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The Department proposed to rescind the Independent Contractor Status under the Fair Labor Standards Act rule published on January 7, 2021, 86 FR 1168 (2021 IC Rule) and provide guidance for determining employee or independent contractor status under the FLSA that is more consistent with existing judicial precedent and the Department’s longstanding guidance prior to the 2021 IC Rule. The Department conducted extensive stakeholder engagement prior to publishing the NPRM on October 13, 2022. The Department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) held a number of stakeholder forums in the summer of 2022, which solicited participation from many workers, unions, businesses, free-lancers, independent contractors, and affiliated advocacy groups. Those stakeholder forums informed the Department’s drafting of the 2022 proposed rule. The Department subsequently benefited from thousands of comments submitted during the comment period. In the final rule, the Department returns to a totality of the circumstances analysis of the economic reality test in which factors do not have a predetermined weight and are considered in view of the economic reality of the whole activity. The final rule rescinds the 2021 IC Rule. The Department published the final rule on January 10, 2024 (89 FR 1638).