In 2010, I used my professional skills as a degreed and trained writer to pursue freelance work full-time. As the years progressed, I incorporated reinvention coaching and yoga, before moving solidly into journalism, writing, and political and cultural analysis. That is 16 years of trial and error, and time spent building a body of work and dependable clients.
For someone who has worked hard to cultivate this foundation and build on it, the last thing I want is constant legal and regulatory threats risking my livelihood. Yet that has been my story.
When California passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), restricting independent contractors under a more stringent standard, it chased me out of the state as work for professional writers dried up. I thought I had escaped, but the threat went national from the Biden administration’s 2024 Independent Contractor rule and the adversarial Congressional bill, the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. Both efforts sought to use more restrictive employment tests to determine whether self-employed professionals, freelancers, and gig workers can be classified as independent contractors or were employees of their hiring companies.
The Trump administration has come to the rescue of the nation’s freelancers like me, with a positive and future-forward replacement to the Biden IC rule that unleashes our capability for entrepreneurism, rather than shutting down our potential to earn and build as we see fit. It is a regulation that would benefit every self-employed professional, freelancer, and side hustler, and which should garner our support.
In February, the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division formally proposed the 2026 Trump Independent Contractor Rule. If adopted, it would provide certainty and clarity over the fundamental question of who should be classified as independent contractors, and its language offers critical protections to our independent status.
The Trump 2026 IC rule follows the framework of the Trump 2021 IC rule, but applies modifications to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act (MSPA). The modifications narrow previously broad language on what constitutes an “employee,” while delineating that independent contractors are not employees. The 2026 IC rule further nullifies the six-factor “economic reality” test housed in the 2024 Biden IC rule.
The Biden IC rule started from the premise that an individual is automatically an employee unless he or she meets the requirements of its six-factor test. The test was so broad and convoluted that one mistake in its interpretation could put an independent contractor and the contracting business in violation. The Biden rule framed independent professionals as victims in need of protection, rather than professionals seeking to shape a flexible and lucrative career on our timeframe and by our choice.
The Trump IC rule factors in the ability of small businesses and independent professionals to dictate the parameters of their working relationship using guidelines, particularly the degree of control over the individual’s work and the opportunity for profit and loss. This new rule affords clear and concise considerations for both independent professionals and small businesses to build independence and economic growth, pursue risks, yet avoid regulatory and legal reprisal while doing so.
The Trump 2026 IC rule’s approach does not view freelancers and self-employed professionals through the lens of victimization. Instead, it recognizes that we are strategic and smart enough to parlay our skill sets into supplemental and livable earnings, and that these earnings can be dictated by us, not by the vagaries of employment or government regulation.
In labor policy circles, independent professionals are painted as victims in need of a (union) boss, rather than individuals in control of their own choices and futures. But we are not victims. Our freedom to continue to choose the work we love and how we pursue that work should not be dismissed or discounted. If anything, independent professionals need to be left alone to contribute to the economy as we have been doing, shielded from the overregulation and adversarial legislation that has threatened us over the past decade.
The proposed rule is open for comment for 60 days, ending on April 28. It is essential for freelancers to tell their story and show their support in getting this regulation instituted.
Jennifer Oliver O’Connell is a visiting fellow with Independent Women’s Center for Economic Opportunity.