Washington Is Out of Touch with the 21st Century Workforce
Introduction
Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Wilson, and other Members of House Education and the Workforce Committee, thank you for the opportunity to give testimony on how new administrative interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 fail to reflect the realities of today’s workforce.
I am a fellow at Economics21 at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and am the coauthor, with Diana Furchtgott-Roth, of Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America’s Young. I am also the author of Uber Positive: Why Americans Love the Sharing Economy. Since this summer, I have traveled across the country and heard millennials talk about the economic challenges they are facing and their plans for the future.
The American economy is changing, and millennials’ attitudes about work and their careers are changing with it. The rapid rise of the so-called “sharing economy” embodies many young Americans’ new economic ideal—one driven by technology, convenience, and flexibility. However, government policy, particularly in regards to labor regulation, ignores the realities of a 21st century economy and continues to hold back millennials’ economic opportunities.
Millennials want to be entrepreneurs, and they desire employment that is flexible, mobile, and individualized. The Department of Labor’s attempts to stifle the rise of promising new business models though regulation is no way to help millennials achieve their vision of the American Dream.
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