To Boost the Economy, Help the Self-Employed

Noelle Stary’s three-year-old marketing consultancy will see revenue of nearly $100,000 this year, yet she’s worried about the company’s survival. Stary works from a shared office in central New Jersey where she faces typical startup hurdles such as tightfisted bankers and slow-paying customers. A bigger problem, though, is that she can’t take advantage of tax incentives and labor laws that benefit larger businesses. “Every new step of growth is almost always more complicated than the step before,” says Stary, 29, a former manager at a small ad agency in Manhattan.

Stary is one of over 40 million self-employed in the U.S.—31 percent of the labor force—who form an increasingly important part of the economy. The Great Recession accelerated the trend. In December, an American Staffing Assn. survey of 10,000 employers showed the number of temporary workers assigned to companies by agencies such as Manpower and Kelly Services has jumped 19 percent over the past year. By 2019 the self-employed will account for 40 percent of all American workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.