Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist, review the recent proposal to create a new category of worker — an “independent worker” — and recommends severing the connection between employment and the safety net employment current provides. Tim writes:
So here is a far more radical approach: we should end the policy of trying to offload the welfare state to corporations. It is a policy that hides the costs of these benefits, and ensures that they are unevenly distributed. Instead we should take a hard look at that list of goodies: healthcare, pensions, income for people who are not working. Then we should decide what the state should provide and how generously. To my mind, there is a strong argument that the state should provide all of these things, to everyone, at a very basic level. What the state will not provide, individuals must pay for themselves — or seek employers who provide these benefits as an attraction rather than a legal obligation. Call it libertarianism with a safety net.
Read the full story at Tim Harford — Article — An economist’s dreams of a fairer gig economy
