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In Case You Missed It: Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong Discusses theLaunch of the Los Angeles Times Next Network on ‘The DailyShow with Jon Stewart'

In Case You Missed It: Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong Discusses theLaunch of the Los Angeles Times Next Network on ‘The DailyShow with Jon Stewart'

During an appearance on 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,' Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong announced the launch of the L.A. Times Next Network. The new diversified media company is designed to rebuild trust in media and give voice to all by combining verified information, emerging technologies, and community participation across news, culture, entertainment, sports, and civic engagement.
The Network consists of five coordinated pillars: the Los Angeles Times; LAT Next, a curated creator platform; Nant Games, focused on esports and civic/scientific gaming; NantStudios Virtual Production, oKering real-time virtual production capabilities; and L.A. Times Studios, supporting streaming, live events, and forums.
The initiative will also pursue a novel Reg A+ financing, led by the investment bank Digital OKering, to broaden public ownership and participation allowing the readers, supporters and fans of the Los Angeles Times to become shareholders.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong said: 'My family bought the L.A. Times to ensure a voice for the community and now have a path to return it to the people. With this opportunity, readers, community members, everyone, will be the media: direct democracy in action. There's been an erosion of faith in our institutions, and I look forward to sharing this journey with the public. The need to restore truth and trust in media and in our institutions is more important now more than any time in our country's history- L.A. Times Next Network will strive to be the platform and the voice of the people.'
Mark Elenowitz, Managing Director of Digital Offering, commented: 'We helped pioneer Regulation A to open ownership to everyday investors, and L.A. Times Next Network exemplifies that spirit, to allow those who have been customers and supporters of this iconic brand to become shareholders and participate in the next chapter of growth. This platform aligns community equity with a diversified, tech-enabled media ecosystem built on credibility, engagement data, and scalable production innovation.'
Interested in becoming a shareholder? Sign up for information from Los Angeles Times Next Network, Inc. at https://www.latimes.com/next-network.
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New York Post to expand to California with separate daily tabloid
New York Post to expand to California with separate daily tabloid

UPI

time27 minutes ago

  • UPI

New York Post to expand to California with separate daily tabloid

Aug. 4 (UPI) -- A daily tabloid version of the New York Post is heading west, parent company News Corp announced Monday. The California Post, which will include staff based in Los Angeles, will debut early next year as a separate entity under the New York Post Media Group, the public company led by Rupert Murdoch said. The expansion comes as circulation continues to decline among newspapers nationwide. The California newspaper's content will include a version of Page 6 now featured in the New York Post. The New York Post displayed a mock images of Page 1 and the gossip page, including on Facebook . "Los Angeles and California surely need a daily dose of The Post as an antidote to the jaundiced, jaded journalism that has sadly proliferated," News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said. "We are at a pivotal moment for the city and the state, and there is no doubt that The Post will play a crucial role in engaging and enlightening readers, who are starved of serious reporting and puckish wit. I am also pleased that [editor] Keith Poole's remit is expanding, as he will now be responsible for covering not just New York, but California, the U.S., the world and, perhaps, Mars." Nick Papps, who has nearly two decades of editorial leadership, was named editor in chief of the California newspaper. He was New Corp Australia's West Coast correspondent for three years. "This is the next manifestation of our national brand," Poole said. "California is the most populous state in the country, and is the epicenter of entertainment, the AI revolution and advanced manufacturing -- not to mention a sports powerhouse. Yet many stories are not being told, and many viewpoints are not being represented. "With The California Post, we will bring a common-sense, issue-based approach to metropolitan journalism. We'll tell the stories that our readers care about the most, but others overlook, and we'll do so with clarity and our trademark conviction, across print, digital and the platforms where audiences live today." The Post Digital Network, with 90 million unique visits in June, attracts 90% of its readers from outside the New York media market. Los Angeles, with 3.5 million unique visitors, and California, with 7.3 million, has the second concentration of Post readers. The newspaper circulates in South Florida but not as a separate edition. Overall, there are 13 million digital news readers in the region, including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, and TV and radio stations. Newspapers' circulation has been dramatically declining. The Los Angeles Times was purchased by Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire, in 2018 for $500 million from Tronc. The purchase also included the San Diego Union, which was later sold to MediaNews, and several community newspapers. Tribune Publishing, based in Chicago, had adopted the name Tronc in 2016. Two weeks ago, Murdoch said he "would take the paper" public next year during an interview on The Daily Show with John Stewart. The New York Post is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the United States, founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801. Murdoch purchased the New York Post in 1976. News Corp, with revenue of $10.1billion in 2024, owns The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, papers in Britain and Australia, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network. Fox Corp owns the TV network with the Murdoch family holding 39% of the voting shares.

CommScope Reports Second Quarter 2025 Results
CommScope Reports Second Quarter 2025 Results

Associated Press

time10 hours ago

  • Associated Press

CommScope Reports Second Quarter 2025 Results

CLAREMONT, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 4, 2025-- CommScope Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: COMM), a global leader in network connectivity solutions, today reported results for the quarter ended June 30, 2025. We are extremely pleased with our outstanding results in the second quarter. CommScope net sales of $1.39 billion increased 31.7% from the prior year. Net sales were positively supported by stronger-than-expected results across all segments. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $338 million, a strong improvement of 79% year-over-year, marking the fifth consecutive quarter. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of revenues was 24.3%, compared to 17.9% in the prior year, a year-over-year improvement of 640 basis points. 'We are well positioned for future growth and are raising our 2025 adjusted EBITDA guideposts to $1.15 to $1.20 billion,' said Chuck Treadway, President and Chief Executive Officer. He continued, 'As announced, CommScope entered into a definitive agreement to sell its CCS segment to Amphenol (NYSE: APH). Upon closing, CommScope will receive approximately USD $10.5 billion in cash. The sale is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of applicable regulatory and shareholder approvals. This transformational deal unlocks equity value, returns cash to our shareholders and strengthens the remaining businesses. Amphenol is a strong buyer of the CCS assets. Our customers, and employees going with the transaction will be in very good hands. I am very excited for the future of ANS and RUCKUS as both businesses have recovered from their prior year challenges and are positioned for growth.' 'With the proceeds from the recently announced transaction, we expect to repay all existing debt, redeem our preferred equity and add modest leverage to the remaining company. We will have significant excess cash. We expect to distribute this excess cash to our common shareholders as a dividend within 60 to 90 days following the closing of the proposed transaction after taking into account all relevant factors. The exact amount and timing of the dividend will be determined by the Company after closing. As evidenced by the second quarter results in ANS and RUCKUS, we are excited about the future of the remaining company. On a twelve-month trailing basis, ANS and RUCKUS Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $300 million on Net Sales of $1.7 billion,' said Kyle Lorentzen, Chief Financial Officer. As a result of divesting the Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) business during the quarter ended March 31, 2025, the Company has changed the name of its Networking, Intelligent Cellular & Security Solutions (NICS) segment to RUCKUS, effective as of April 1, 2025. There were no changes to the composition of the Company's operating or reportable segments, the financial information reviewed by the chief operating decision maker (CODM), or historical segment operating results as a result of this change. Second Quarter Results and Comparisons Net sales in the second quarter of 2025 increased 31.7% year-over-year to $1.39 billion due to higher net sales in all segments. Net sales increased across all regions, except the Caribbean and Latin America region and Canada, in the second quarter of 2025. Income from continuing operations of $29.4 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2025, increased compared to the prior year period's loss from continuing operations of $(56.2) million, or $(0.34) per share. Non-GAAP adjusted net income for the second quarter of 2025 was $119.4 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, versus $8.6 million, or $0.03 per share, in the second quarter of 2024. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA increased 79.0% to $337.8 million in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales increased to 24.3% in the second quarter of 2025 compared to 17.9% in the same prior year period. Reconciliations of the reported GAAP results to non-GAAP adjusted results are included below. Second Quarter Comparisons Sales by Region Segment Net Sales Segment Operating Income (Loss) Segment Adjusted EBITDA (See 'Non-GAAP Financial Measures,' below) Cash Flow and Balance Sheet Conference Call, Webcast and Investor Presentation CommScope will host a conference call today at 4:30 p.m. ET in which management will discuss the proposed transaction and second quarter 2025 results. The conference call will also be webcast. The live, listen-only audio of the call will be available through a link on the Events and Presentations page of CommScope's Investor Relations website. A webcast replay will be archived on CommScope's website for a limited period of time following the conference call. During the conference call, the Company may discuss and answer questions concerning the proposed transaction, as well as business and financial developments and trends that have occurred after quarter-end. The Company's responses to questions, as well as other matters discussed during the conference call, may contain or constitute information that has not been disclosed previously. About CommScope: CommScope (NASDAQ: COMM) is pushing the boundaries of technology to create the world's most advanced wired and wireless networks. Our global team of employees, innovators and technologists empower customers to anticipate what's next and invent what's possible. Discover more at Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and like us on Facebook. Sign up for our press releases and blog posts. Non-GAAP Financial Measures CommScope management believes that presenting certain non-GAAP financial measures enhances an investor's understanding of our financial performance. CommScope management further believes that these financial measures are useful in assessing CommScope's operating performance from period to period by excluding certain items that we believe are not representative of our core business. CommScope management also uses certain of these financial measures for business planning purposes and in measuring CommScope's performance relative to that of its competitors. CommScope management believes these financial measures are commonly used by investors to evaluate CommScope's performance and that of its competitors. However, CommScope's use of certain non-GAAP terms may vary from that of others in its industry. Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as alternatives to operating income (loss), net income (loss), cash flow from operations or any other performance measures derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP as measures of operating performance, operating cash flows or liquidity. A reconciliation of each of the non-GAAP measures discussed herein to their most comparable GAAP measures is below. RemainCo Financial Measures RemainCo financial measures are the aggregate of the Access Network Solutions and RUCKUS segments. They do not include the results of the Connectivity and Cable Solutions segment. The RemainCo segments and the Connectivity and Cable Solutions segment represent the business segments as currently managed and reported by CommScope. Future results and the composition of any business divested in the future may vary and differ materially from the presentation of the RemainCo financial measures. Forward Looking Statements This press release includes certain statements that constitute 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which reflect our current views with respect to future events and financial performance. These forward-looking statements are generally identified by their use of such terms and phrases as 'intend,' 'goal,' 'estimate,' 'expect,' 'project,' 'projections,' 'plans,' 'potential,' 'anticipate,' 'should,' 'could,' 'designed to,' 'foreseeable future,' 'believe,' 'think,' 'scheduled,' 'outlook,' 'target,' 'guidance' and similar expressions, although not all forward-looking statements contain such terms. This list of indicative terms and phrases is not intended to be all-inclusive. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside our control, including, without limitation, the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could give rise to the termination of the purchase agreement; the inability to complete the proposed transaction due to the failure to obtain stockholder approval for the proposed transaction or the failure to satisfy other conditions to completion of the proposed transaction, including that a governmental entity may prohibit, delay or refuse to grant approval for the consummation of the transaction; risks related to disruption of management's attention from the Company's ongoing business operations due to the transaction; the effect of the announcement of the proposed transaction on the Company's relationships, operating results and business generally; the risk that the proposed transaction will not be consummated in a timely manner; exceeding the expected costs of the transaction; our dependence on customers' capital spending on data, communication and entertainment equipment, which could be negatively impacted by a regional or global economic downturn, among other factors; the potential impact of higher than normal inflation; concentration of sales among a limited number of customers and channel partners; risks associated with our sales through channel partners; changes to the regulatory environment in which we and our customers operate; changes in technology; industry competition and the ability to retain customers through product innovation, introduction, and marketing; changes in cost and availability of key raw materials, components and commodities and the potential effect on customer pricing and timing of delivery of products to customers; risks related to our ability to implement price increases on our products and services; risks associated with our dependence on a limited number of key suppliers for certain raw materials and components; risks related to the successful execution of CommScope NEXT and other cost saving initiatives; potential difficulties in realigning global manufacturing capacity and capabilities among our global manufacturing facilities or those of our contract manufacturers that may affect our ability to meet customer demands for products; possible future restructuring actions; the risk that our manufacturing operations, including our contract manufacturers on which we rely, encounter capacity, production, quality, financial or other difficulties causing difficulty in meeting customer demands; our substantial indebtedness, including our upcoming maturities and evaluation of capital structure alternatives and restrictive debt covenants; our ability to refinance existing indebtedness prior to its maturity or incur additional indebtedness at acceptable interest rates or at all; our ability to generate cash to service our indebtedness; the ability to recognize the expected benefits of the sales of the OWN segment and DAS business unit and Home business (the Transactions), including the expected financial performance of CommScope following the Transactions; the effect of the Transactions on the ability of CommScope to retain and hire key personnel and maintain relationships with its key business partners and customers, and others with whom it does business, or on its operating results and businesses generally; the response of CommScope's competitors, creditors and other stakeholders to the Transactions; potential litigation relating to the Transactions; our ability to integrate and fully realize anticipated benefits from prior or future divestitures, acquisitions or equity investments; possible future additional impairment charges for fixed or intangible assets, including goodwill; our ability to attract and retain qualified key employees; labor unrest; product quality or performance issues, including those associated with our suppliers or contract manufacturers, and associated warranty claims; our ability to maintain effective management information technology systems and to successfully implement major systems initiatives; cyber-security incidents, including data security breaches, ransomware or computer viruses; the use of open standards; the long-term impact of climate change; significant international operations exposing us to economic risks like variability in foreign exchange rates and inflation, as well as political and other risks, including the impact of wars, regional conflicts and terrorism; our ability to comply with governmental anti-corruption laws and regulations worldwide; the impact of export and import controls and sanctions worldwide on our supply chain and ability to compete in international markets; changes in the laws and policies in the United States affecting trade, including the risk and uncertainty related to tariffs or potential trade wars and potential changes to laws and policies, that may impact our products and costs; the costs of protecting or defending intellectual property; costs and challenges of compliance with domestic and foreign social and environmental laws; the impact of litigation and similar regulatory proceedings in which we are involved or may become involved, including the costs of such litigation; the scope, duration and impact of disease outbreaks and pandemics, such as COVID-19, on our business, including employees, sites, operations, customers, supply chain logistics and the global economy; our stock price volatility; income tax rate variability and ability to recover amounts recorded as deferred tax assets; and other factors beyond our control. These and other factors are discussed in greater detail in our 2024 Annual Report on Form 10-K and may be updated from time to time in our annual reports, quarterly reports, current reports and other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the information contained in this press release represents our best judgment as of the date of this release based on information currently available and reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that the expectations will be attained or that any deviation will not be material. Given these uncertainties, we caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. We are not undertaking any duty or obligation to update this information to reflect developments or information obtained after the date of this press release, except to the extent required by law. Additional Information about the Proposed Transaction and Where to Find It This communication may be deemed solicitation material in respect of the proposed sale of the Company's CCS business to Amphenol. In connection with the proposed transaction, CommScope will file with the SEC and furnish to CommScope's stockholders a proxy statement and other relevant documents. This communication does not constitute a solicitation of any vote or approval. Stockholders are urged to read the proxy statement when it becomes available and any other documents to be filed with the SEC in connection with the proposed transaction or incorporated by reference in the proxy statement because they will contain important information about the proposed transaction. Investors will be able to obtain free of charge the proxy statement and other documents filed with the SEC at the SEC's website at In addition, the proxy statement and CommScope's annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 are available free of charge through CommScope's website at as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. The directors, executive officers and certain other members of management and employees of CommScope may be deemed 'participants' in the solicitation of proxies from stockholders of CommScope in favor of the proposed transaction. Information regarding the persons who may, under the rules of the SEC, be considered participants in the solicitation of the stockholders of CommScope in connection with the proposed transaction will be set forth in the proxy statement and the other relevant documents to be filed with the SEC. You can find information about the Company's executive officers and directors in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 filed with the SEC on February 26, 2025, and in its definitive proxy statement filed with the SEC on Schedule 14A on March 24, 2025. View source version on CONTACT: Investor Contact: Massimo DiSabato, CommScope [email protected] Media Contact: [email protected] KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA NORTH CAROLINA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: DATA MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY TELECOMMUNICATIONS MOBILE/WIRELESS NETWORKS INTERNET HARDWARE SOURCE: CommScope Holding Company, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 08/04/2025 07:15 AM/DISC: 08/04/2025 07:15 AM

Republicans want to give gig workers benefits. There's a catch.
Republicans want to give gig workers benefits. There's a catch.

Vox

time10 hours ago

  • Vox

Republicans want to give gig workers benefits. There's a catch.

is a policy correspondent for Vox covering social policy. She focuses on housing, schools, homelessness, child care, and abortion rights, and has been reporting on these issues for more than a decade. California rideshare drivers, supporters and former drivers rally saying they want to be made whole in the settlement discussions in a massive wage theft scandal that robbed drivers of tens of billions of dollars collectively, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Should independent contractors get employment benefits? The question has fueled decades of legal and political battles — and it might finally be coming to an end for the roughly 58 million people who currently work as freelancers, contractors and gig workers across America. Three Republican senators — led by Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who chairs the chamber's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee — have introduced bills to expand benefits like health insurance and retirement savings for contractors. The legislation would protect companies from worker misclassification lawsuits if they offered contractors non-salary perks, and Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley (CA) introduced companion bills back in February. Advocates of these so-called portable benefits argue that they support the realities of the current workplace. In 1947, Congress explicitly carved out independent contractors from the National Labor Relations Act's definition of 'employee.' Today, most contractors say they'd prefer to keep their independent arrangements but want more financial stability. Cassidy has hailed passing these bills a top priority for him this year. The portable benefits most likely to pass now, however, are less robust and worker-friendly than some progressive Democrats were envisioning ten years ago. Back in 2015, tech entrepreneur Nick Hanauer and David Rolf, former SEIU president of the Seattle Local 775, pitched a proposal where employers would contribute $2 an hour to a 'shared security system.' Benefits would accrue by the hour, pool across multiple jobs, and be accessible whether someone worked for one company full-time or five part-time. A year later, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) outlined a different approach: Instead of requiring employers to pay in, she proposed building public systems that would let workers take benefits like health care and retirement from job to job. In his final State of the Union address that year, Barack Obama also endorsed the general idea, emphasizing that 'basic benefits should be just as mobile as everything else is today.' Today, Explained Understand the world with a daily explainer, plus the most compelling stories of the day. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. But unions strongly opposed these efforts. Labor groups have long fought against worker misclassification, where wrongly designating employees as contractors allows employers to sidestep payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, minimum wage laws and other obligations. Unions view codifying portable benefits largely as a way to keep misclassifying workers and therefore cut them off from core workplace protections, including the right to unionize. Unions and union-funded nonprofits argue that portable benefits offer a false choice between job security and flexibility, and point to examples like nurses and restaurant workers where employees can still enjoy more flexible environments. The portable benefits approach, they warn, will just hasten the outsourcing of work to contractors or encourage more companies to misclassify their staff. They point to lobbying efforts by companies reliant on contractors, like DoorDash and Lyft, as well as lobbying by advocacy groups funded by Instacart, Uber, and Grubhub. For a time, it seemed that Democrats might fight for a more progressive version of portable benefits: Warren in her 2016 speech talked about extending union rights to temp and gig workers, and the Hanauer/Rolf proposal resembled how most European countries administer job protections. But the politics of the last seven years have instead shifted the party's focus toward narrowing the legal definition of independent contracting and reclassifying more workers as traditional employees. This approach is a cornerstone of the Protecting Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a union-backed federal labor reform bill that passed the House in 2021, was enthusiastically endorsed by President Joe Biden, and currently has 44 Democratic sponsors in the Senate. Yet the bill stands little chance of becoming law any time soon — and in the meantime, Republicans have taken up the issue with a more employer-friendly bent. With a few exceptions, most Democrats have stopped talking about securing portable benefits for freelancers who want to remain independent. But the need to protect gig workers hasn't gone away; both their numbers and their vulnerability continue to rise. The long-running policy battle may finally be winding down—just not in a way that necessarily helps them. Federal whiplash over the 'independent contractor' question The fight over worker classification stretches back decades, but a good starting place is 2006, when a group of FedEx Home Delivery drivers in Massachusetts voted to unionize. The company refused to bargain, arguing the drivers were independent contractors and therefore ineligible for a union. Although the National Labor Relations Board sided with the drivers in 2007, deeming them employees eligible to unionize, the DC Circuit overturned that ruling in 2009, and asserted the NLRB 'has no authority whatsoever over independent contractors.' Undeterred, the Obama-era NLRB ruled in favor of a different group of FedEx drivers in 2014, declaring them to be employees, not contractors. (The NLRB does not treat rulings other than those from the US Supreme Court as binding.) By 2015, the Obama Labor Department also issued guidance clarifying that most workers should be considered employees. But the Trump administration reversed both efforts, and in 2017 the DC Circuit again sided with FedEx. The pendulum swung back — to classifying more workers as employees — under Biden, only to shift again under Trump in his second term. Turning points The politics started to change in 2018, when the California Supreme Court issued a landmark decision sharply limiting when companies could classify workers as contractors. In response, California lawmakers in 2019 passed a law known as AB 5, functionally codifying the decision's stringent 'ABC test'— a standard that defines most workers as employees. Under the ABC test, one can only be considered a contractor if they do work that falls outside the company's typical line of business. Gig companies began fighting back. In 2020, tech giants like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash successfully spent $200 million on a California ballot measure to exempt drivers from AB 5 in exchange for requiring companies to provide contractors with some limited benefits. The gig companies also turned their attention outside of California, working aggressively to prevent laws like AB 5 from spreading. In 2022 they prevailed in Washington state, which passed a law that provides limited benefits to gig workers in exchange for maintaining their independent contractor status. The Washington law was backed by the local Teamsters affiliate of drivers and the Washington State Labor Council, but vocally opposed by Sean O'Brien, the Teamsters' international president. Labor groups seeking to slow the momentum of portable benefits scored a win in 2021, when the strict 'ABC standard' was included in the Democratic Party's PRO Act. While a few tech-friendly Democrats continue to elevate the issue of protecting gig workers with portable benefits, most in the party have gone quiet on the subject, as doing so would be seen as undercutting a core goal of the PRO Act. The Democrats' central focus now is on reclassifying gig workers as employees, not protecting contractors with flexible benefits. Another political turning point came in 2023, when Utah lawmakers passed the country's first voluntary portable benefits law, enabling companies to contribute benefits to independent contractors without affecting their contractor status or implying employer liability. Companies like Shipt and Lyft started piloting new benefits for Utah workers months after the law took effect. In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro last year initiated a portable benefits pilot with DoorDash, and Georgia, Maryland, and Tennessee have taken their own steps this year. Supporters say these new voluntary laws will give companies the confidence to provide workers with more competitive working conditions, and they point to preliminary results from Pennsylvania, where 4,400 DoorDash drivers signed up for the savings account program, and earned $400 on average in their first year. Labor leaders remain skeptical, warning this all may amount to little more than PR — or a way to treat workers like employees without providing real support. The new benefits may be pretty lackluster Independent contractors already have the ability to contribute to tax-deductible retirement savings plans known as Simplified Employee Pension plans, or SEP-IRAs. But under current law, employers can't also contribute to those plans without risking legal challenges. Cassidy's new proposal, the Independent Retirement Fairness Act, would amend federal law to allow employers to voluntarily contribute, while shielding businesses from having to provide broader employment benefits or protections. It's unclear whether companies would actually take advantage of this new freedom, though supporters point out that most private-sector retirement plans in the US are voluntary. In terms of health insurance, independent workers can already obtain portable coverage via the Affordable Care Act but a quarter of contractors lack coverage, typically because it's too expensive. This year, the average 40-year-old buying unsubsidized health insurance on the exchanges paid nearly $500 per month, while a family of four paid close to $1,600. Yet Republicans are not proposing to increase subsidies to independent contractors seeking health insurance on the exchanges. Indeed they just approved slashing subsidies to the Affordable Care Act, meaning those with coverage could see their premiums skyrocket, and millions more lose insurance altogether. Rather, Cassidy is looking to allow contractors to purchase pooled options known as Association Health Plans (AHPs), which might provide lower premiums but come with far fewer protections, for example, AHPs frequently lack coverage for preexisting conditions and preventative services. AHPs were originally meant to be options for businesses in the same industry or geographic area but in 2018 the Trump administration tried to expand them to let loosely affiliated groups — like freelancers — buy coverage together and avoid many Affordable Care Act requirements. A federal judge struck down that effort in 2019, saying it unlawfully stretched the definition of 'employer' and was clearly designed to evade the ACA's consumer protections. Related Trump is finalizing one of his big proposals to undercut the ACA Republicans reviving that effort now could both skim healthy, young individuals off the ACA exchanges, and mislead workers into plans far more skimpy and unregulated than they realized. 'In an ideal system employers would have no role in health insurance, but even in our current system, it typically would be better for workers to get subsidized health care on the individual exchanges than AHPs,' said Matt Bruenig, the head of the left-wing People's Policy Project think tank. 'These benefits don't seem like they would be much improvement at all, and could make things worse if they are a trojan horse for badly regulated AHPs.' Warren criticized Cassidy's proposal, but did not elaborate regarding where she falls today on portable benefits. 'I have always believed that all workers deserve access to quality health care and benefits, but unfortunately this Republican effort isn't about getting workers the benefits they deserve,' she told Vox in an emailed statement. 'This GOP legislation is about giving employers freedom to misclassify workers and deprive them of crucial workplace rights — including the right to form a union and be free from harassment.'

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