The emergence of Uber UBER +3.7% and similar ride services and the pandemic-induced phenomenon of working from home are changing the way millions of Americans are thinking about work. It’s time for our public policies to change as well.
When the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, members of Congress had a clear idea of what a “job” was. If you had a job, you went to a work site. You were supervised by a manager. All the time you spent there you were “on the job.” Even if a machinery malfunction resulted in down time, during which you were idle, you were still on the job.
From this mental image, time on the job was divided into “hours” and for each of those there was an hourly wage. From that point, it was an easy step to impose regulations. For hourly pay, Congress imposed a minimum wage. For work exceeding a certain number of hours a week, Congress demanded employers pay time-and-a-half for “over time.”
Even today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects data on the average hourly wage and the average weekly wage.
Work Has Changed but the Regulations Have Not
In time, however, a growing number of workers did things that didn’t fit the traditional concept of work. What about artists, composers and writers whose work is irregular and whose rate of compensation falls way below the statutory minimum? What about middle managers who take work home and who work nights and weekends? What about an entrepreneur who works for no pay at all while building a business?
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