There are currently 53 million freelancers working in America today. With the rise of independent service platforms like Uber, Airbnb and Thumbtack, the days of the shirt-and-tie-wearing, 8-to-5-working employee seem to be becoming more of a distant memory.

While this labor evolution is exciting, the government has roughly 20 factors weighing in on the classification of this new breed of employee. This has the potential to hit Mr. or Mrs. Freelancer where it hurts them the most: their compensation and financial security.

“We’re not going to slow this desegregation between employer and employee. So we’ve got to figure out ways to make it work for people better.”
– Senator Mark Warner

Better, at this point, means new – as in a new way of defining, classifying and protecting today’s increasingly independent worker. Noah Lang, Co-founder and CEO of Stride Health, offers a few places to start:

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