“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.'”

— President Ronald Reagan, August 12, 1986

One of the most intractable problems in employment law is sometimes knowing whether someone working for someone else is an “employee” or not. Getting that right or wrong can have enormous legal consequences for the worker and the person or firm by whom the worker is engaged. One might think that making such a distinction would always be pretty easy.

Alas, not so. Courts and executive agencies charged with enforcing the law have long struggled with that very question.

The Trump Administration has now weighed in. The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”), on February 26, 2026, published a “notice of proposed rule” (the “Notice”) to “help workers and employers better understand how to determine when a worker is an employee and when the worker may be classified as an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act and related federal laws.” The goal, says the related news release, is to “make it easier to properly differentiate between employees with the protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act and those workers who work as independent contractors.”

The “preamble” in the Notice, which explains why the goal should be attempted at all, is about 135 pages long. That the explanation is so long makes one wonder what to expect of the promised simplicity of the new regulations, which themselves consist of only 11 pages....

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