s gig work has expanded from a marginal feature of the labor market into a significant one, a question that once seemed narrow and technical has taken on broad consequences: What does it mean to be an employee? The answer shapes whether a worker can join a union, whether they are owed overtime, whether they have recourse if injured on the job, and whether they can collect unemployment if the platform cuts them off. Employers have strong financial incentives to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees, and many have pursued that classification aggressively, even where the practical reality of the work relationship closely resembles traditional employment. The disputes that have followed, in courts, in regulatory agencies, and in legislatures, reveal not just a legal ambiguity but a policy system struggling to keep pace with how work has actually changed.

To see why defining who is an employee is complicated, consider the disputes around ride-sharing services. Uber, working hard to avoid any ruling that its drivers are employees, calls the people behind the wheel “driver-partners,” but this is an odd use of the term partner. The CEO of Uber earned $24 million in 2022, while only 13 percent of Uber drivers in 2021 earned $30,000 or more. This difference among “partners” is remarkable compared to, say, law firms,...

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