With a whole host of tariffs set to put the pinch on US pocketbooks, nontraditional workers like freelancers and gig workers will experience greater vulnerability to economic volatility. That’s why, when it comes to policy solutions for this flexible workforce, portable benefits are more important now than ever to get employment-style benefits like health insurance, rainy-day savings, and retirement savings into the hands of workers without jeopardizing their flexibility. New polling from Overton Insights shows the majority of people in the US agree.
According to the poll of 1,200 US respondents, 61% of people agree gig workers should have access to portable benefits. When looking across political divides, portable benefits legislation to get benefits into the hands of workers has passed primarily in Republican states, yet 72% of respondents who identify with the Democratic Party agreed that gig workers should have access to portable benefits.
Not only do people support portable benefits for flexible workers, polling shows that offering benefits may be good for business as well. When asked if a respondent would be more likely to use a service if it also offered benefits to gig workers, over 40% of respondents said they would. While this may seem like a small percentage compared to overall support for the policy, if an app-based platform were to pull 40% of the customer base for the whole gig economy away from its competitors, the increase in market share would be massive.
Portable benefits are a groundbreaking improvement to the way we think about worker benefits in the US because they allow workers to retain their flexibility and be in control of their benefits like never before. For independent contractors who have never had benefits anyway, this is a game-changer.
The only thing standing in the way of getting portable benefits into the hands of workers is a century-old system of employment law at both the state and federal levels. This outdated legal system has been updated in Utah, Tennessee, and Alabama to reflect the modern flexible workforce, but independent workers remain excluded from receiving these benefits across the rest of the nation.
As tariffs potentially tighten family budgets nationwide, now is the time for states to act on widely supported, bipartisan solutions like portable benefits that protect workers without compromising flexibility.
