Should gig workers become employees? A fairness question resurfaces.

In trying to answer the question – When are workers employees? – the Biden administration has reignited a long and roiling controversy over fairness in the workplace.

Is it best to try to protect workers from unscrupulous firms that don’t offer minimum wage or benefits? Or by applying such traditional standards to a new and burgeoning freelance workforce, is the federal government holding back entrepreneurial Americans from supplementing their income?

There is no easy answer because these workers – part of the so-called gig economy – vary greatly in their needs and outlook. Whatever the administration implements in the coming months, it could affect the incomes and livelihoods of more than a