By BILLY BONNIST and MAX FEIST
Economic Policy Institute
On July 7, 2025, Senators Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) introduced a legislative package aiming to provide certain portable benefits to workers classified as independent contractors. “Portable benefits” is an umbrella term for various benefit programs that follow workers from job to job, rather than being tied to a specific employer.
The legislative package is framed as an effort to address the rise of nontraditional work arrangements and the gig economy, in which workers are typically not classified as employees and therefore lack access to certain guaranteed workplace rights or longstanding employment-based benefits like health care and retirement benefits.
While misclassification of workers as independent contractors represents a significant problem, the legislative package fails to address this important issue in the gig economy. Instead, the bills would institutionalize a second-tier status for independent workers and entrench their exclusion from the full protections and benefits guaranteed to traditional employees.
INDEPENDENT RETIREMENT FAIRNESS ACT
Senator Cassidy’s Independent Retirement Fairness Act amends the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. The bill would allow independent workers to participate in retirement savings plans reserved for employees—specifically, Pooled Employer Plans (PEPs) and Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) plans—...
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