After World War II, stars that made over $70,000 faced a marginal tax rate of 77%. Paley worked out an accounting technique whereby individual performers would set themselves up as a corporation so they could be taxed at 25% rather than 77%. Sarnoff, the head of NBC and RCA, decided this method was legally and ethically wrong and he ended up losing most of his biggest stars.
This is why the government needs to assure that everybody plays by the rules.
If companies out there are lying about an employee status to make them instead a contractor (looking at you Uber) the rest of companies that are following the law are hurt as other workers and society at large.
Enforcing labor law is good for the economy and good for society.
It may be good for society but if you compare countries with more labour laws to those with less, e.g. Europe vs America (or Western Europe vs Northern Europe, which has stronger welfare but less onorous regulation), more labour law is not good for the economy.
If by economy you mean the richest 0.1% earning more money, I have to agree. But I disagree with that definition of "economy".
For me economy includes the ability of citizens to make ends meet and afford good health care and education. A good economy requires a well regulated labor market.
That definitions of a "good economy" are excluding these considerations it is just an effect of inequality and an increasing focus on the needs of the 0.1% over the economy as a whole. And it is not a real representations of the real economy at all.
You can cherry pick measures of success to make one country look better than other countries. So what. For example, the USA does better than almost all European countries in 5-year cancer survival rates.
re: cancer survival. Are you referring to this work from 2020, showing that the US has more cancer than the EU, even though odds of survival are better?
The US Has Higher Incidence, Survival of Rare Cancers Compared With Europe (2020) https://www.ajmc.com/view/the-us-has-higher-incidence-surviv...
and shows that Age-adjusted incidence for all rare cancers combined was 17 percentage points higher in the United States than in Europe. The 5-year net survival for all rare cancers was significantly higher in the United States compared with Europe (54% vs 48%).
so 17% more likely to have it and a 6% increase in survival.
Can we talk about cherry picking?
and found: The reason the U.S.’s strong performance on cancer comes as a shock is because access to care in the country is notoriously unequal. But, it turns out, that's far less true of the elderly.
Age 65 is when virtually everyone in the U.S. qualifies for Medicare — America’s national, taxpayer-subsidized, government-run (dare we say socialized), comprehensive health insurance program.
in other words, the data you are arguing with shows that EU style socialized medicine produced better outcomes.
Paperwork in the US can be kind of complicated. It is just both complicated and poorly aligned.