A 21st century workforce requires a different kind of safety net, with benefits that are more flexible, portable, personal…The Class of 2010 will enter the job market with “the highest rates of unemployment in at least a generation,” according a new Economic Policy Institute report. It’s not just the numbers, it’s also the nature of the job market that is changing dramatically. The 1950s and 60s were a period of entrenched single-company careers for America’s workers. Today, marginally attached and mobile is the new norm. By one measure, the number of independent workers grew by 27 percent between 1995 and 2005, to almost nine million. In New York City, self-employment accounted for two thirds of the job growth between 1975 and 2007, according to the Chicago Fed.