Amidst this chaos, freelancers need a lifeline and a true home in this country, by Halley Bondy

It’s hard to breathe right now. 

This is not what one expected out of a doomsday. Many of us are facing abject boredom punctuated by panic attacks, hours on hold calling various government agencies that are way out of their depth, ever-bloating undereye bags, close quarters, piling laundry and children begging to see their friends. These are the lucky folks compared to the sick, impoverished, completely isolated, starving and dying. It’s unimaginable. 

When we’re not freaking out or trying to help others, most of us are attempting to upkeep our individual realities. For me, that means freelancing in a country where freelancing, frankly, has always been in a state of nebulous chaos.

I’m a writer and mom living in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, which is currently a COVID-19 hot zone. This was already a tumultuous year for freelancers, when a slew of “gig worker” bills were introduced across the country. Now, we are facing one of many reckonings: what on earth do we do with compulsive 1099-ers like me now? 

At the moment, freelancers are occupying a special limbo when it comes to emergency assistance. The wonderful Freelancers Union is forming a fund for those in serious need, so that some people can get up to $1,000 in aid. As a freelancer, you may qualify for state-subsidized health care or even emergency unemployment benefits. The CARES Act might help some freelancers by giving them extra cash per week, but it doesn’t apply to many of us. Freelancers might get a one-time $1,200 check from the president if you make a very specific amount of money, and good luck when that runs out. 

Did you get all of that? 

As for me, because of the pandemic, I lost over half of my income. I won’t be able to apply for benefits until May since I made some money in the beginning of March. My family of three is still paying a whopping $2,000 a month for marketplace health insurance, which was the only option given to us. 

Oscar insurance, which has ties with known slumlord Jared Kushner, will continue to bleed our savings dry without a second thought. We had dreams for those savings – owning a home someday perhaps. Getting a car. But those dreams are evaporating before our eyes. Will our kid be able to go to college? Will college exist? Do I need to get her a tiny Mad Max outfit (that would be a silver lining)? 

On down the anxiety rabbit hole we go. 

Of course, we are the fortunate ones. At least we had any savings at all. At least I had multiple income streams and contacts so that I can keep working here and there. My husband is also still working, for now. So far, we are healthy, and we have our lives. Ultimately, that’s the most important thing.

But being in limbo isn’t new for me, or for most independent contractors. Now that we are reinventing the wheel and experimenting with supporting our freelancers, it seems like the time to change that permanently, not just in a pandemic.

Since I was let go from my job last year, I’ve been doing backbends trying to understand my place as a freelancer in this country. 

There are so many of us, too. In New York City, 34 percent – over one-third – of the workforce is freelancing, with 62 percent doing it by choice, according to a 2019 study by the Freelancer’s Union and the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. Most of these workers are in media, marketing, advertising or publishing. The numbers are only slightly smaller on a national scale, where most of the freelancers work as programmers, marketers, IT specialists and business consultants. (And yes, we pay a lot of taxes.)

Many of us were already suited to keep working during the pandemic since we often work remotely on flexible schedules. We were accustomed to Zoom technology and to setting our own hours around our families’ needs. In many ways, the world is catching up to us.

Since November, I’ve been learning just how clueless our government is about this ballooning labor sector. Before the pandemic, state and federal governments were trying to re-classify freelancers into W2 employees. The idea was to make employer benefits available to exploited app workers. However, the wording of these bills, which spanned from California to New York to the federal level P.R.O. Act (which passed the House), swallowed up all freelancers, including filmmakers, health care workers, journalists, musicians, artists, consultants, musicians, yoga teachers, small business owners and more. 

The bills as written would have forced our clients to see us as employees, which is not tenable nor desired in many of our industries. The bill became law in California in January, and has caused mass job loss and a living hell for many freelancers. 

We watched what was unfolding in California and armed ourselves. I co-founded an informal, non-affiliated grassroots movement called Fight for Freelancers New York, which is mostly women and working moms, older workers and people with disabilities who had managed to make their lives work through gigging. We were called anti-union. Some trolls said that we were funded by a Republican PAC. All patently untrue, of course. We just wanted to work.

We spent months explaining to legislators how we operate (they truly had no idea), and why W2 employment is not tenable for people who need 100 percent nimble flexibility in their working lives. Many of us had been laid off from dying publications. Many of us have special needs kids, or are caregiving for sick or elderly relatives. Many of us work for small business owners who can’t afford W2 employees. Many of us couldn’t afford the exorbitant costs of full-time day care no matter our salary. In my case, I couldn’t sustain a 9-5 presence in my office once I had my newborn, who was frequently sick. Ultimately, I was let go.

The pandemic sort of shifted everything temporarily. In New York, the gig worker efforts have been shelved for the time being. On a federal level, the P.R.O. Act is dead on arrival in our Republican Senate. If we ever get there, I hope that the P.R.O. Act will be rewritten so that it provides rights to exploited workers without ruining millions of livelihoods in the process.

Unless you’re a California freelancer, you’re safe from having your livelihood crushed by the government for now. The pandemic is doing that job instead.

However, the upheaval has ushered in a new opportunity for conversation. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that optional universal benefits for freelancers would happen, and yet, we are at a crossroads where it’s at least being discussed by Senators. Maybe in the future, tried and true health care – not just this Kushner con job – could extend to my family. 

Even before the pandemic, our economy was evolving. It’s not perfect. The exploiters of gig economy work need to be rooted out. But in the end, everyone needs health care that falls into their budget, time off and a supported place in their nation’s economy. Most freelancers have none of those things, even in the best of times. 

It’s time to start treating freelancers as a viable, ingrained part of the economy. Why not put politics aside and give us streamlined, optional universal benefits so that we can thrive? Why not learn from us so that we can help the economy grow, instead of constantly working against us? As we reel in this chaos and pass out band-aid checks for the neediest in our nation, we need to find long-term solutions, which means, for one, finding a place for the freelancers here. We must embrace, nourish and protect our most adaptable labor sector, and learn from them without regulating them to death.