Aren't you ignoring withholdings?

The IRS is the biggest wage thief. It even requires the employers to steal on their behalf.

A self-employed person could simply not pay payroll taxes for example, and have use of that money until they decided to pay, if at all, a W-2 cannot avoid it.

Similarly, a W-2 can only avoid income tax withholding if they had no tax liability in the previous year and no expectation of such a liability in the current year. Again, a self-employed person could simply not pay the tax, including via quarterlies, and have use of the money.

Tl;dr you're a clown for looking at the employer and not your government. 🤡