Posted on 06/30/2015 11:01:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last week, the Supreme Court sided 6-3 with the Obama administration’s interpretation of the Affordable Care Act, ruling the law was written with the intent to provide subsidies through federal exchanges. To put it lightly, conservatives are less than thrilled.
But in our disappointment, let’s not forget that the subsidies are just one problematic element of many found in the 20,000-page law. While Congress may not be able to undo the Court’s recent ruling, that doesn’t mean they can’t address another serious issue with the Affordable Care Act: the employer mandate that defines a full-time workweek as 30 hours.
The youth unemployment rate is currently 13.6%, meaning nearly one out of every seven people between the ages of 18 and 29 are out of work. Of those fortunate enough to be employed, many see their work hours cut.
The Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate requires businesses who employ 50 or more full-time workers to insure all of their employees. While this requirement may be well-intended, its long-term economic consequences will be devastating. As the mandate is set to take effect in 2016, many businesses are already choosing between limiting their staff or cutting individual work-hours.
It’s estimated that 2.6 million Americans making under $30,000 a year are at risk of having their hours or wages cut. Of those 2.6 million, 60 percent of those people are between the ages of 19 and 34.
Take the food industry, for example, where the average employee age is 28 years old. Between wait staff, hostesses, busboys, line cooks, dishwashers, and others, restaurants easily reach staffs of over 50 employees with diverse skill sets. This being the case, restaurant owners – many of whom see thin profit margins already – have limited options and are forced to cut hours, reducing the size of people’s paychecks.
Because so many young people work in the food industry, they are being disproportionately clobbered by this provision. And that’s just in the restaurant industry. Retail stores and other business sectors face the brunt of the provision, too.
Forever 21 is one of the largest private employers in the country. Less than two years ago, in preparation for the employer mandate to kick in, the company announced its plans to reduce worker hours. Although the organization denied these cuts were directly related to the 30-hour provision, Forever 21 planned to transition some workers to 29.5 hours a week or less.
This mandate’s burden is clearly falling hardest on young people who are already experiencing the difficulty of finding gainful employment. But there is good news. Right now, Congress has the ability to vastly improve our generation’s opportunity to work by restoring the 40-hour workweek.
Specifically, the Senate should immediately consider the House-passed Save American Workers Act that changes the threshold of full-time employment from 30 hours per week to 40 hours. The House of Representatives passed this bipartisan bill in January, and now it’s up to the Senate to follow suit. This simple fix would make an enormous difference for young people desperately looking to advance in their careers.
Being employed, whether it’s waiting tables or performing an entry-level desk job, provides a young person with necessary income, crucial career development, and most importantly, a sense of pride and self-worth. Restoring the 40-hour work week should be the simple starting point of a larger conversation about how to help our generation’s job crisis.
Just have congress pass a blank sheet of paper. The president can fill in the details that the courts think are best.
The new ‘checks and balances’.
Whats left to conquer?.. answer; NOTHING..
BOHICA time has arrived.. He can NOW do pretty much anything he wants to..
The attorney general "LYNCHING PEOPLE"... one would think.. with IRS; CIA; FBI; NSA; military security; and joint chiefs; SUPPORT...
The Federal Frankenstein is on the loose.. with Union Vampires, academic Werewolves and Journalist intestinal parasites infecting or roaming freely "hungry"..
would make a killer movie or novel.. even IF (some of) the people rise up and cleanse the land of these "BEASTS"..
GODZILLA is real only in the movies..... ... PITY ...
When you burn down all the businesses in your neighborhood, you have no right to start bitchin about not having a job..
Stupid m'fers
There’s no dealing with Obama. It’s his way or the highway.
Otherwise you could try trading this in exchange for eliminating the mandate.
the ended of “self evident truth” is what a dictate needs.. the truth of the day will be issues to you to follow
Both SCOTUS ruling , Obamacare, and Gay Marriage has the same thing in common..the total destruction of a definition and reformed in to a new creation....it is all Newspeak ...
My primary goal would be to repeal the individual mandate. It is outrageous for the govt. to insist that we buy a product, whether we need it or not. Especially when the product is not only high-priced in terms of premiums but is also a defective product — the deductibles are so high that they make the product useless.
All of the high state increases may tell the public something else.
Post of the Day.
As Thomas Sowell observed about politicians and failed policies in Basic Economics: "It is always easier to admit someone else's mistakes."
It would be nice it they did but I don't see it happening.
“the end(ing) of “self evident truth” is what a dictate needs.. the truth of the day will be issues to you to follow”
I think this is a tremendous, strong statement!!!
He who dictates what used to be “self-evident”, rules...It no longer becomes “self-realized”, and therefore anyone who doesn’t think beyond what is spoon fed to the masses whose attention span is about that of a gnat...
We should realize that the social condition this country and the rest of the world is in right now is kinda what has been engineered, without much of a fight...
...and maybe even FUTURE employees.
I'm actually in flavor of this proposal... first time ever I agreed with this administration, I think...
The new cut off pay scale was done based on inflated dollars from when the rule was first initiated...so this should be no skin of the company back...
Many and I mean a lot of companies misuse their employees by working them more than 40 hours a week while being labeled exempt...
Many employees as of now, before the new regs, wind up working at close to minimum wage when you break it down to pay divided by hours...
Non-exempt employees punch out at 40 hours (if they are lucky) and go home..
What I expect to see, regardless of the exact numbers they settle on, is that many business will cut hours back to whatever they need to in order to avoid paying benefits. Employees reduced from 39 hours to 20 hours (or whatever the numbers might be) will then work 2 jobs. In fact, it’s a lot easier to work 2 20-hour/week jobs than to work a 30 hour/week job and find something else for 10 hours.
I generally oppose all these federal labor laws, I think that first of all the constitution does NOT empower the federal government to do these things, if they are to be done at all they should be done at state level only. Having said that, if we are going to have federal labor laws, a minimum of $455. a week to qualify as overtime exempt was absurdly low. That won’t support a single person at a level of bare subsistence in many areas of the country. Of course in some areas it will and that is one reason why there should NOT be national labor laws from the feds.
Twenty hours at $20. an hour is a long way from a living wage now. A person would need at least two and preferably three of those jobs to have a real living wage. Three of them would gross $1200. a week and that would not even equal in real terms the $110. a week I was making when I was 23 years old and working an office job with overtime after forty hours. I paid $4. a week for a fantastic health insurance package back then. I doubt that you can buy the equivalent now for any amount. I was driving a new Mustang that cost me three grand and I OVERpaid.
....”We should realize that the social condition this country and the rest of the world is in right now is kinda what has been engineered, without much of a fight”....
Makes one wonder who’s doing the engineering...the head of that snake. By and large a group of people scattered throughout various organisations.....where’ever there’s lots of revenue flowing. Clinton Foundation does come to mind as one....Clinton’s are the front people to bring it on in to the vault. Someone else is distributing it.
....”We should realize that the social condition this country and the rest of the world is in right now is kinda what has been engineered, without much of a fight”....
Makes one wonder who’s doing the engineering...the head of that snake. By and large a group of people scattered throughout various organisations.....where’ever there’s lots of revenue flowing. Clinton Foundation does come to mind as one....Clinton’s are the front people to bring it on in to the vault. Someone else is distributing it.
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