California politicians and the media claimed freelancers were being abused.
 
Their solution: a new law, AB5, that reclassified millions of them as staff employees—whether they liked it or not.
 
Politicians claimed businesses would now be forced to pay them, "wages and benefits that they deserve."
 
"In reality, what's actually happening is they're just letting them all go," said freelance musician Ari Herstand.
 
4 years later, the results are in:
 
So many careers were ruined that California exempted more than a hundred industries, but freelancers STILL lost their jobs.
 
Yet now the Labor Department is forcing the rest of the country to be more like California?
  
Why?  Watch the video to find out.