Freelancing can feel like tightrope walking without a net. Freelancers have fewer legal protections, more debt, and less savings than other workers in their industries. They’re also excluded from traditional unemployment benefits and other welfare policies like guaranteed sick leave and parental leave, that are tied to “traditional” employment. If a freelancer loses work in a tough economy, there is no policy in place to break their fall.
It doesn’t have to be that way. During the pandemic, we caught a glimpse of a world where all workers could have what full-time employees take for granted: an unemployment safety net.
While FSP members across the country benefited from the extension of unemployment to part-time and freelance workers under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, cash economy and undocumented workers were largely unable to access that program; in New York State, the Excluded Workers Fund filled in that gap.
In 2023, FSP-NWU joined the Steering Committee of the Fund Excluded Workers Coalition. The FEW Coalition is fighting to pass the Unemployment Bridge Program in New York State. Under the program, freelancers, farmers, undocumented workers, cash economy workers, workers in re-entry, and others could finally have the security that all working people deserve. This permanent program would fund protection against economic catastrophe for all excluded workers under a single policy.
- The UBP would create a first-of-its-kind safety net for those left out by the unemployment insurance system in New York State, including freelancers, cash economy workers, undocumented workers, and people in reentry.
- Excluded workers who earn less than the median annual income (<$56,000/year) and who have lost more than 60% of their average monthly income through no fault of their own would be eligible.
- Eligible workers would receive a $1,200/month benefit on par with traditional UI.
- UBP would be funded by a new Digital Ad Tax, generating up to $1 billion annually in New York State through a small tax on the digital advertising revenue of top advertising platforms like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft.
These monopolistic media platforms do not currently pay taxes on their $100 billion digital advertising business—profits derived from the mining and selling of user data. What’s more, these companies and their digital advertising models are in large part to blame for the “pivot to video” that destroyed many full-time media workers’ jobs (and made them freelancers). It’s only right that the levy of this long-overdue tax should support a measure of protection against the industry volatility that puts so many of our members at risk of falling from the tightrope.
FSP-NWU and the FEW Coalition will keep fighting to pass this important policy, while setting our sights on a world where all people have the means to survive, regardless of their formal employment status.