Flexible work arrangements, for example, can give working parents more time to care for their children, but many workers are not in their contingent jobs by choice. More than half of temporary workers would prefer a permanent job instead of their contingent job, but temporary work is all they can find. As the GAO report makes clear, employers have economic incentives to cut costs by miscategorizing their workers as temporary or contract workers. Too often, contingent arrangements are set-up by employers for the purpose of excluding workers from their employee benefit programs and evading their responsibilities to their workers. Millions of employees have been miscategorized by their employers, and as a result they have been denied the benefits and protections that they rightly deserve and worked hard to earn.
All workers deserve a secure retirement at the end of their working years.
Social Security has been and will continue to be the best foundation for that security. We cannot expect Americans to work hard all their lives, only to face poverty and hard times when they retire. That is why today I am introducing legislation to help contingent workers obtain the retirement benefits they deserve. This legislation clarifies employers' responsibilities under the law so that they cannot exclude contingent workers from employee benefit plans based on artificial labels or payroll practices. This is an issue of basic fairness for working men and women.