Something that is emerging in this industry is how health care benefits can be offered to a wider range of people. Noah Lang, CEO of Stride Health, discusses how California's Proposition 22 can offer health benefits to gig workers and part-time employees.
|Prop 22 was a ballot initiative in California that passed in 2020. Can you remind us what it was about, broadly speaking?
At its core, Prop 22 was a proposal to provide vital protections to rideshare and delivery drivers without taking away the flexibility they enjoy as independent workers. The proposal emerged as a response to Assembly Bill 5, a 2019 California law that would have classified drivers as employees in order to provide guaranteed wages, health benefits, and other protections. The downside of AB5 was that by reclassifying the drivers, they would lose other key benefits, like flexibility in scheduling.
Prop 22 was an effort to combine the best of both worlds: retain the flexibility of independent contractor arrangements while guaranteeing new wage & benefits protections — a win for both companies and drivers. California voters overwhelmingly backed Prop 22, which was passed in 2020 by a margin of 59% to 41%. It's important to note that Prop 22 doesn't apply to all drivers and some of those excluded from the provision, like truckers, are arguing that AB5 has made it harder for them to do their jobs.
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