Nothing New and Likely to Be Ineffective: The New Proposed Independent Contractor Rule Issued by the Labor Department

This week the U.S. Department of Labor in the second Trump administration issued a proposed regulation regarding the classification status of independent contractors (ICs). As we noted three days ago in a blog post written in anticipation of the issuance of the proposed new rule, we expected it to be almost a carbon copy of the 2021 regulation issued by the first Trump administration, which was replaced by a 2024 regulation issued by the Biden administration — and it is precisely that, almost... By: Troutman Pepper Locke