Abstract
The meaning and salience of employee status in the United States and the “regulatory void” that defines the independent contractor designation, reflect decisions made by state and federal legislatures, courts, and bureaucratic agencies. Their decisions, over time, have allowed and sometimes facilitated the growth of nonstandard work and the expansion of an unregulated zone of contingency. The issues raised in current legal and political struggles over the role of independent contractors in the “gig economy” are therefore more old than new; they are the latest iteration of a century-long conflict over the boundaries of the U.S. employment relationship.