#AB5 UPDATE: San Diego lawmaker Lorena Gonzalez used false data to peddle her disastrous AB 5 law.

Eventually, we did find what we were looking for. It turns out that in 2012, a report issued by an Obama Administration commission headed by Joe Biden stated that the nation, not California alone, loses $7 billion because contractors don’t pay payroll taxes—not annually, but rather over a 10-year period. Their report covered all people who provide contracting services, not just those in rideshare and high-tech.”

Lewin and his team then analyzed numbers to determine the actual potential loss to the state of California annually due to independent contracting.

The loss is closer to zero, he said. In fact, in the rideshare and delivery sector alone, the state would actually gain about $111 million annually from the independent contractor arrangement relative to the employment arrangement, they found.

“That supposed $7 billion putative annual revenue loss in California due to independent contractors has no basis in fact or in empirical evidence whatsoever,” affirmed Lewin.

The $7 billion estimate continues to be promoted to this day, not just in California, but nationally.

Those numbers were just a pre-COVID modified limited hangout that did its job — to further wreck California’s economy, and possibly serve as a dry run for a similarly disastrous Federal version.