earn a living as a professional freelancer—I respectfully ask Vice President Harris to stop the deeply misguided freelance busting once and for all.
Anybody who wants to be our president needs to work for all Americans, not just work for the unions.
Being president means respecting our freedom to choose how we earn a living, including if we use our entrepreneurial skills as independent contractors.
It means doing more than encouraging the creation of new small businesses. It also means protecting, instead of attacking, the small businesses we already have—especially the smallest of small businesses, the independent contractors.
You don’t have to be Powers McLean to do this math.
Just listen to those of us who currently own the smallest of small businesses. And know that 25,000,000 - 72,000,000 = bad.
"When the government labels independent contractors, it puts us into a category called nonemployer firms. That means businesses with no employees."
Hmmm. I didn't know that. What part of the government does that? Regardless, it's well past the time when the opposite is known to be true. We and our self-employed colleagues hire about 20% of all hires in the US, as this 2015 report explains (https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/10/22/three-in-ten-u-s-jobs-are-held-by-the-self-employed-and-the-workers-they-hire/).
As for Kamala's contradictions, the same thing is happening here in California. The legislature just passed and sent to the governor for his signature the Freelance Worker Protection Act. Sounds good, it will help us collect tardy payments from creepy clients. But the bill is linked to AB5. Only independent contractors in certain occupations qualify for the help, and even then, most will have to pass as many as 3 AB5 tests before they can even apply for the help.