Unlocking the Future of Work: 3 Surprising Strategies to Make Portable Benefits a Reality
Ever wonder why freelancers often feel like they’re jumping through flaming hoops just to get decent healthcare? Well, on this Labor Day, the National Arts Policy Alliance and Freelancers Union dropped a game-changing report that digs deep into what independent workers truly need from today’s safety net. It’s not just about pie-in-the-sky ideas — this paper lays out some real, actionable policy moves like portable benefits that tag along gig after gig, giving freelancers the kind of security many of us take for granted in traditional jobs. If you’ve ever puzzled over how a modern workforce keeps itself protected while bouncing from one project to the next, this is the conversation we all need to be joining right now. Dive into what’s next for the future of work and why expanding this safety net isn’t just smart — it’s urgent. LEARN MORE.
In honor of Labor Day, yesterday National Arts Policy Alliance (NAPA) and Freelancers Union released a new report, Co-Designing Worker-Centered Portable Benefits, based on a new survey, interviews, and a collaborative workshop with independent workers on what they actually need from a modern safety net.
First and foremost, we know that freelancers need improved access to healthcare. As it stands, there are too few options for the self-employed, with unnecessary hoops to jump through to obtain it and exorbitant costs to keep it.
You may have heard us talk about portable benefits. Portable benefits would clear barriers for clients to disperse money into an independent worker’s account to use for healthcare and other benefits like time off. These accounts would then stay with the worker throughout the rest of their gigs, accumulating money from different sources.
The paper, co-authored by FU Executive Director Andrea Gordillo and NAPA Co-Director Althea Erickson lays out three concrete policy models lawmakers could pursue now: a pooled Independent Worker Benefit Fund, a buy-in to New York’s Essential Plan, and a Federal Independent Worker Health Plan with expanded ACA subsidies.
Read the full report, as well as this op-ed by Andrea and Althea in The Observer.
Stay tuned for more on this in the weeks and months to come. The social safety net must be broadened, and expansion will only come if we demand it.
