The gig is up: California's latest destructive regulation is already backfiring

Californians barely had time to ring in the new year before the state’s independent contractor law, which went into effect on Jan 1., started wreaking havoc.

The law, formally known as AB5, was supposed to offer more benefits to workers in the modern gig economy. Instead, it has spectacularly backfired on those very workers. Once lauded by Vox as “cracking down on the gig economy” by offering workers “basic labor protections for the first time,” AB5 has forced news outlets, including Vox’s parent company, to cut ties with hundreds of freelance journalists in California. This is due to the law’s stipulation that any writer submitting more than 35 pieces a year be given full employee benefits.