Austin Bannan is a policy fellow at Americans for Prosperity.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Federal Newswire: What is the freedom to be employed?
Bannan: America certainly has a lot of people employed by larger businesses, but we increasingly have people who are self-employed. They control their own schedules to meet their family needs, whether it's a working mother, whether it's someone with disabilities or somebody who wants to start a new career, and they start out with side gigs. We have a lot of small businesses that form from that.
A lot of times there are barriers [imposed by] government policies that get in the way of self-employment.
Federal Newswire: What are your thoughts about decoupling health insurance from employment?
Bannan: For nearly a century, there was the notion that people could get their health care and other benefits through businesses, and incentives were set up to start tying those together. But disadvantages have built up for those who want to get benefits independently.
There really is an opportunity when you look into this. But, there are barriers at the federal and state levels that get in the way. There are employment tests where you can't offer the things that traditional employers get. Because it's not tied to an employer, you can't create the same kind of health benefits and health insurance options. There are solutions if we have enough people to support them.
Federal Newswire: How should we view the income pay gap between men and women?
Bannan: Economists are looking at this purely as what somebody makes per hour. That doesn't account for the lives we lead and all the different things that we value at a workplace. Somebody might want more time off, versus a pay raise. Somebody may instead prefer much higher pay and not having certain benefits mandated upon them, whether it's healthcare or other benefits.
So a lot of times we're trying to look at the big picture, what leads to a fulfilling life, a productive career. It's not just about income. It's about flexibility. It's about opportunity.
Federal Newswire: Do our 1930’s labor laws need to change?
Bannan: I think there's this notion that we all work in factories and we all have local jobs, and those businesses stay in place and we start one place in our careers, and we work our way up the ladder in that one place, almost as a rite of passage. But as we know, there's so much more diversity now in the workplace, where people change careers as quickly as they change their favorite restaurant or anything else in society.
That's something that can be looked at negatively or it can be taken advantage of. We find ways for people to flourish in this diverse world with a lot of technology and opportunities. But, yes, a lot of policy was built around the idea of everybody being unionized under the National Labor Relations Act in 1935.
A lot of the employment policies that govern us today don't fit. They are not responding to the market that we actually have.
Federal Newswire: Is the federal government pushing back against employers or employees who operate under non-traditional work schedules?
Bannan: There's legislation called the Working Families Flexibility Act. It merely allows people who work overtime to choose between accumulating paid leave or getting paid extra instead of time-and-a-half pay.
You could have time-and-a-half vacation, which is what allows federal workers a lot of flexibility. Some people would love that. They would say, ‘I'd love to have two days off next week to do something with my family.’ There are ways to create solutions, even in the current paradigm of what the workplace looks like right now, that would take very minor tweaks and improve things significantly.
Federal Newswire: How have small businesses been impacted by these older policies?
Bannan: There has been a drop in recent years in small business formation. I think it's picking up to some degree because there's such a demand for self-employment. But, pushing against that are a lot of policies that are being implemented, which creates a lot of uncertainty. That's why there's a bad economic outlook among individuals and businesses.
When they're surveyed, they don't feel good about the future because they know that whatever they're doing to survive inflation right now doesn't ensure them that they're going to be successful later. The National Labor Relations Board has put out a number of rulings and regulations that slant each workplace towards union organization.
There's an independent contractor regulation...acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, is promoting this so-called good jobs initiative. Her state of California implemented it, and it has dropped employment significantly in the industries where a lot of self-employed workers were.
California has one of the worst unemployment rates and a higher poverty rate in a lot of places because of their high cost of living and people not being able to meet those needs. People have migrated out of the state to try to continue their careers, and now they're trying to implement that at the federal level, with the regulation coming as far as they could with their regulatory authority.
Federal Newswire: What is the greatest benefit of allowing gig work?
Bannan: Every workplace has certain things that need to be filled in terms of roles, but not all of those roles are intended to be permanent roles. You may not need a photographer for each occasion if you're a venue. If you're a restaurant and you want to have live music, you can't employ a musician full time. You bring people in, they do gigs. If you need some legal help, a small business isn't going to afford a lawyer for a full time salary, 365 days a year. They're going to bring in somebody to help perform a task for them.
This flexibility allows businesses to lean into the expertise of workers for something they don't need full time, and they couldn't afford full time. On the other hand, some of [these workers] choose to leave the workplace because they can't find the employment they need, or that they wanted, if they're not allowed to be independent.
There's another business that needs my services, so it creates enormous flexibility, not only for the workers, but for the businesses and most people are satisfied with this arrangement and in fact, prefer it. The businesses thrive as well. They work with one another, and we lose that as these regulations come on board.
Federal Newswire: What does AFP do?
Bannan: We're a grassroots organization that has millions of contributors around America. We have staff in a majority of states, so we work at the federal and state levels. We're trying to help people realize their potential, trying to uphold the ideals of a free society, making sure that the government is accountable to us, [and] making sure that we control our own destiny.
Federal Newswire: Where can people go to learn about AFP?
Bannan: Go to Americansforprosperity.com. You can see my work there. We also have prosperityispossible.com. We don't want to just talk about the negative dynamics, but we want to show a vision of what we think is possible in America.
