Florida’s workforce is undergoing a significant transformation. Across the state, more than 3 million people earn income—either as their main or secondary source—through freelancing, contracting, or self-employment.1Liya Palagashvili, Bringing Portable Benefits to Florida’s Independent Workforce: Overview (Mercatus Center, June 24, 2025) These independent earners include truck drivers, freelance creatives, childcare providers, rideshare and delivery drivers, healthcare professionals, and consultants. Together, they generate nearly $170 billion in annual revenue or sales, according to Census Bureau data.2Liya Palagashvili, Bringing Portable Benefits to Florida’s Independent Workforce: Overview (Mercatus Center, June 24, 2025)
This dynamic workforce reflects Florida’s long-standing spirit of entrepreneurship and economic opportunity. Yet, the state’s labor and benefits systems have not kept pace with this changing reality. Most benefits—such as health coverage and retirement contributions—remain locked within traditional employer–employee relationships. For those working independently, access to these protections depends on navigating complex, fragmented, and often expensive private options.
Florida has an opportunity to lead with a solution that matches the modern workforce: portable benefits.
What Are Portable Benefits?
Portable benefits are benefits that belong to the worker—not to any single employer. Under a portable system, multiple businesses or clients could voluntarily contribute to a worker’s benefit account without triggering employment classification or liability. The funds would follow the worker from project to project, job to job, or platform to platform, ensuring continued access to benefits regardless of where or how they work.
This model would bring benefits policy into alignment with how Floridians actually earn a living today. Rather than attempting to reclassify legitimate independent contractors as employees—a move that has shown to limit work opportunities3Liya Palagashvili et al., “Assessing the Impact of Worker Reclassification: Employment Outcomes Post-California AB5,” (Mercatus Working Paper, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, January 31, 2024).—portable benefits offer a flexible, voluntary, and market-oriented alternative.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 80 percent of independent workers prefer to remain self-employed rather than transition to traditional employment.4Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements—May 2017,” news release no. USDL-18-0942, June 7, 2018. At the same time, surveys show that 81 percent of self-employed workers want access to portable benefits options that provide greater security without changing how they work.5Tito Boeri et al., “Solo Self-Employment and Alternative Work Arrangements: A Cross-Country Perspective on the Changing Composition of Jobs,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 34, no. 1 (Winter 2020): 170–95 In Florida, where independent work is embedded across major sectors of the economy, such reforms would have broad relevance.
A Growing Share of Florida’s Economy
Whether as a primary source of income or a supplemental one, self-employment has become a core part of Florida’s economy.
Over the past decade, the number of Floridians earning income outside traditional employment has surged, driven by advances in technology, changing worker preferences, and the needs of local industries.
Florida’s independent workforce now extends far beyond app-based or gig platforms. Independent work in the state is rooted in traditional industries like construction, transportation, and health care, but it also thrives in real estate, professional and technical services, retail, and the arts. From construction contractors and logistics operators to freelance designers and financial consultants, independent earners play a central role across nearly every sector of Florida’s economy.
Together, these workers make up a key segment of Florida’s labor market, supporting growth in both urban centers and local communities across the state.
The Problem: Legal Barriers to Voluntary Benefits
The greatest challenge is not economic—it’s legal.
Under current rules, Florida businesses that want to voluntarily offer benefits to contractors risk triggering a reclassification dispute. If a company provides health insurance or retirement contributions to an independent contractor, that action can be used as evidence that the individual is really an “employee” under state laws.6Liya Palagashvili, Flexible Benefits for a Flexible Workforce: Unleashing Portable Benefits Solutions for Independent Workers and the Gig Economy (Mercatus Policy Brief, Mercatus Center, February 3, 2023) This discourages many businesses from offering benefits altogether.
As a result, even well-intentioned companies stay on the sidelines, and independent workers are left without basic benefit structures that would help them better plan for the future.
State-level portable benefits reforms would fix this problem. A portable benefits safe harbor law would explicitly state that offering benefits to contractors should not be used to determine a worker’s employment status. It would invite businesses, nonprofits, clients, and buyers to voluntarily contribute to benefits accounts without fear of misclassification.
A Florida portable benefits law would include:
- Voluntary participation: No mandates—companies or clients simply opt in.
- Neutrality on worker status: Benefit contributions cannot be used to determine employment classification.
- Worker ownership: Accounts belong to individuals and follow them across projects and jobs.
- Competition among providers: Insurers, fintech firms, and associations could offer a range of portable benefit options.
This model, which builds on frameworks explored in states like Alabama, Tennessee, and Utah, could be easily tailored to Florida’s economy—especially its reliance on seasonal, contract-based, and tourism-driven work.
The success of voluntary approaches in other states offers a clear roadmap. In 2023, Utah enacted a portable benefits pilot that clarified benefit contributions cannot be used to determine a worker’s employment status. This small but meaningful reform gave businesses the confidence to test new benefit models without fear of litigation. Companies such as Lyft and Target’s Shipt have since launched portable benefits programs in the state.
Tennessee and Alabama have advanced similar proposals, while governors in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Maryland have supported private-sector pilots such as DoorDash’s portable benefits programs. These efforts show that independent workers want access to benefits that enhance financial security without requiring a change in how they work.
Florida can follow in these footsteps by adopting its own portable benefits law that provides the same legal clarity and room for innovation.
Florida’s Opportunity to Lead
Florida already leads the nation in attracting new businesses and entrepreneurs. The state’s pro-growth climate, light regulatory burden, and strong culture of self-employment make it a natural testbed for portable benefits innovation.
By establishing a portable benefits framework, Florida could:
- Strengthen the state’s small business and contract economy.
- Give independent workers access to benefits and resources that provide greater stability.
- Encourage innovation among benefit providers and insurers.
- Demonstrate that flexibility and security can go hand in hand.
This is not about government expansion—it’s about government restraint. It’s about clearing legal barriers so that private initiative can thrive.
Conclusion: A Florida Model for the Future of Work
Florida’s workforce is already leading the way in defining the future of work. Now its policies need to catch up.
Creating a voluntary, safe-harbor framework for portable benefits would empower millions of Floridians to build security without giving up independence. It would allow businesses and clients to support the workers they depend on—without fear of legal consequences. And it would position Florida as the national model for labor-market innovation grounded in freedom, flexibility, and opportunity.
Portable benefits can help Florida strengthen its entrepreneurial spirit by ensuring that flexibility and security go hand in hand. Together, they can position Florida as a model for how independence and economic security can reinforce one another.
Liya Palagashvili is a senior research fellow and director of the Labor Policy Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
