From Recode, Marina Gorbis and Devin Fidler discuss the new economy and how old classifications, like W-2 and 1099, are not appropriate to solve the challenges of a new labor economy. They write:
Clearly, we need to ensure that this new category of workers enjoys fair wages and the benefits of the social safety net. However, such protections and benefits should fit the new work realities. The emerging work landscape calls on us to rethink traditional notions of work, jobs and the social safety net. One of the difficulties in thinking about the future is that we often view arrangements and concepts we have grown up with — that is, those within a life-span — as immutable. We tend to think that what we know and have direct experience with is the only way things work, the only way to organize our society.
The new reality will be different, and rather than applying old standards, we need to understand the future on its own terms. Specifically, we need to understand the internal logic of the new platforms, the labor economics that drive them, the design elements that could maximize their positive aspects, and the full array of challenges and opportunities they represent. Now is our moment to step up to the biggest design task the world has ever undertaken: To blueprint for people who work, and indeed to rethink the future of work itself.
Ensuring economic and regulatory infrastructure to enable sustainable livelihoods for citizens is arguably one of the most urgent national issues of our time. Today we have a choice: We can be thrown into the new world of work as castaways, naked, dazed and ill-equipped to cope with the new hostile landscape. Or we can arrive as enlightened immigrants, open to the new opportunities and ready to learn the new culture.
Read the full story at It’s Not About Uber: Beyond the W-2 vs. 1099 Debate
