Hey Jersey, leave the independent contractors alone (Opinion)

If you're an independent contractor in New Jersey, your life could be changing thanks to a proposal sponsored by Senate President Steve Sweeney. Basically the aim is to get businesses to either hire the independent contractor, which would have them pay taxes and qualify for benefits or use them much less. If you read the responses to Sweeney's recent tweet regarding entrepreneurs, you'll see how New Jersey feels about the idea.

The bill will affect working moms like Bill Spadea wrote about, freelance writers like Jen A. Miller, entertainers as well as many other people who make money selling their services to businesses that wouldn't normally hire them. In some cases they make more money doing it that way.  But the state is losing money on the taxes it could collect from these businesses and contractors if they were on the payroll. The hope is that these businesses will hire them. That hope is actually a pipe dream.

Many of these businesses couldn't survive if they had to hire the subs they use. What they'll do instead is dump more work on the people that they do have on the payroll. Those contractors that are drastically seeing their hours cut will end up on another payroll, that would be unemployment and guess who would be picking up that tab?

What Sweeney and the powers that be need to do is amend the bill so that the many different workers affected by it in New Jersey are handled differently. Sometimes it's better to get some money than no money at all. This bill could not only force businesses to close but those who make their living subcontracting to leave New Jersey. Aren't we driving out enough people as it is?

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