Politicians hate the “gig economy.” The simple reason is that it’s harder to collect taxes from freelancers than from employees. The California Assembly has passed a bill that would put many freelancers out of work, including writers. It would force clients to take them on as employees. That’s very unlikely to happen for the typical writer, who would simply lose the work.

As of this writing, the bill still has to be passed by the Senate. The text of California AB-5 is on the state website.

I’m not a lawyer and (fortunately) don’t live in California, but this kind of legislation could spread to other states. If it does, it will force a lot of writing work overseas, hurting people in every state.
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