Which means immediately higher taxes because you get to pay the employer side of payroll taxes, plus no pretax benefits like health care and no vacation or other untaxed benefits.
You can elect to have your LLC taxed as an S-corp to avoid some of the self-employment tax [1].
this applies to the certain degree.. if you make less than FICA threshold - yes, you are right. If you make more from multiple contracts/jobs - it is more efficient to be paid as contractor (assuming that client will pay you your employee taxes share, which would otherwise be paid by employer in case of W-2 employment)
I wonder then why those Uber drivers so adamantly oppose a path to riches.
Because if you are a contractor then it's your responsibility to provide healthcare for yourself and think of the costs of that and factor that into your prices.
But if you don't set your prices, because you're a one-of-a-million driver, then you're shit out of luck.