Notice how is details worker’s hours and not workers….
thusly blowing one of Baghdad Jim’s least intelligent ideas into hash.
The claim is that the employers are cutting per-worker hours to under 30 hours a week, because that’s the cut-off for the Obamacare employer mandate. The article never explains why they’re cutting hours now, when the mandate doesn’t kick in until 2015.
For example:
At St. Petersburg College, a public university in Florida where most of the faculty is part-time, 250 have had their hours reduced for the fall term because the college said it can’t afford to offer them health insurance.
This is a complete non-sequitur. Obamacare doesn’t require them to offer health insurance for the 2013 fall term, no matter what employee hours are.
“The article never explains why they’re cutting hours now, when the mandate doesn’t kick in until 2015.”
Why procrastinate? Might as well get used to the new environment. Takes time to hire and train new staff that will take the hours from current employees. Management will need practice juggling schedules to keep the hours low.
Also, is there any guarantee that Obama wont spontaneously decide to enforce the mandate sooner or some other shenanigans? We can’t make decisions based on the letter of the law because it has zero meaning to HHS and the Obama administration.
Why procrastinate?
You can’t simultaneously complain that policy change X is a terrible thing, and that you’re going to rush ahead and implement that terrible thing 16 months early.
Takes time to hire and train new staff
Careful, you seem to be arguing that Obamacare is generating new hiring.
It’s called “medium to long-range planning”. It’s something we ebil right-wingers do instead of assuming the government will bail us out.
And if you want to claim replacing one full-time job with two part-time jobs as an accomplishment, go right ahead. Except that as you drive up the cost of each employee, you’re also making it more worthwhile to pay the capital costs of automation up front, knowing you’ll make it back in reduced labor costs.
But we can ignore that. Amortization’s just something we made up to undermine the President, right?
“You can’t simultaneously complain that policy change X is a terrible thing, and that you’re going to rush ahead and implement that terrible thing 16 months early.”
Sure you can. How does Obamacare being terrible prevent businesses from having to follow its rules? It is not like businesses are Obama and can decide what laws they do and don’t follow.
Years from now, Obama could declare that business would have to pay the Obamacare taxes retroactively.
“Careful, you seem to be arguing that Obamacare is generating new hiring.”
Ya, a business that has a worker pulling in an average 25 hours a week but would sometimes spike in to the 30’s is going to have to hire another employee so that those spikes in hours don’t happen. This means that the worker at 25 hours isn’t going to be working that many hours because the addition of another employee is going to cannibalize their hours. Instead of one person working an average of 25 hours a week but with more hours some weeks, there will be two workers competing for those same hours. So, maybe each worker gets 13 hours a week with occasionally more hours.
More jobs but with less hours worked and less pay. You know what will really boost employment? When everyone has 3 part time jobs to make up for the one full time job they used to have. Imagine the free time people will have to raise a family, go to school, or exercise when they have to commute to 3 different job sites every day.
Think of all the jobs that will be created, just don’t think about how one person is working so many of them just to get by.
Businesses and economic systems prefer to bake in changes they need (or are forced) to make, early. It promotes predictability.
You’d know that if you knew anything whatever about business. You claim to run a business Jim – what is it’s name and what does it do?
And one of the many reasons the economy has been in the doldrums for the last 5 years, is because Obama, Pelosi, and Reid destroyed predictability (“You have to pass the law to see what’s in it.”). Predictability maximizes the ability to adjust in the future based upon real life action/result. Real Life results. Not bogus cartoon predictions based upon lies and multiple use of the same dollar.
For many decades businesses kept full time employees and offered health insurance.
Obamacare is passed with a rule that seriously affects businesses – affects how businesses have to fork out money and it’s based upon how many hours employees work.
Businesses now change decades worth of behavior.
Baghdad Jim sees no connection.
Quelle Surprise.
They were going to cut those hours less, because they like seeing their workers suffer. They’re only saying it’s because of Obamacare because they want to undermine the President. Right?
They aren’t doing their patriotic duty. Where is their dedication to the homeland? Something needs to be done…
Either you’re ignorant or a liar. If you read this, you’re no longer ignorant.
Since most business owners realize ignorance of the law is no defense (particularly when it comes to paying taxes), I’m sure those business are preparing for the law to take place when the law says it starts.
Obama can violate the law if he wishes. He certainly has done it enough already. But business owners ought to consider that while the Senate will protect Obama, there is no sign that the federal government will protect their business.
The article never explains why they’re cutting hours now, when the mandate doesn’t kick in until 2015.
Um, actually, if you read the whole article, it does:
“St. Petersburg college officials said they don’t want to undo the cuts they’ve already made only to revisit them next year.”
So, while the Subway owner is going to wait-and-see, employers like schools, who have to plan their August-to-June labor force in April or May, already made the change before Obama decided to ignore the law and “grant a reprieve”, and are too far into the game to turn back now, just to go through it all again next year.
I, for one, am happy that there are “public” institutions whose actions mirror those of the private sector, inasmuch as it deflates the argument about “fat-cat evil business owners”. Not that those arguments aren’t still made, of course, since the comments are full of them.
My biggest non-surprise (and cringing moment) is that the comments over there continue to focus on further entangling the relationship between employment and health care coverage, and continue to conflate health care with actual insurance. Any person who has been an independent contractor and/or lost their job (and insurance coverage, unless they paid extortion rates for COBRA) should be fully aware of how ludicrous the idea is to put the onus of health care benefits on the employer.
Of course, if this country was run by sane people who used reason and logic, it might take all of the “fun” out of life. Frankly, I’d welcome the “boredom” of such a world…
Remember, Gregg, that in Baghdad Jim’s red-sun universe, you could increase the costs of labor indefinitely with no deleterious effects on the labor force! And Obama is the greatest president ever!
Where are the rest of the golden eggs, and why is that damn goose just bleeding everywhere instead of cooperating?
Love the proposed solution to lower the mandate to 20 hours in a week. Apparently the union guy is under the impression that they won’t just cut to 19 hours and hire more workers. Must be using the government’s unemployment numbers.
Jim, business owners are required to be responsive to changing business conditions, particularly regarding laws surrounding the operation of the business. Those that do not find themselves out of business. I would be embarrassed for you that you need this explained to you if I suspected you weren’t being deliberately dense.
No doubt Jim, like his hero Obama, knows what he’s talking about because, like Obama, he has had such great success starting and operating profit-making enterprises in the private sector.
This is why listening to Jim is bad for your business health:
“They relied on California law as it was written, that they would get a tax break if they invested in certain kinds of businesses,” Lieu said.
But a court ruled in December that practice by the state was unconstitutional. Now, the Franchise Tax Board wants its money.
That was a written law. What Obama wants to do is by fiat change a written law to say explicitly something else. In order for businesses not to be harmed by going along with Obama, no one can challenge the constitutionality of Obama’s authority to rewrite legislation passed by Congress. If someone does, and Obama loses, then there may be a hefty fine to pay in the future.
Notice how is details worker’s hours and not workers….
thusly blowing one of Baghdad Jim’s least intelligent ideas into hash.
The claim is that the employers are cutting per-worker hours to under 30 hours a week, because that’s the cut-off for the Obamacare employer mandate. The article never explains why they’re cutting hours now, when the mandate doesn’t kick in until 2015.
For example:
At St. Petersburg College, a public university in Florida where most of the faculty is part-time, 250 have had their hours reduced for the fall term because the college said it can’t afford to offer them health insurance.
This is a complete non-sequitur. Obamacare doesn’t require them to offer health insurance for the 2013 fall term, no matter what employee hours are.
“The article never explains why they’re cutting hours now, when the mandate doesn’t kick in until 2015.”
Why procrastinate? Might as well get used to the new environment. Takes time to hire and train new staff that will take the hours from current employees. Management will need practice juggling schedules to keep the hours low.
Also, is there any guarantee that Obama wont spontaneously decide to enforce the mandate sooner or some other shenanigans? We can’t make decisions based on the letter of the law because it has zero meaning to HHS and the Obama administration.
Why procrastinate?
You can’t simultaneously complain that policy change X is a terrible thing, and that you’re going to rush ahead and implement that terrible thing 16 months early.
Takes time to hire and train new staff
Careful, you seem to be arguing that Obamacare is generating new hiring.
It’s called “medium to long-range planning”. It’s something we ebil right-wingers do instead of assuming the government will bail us out.
And if you want to claim replacing one full-time job with two part-time jobs as an accomplishment, go right ahead. Except that as you drive up the cost of each employee, you’re also making it more worthwhile to pay the capital costs of automation up front, knowing you’ll make it back in reduced labor costs.
But we can ignore that. Amortization’s just something we made up to undermine the President, right?
“You can’t simultaneously complain that policy change X is a terrible thing, and that you’re going to rush ahead and implement that terrible thing 16 months early.”
Sure you can. How does Obamacare being terrible prevent businesses from having to follow its rules? It is not like businesses are Obama and can decide what laws they do and don’t follow.
Years from now, Obama could declare that business would have to pay the Obamacare taxes retroactively.
“Careful, you seem to be arguing that Obamacare is generating new hiring.”
Ya, a business that has a worker pulling in an average 25 hours a week but would sometimes spike in to the 30’s is going to have to hire another employee so that those spikes in hours don’t happen. This means that the worker at 25 hours isn’t going to be working that many hours because the addition of another employee is going to cannibalize their hours. Instead of one person working an average of 25 hours a week but with more hours some weeks, there will be two workers competing for those same hours. So, maybe each worker gets 13 hours a week with occasionally more hours.
More jobs but with less hours worked and less pay. You know what will really boost employment? When everyone has 3 part time jobs to make up for the one full time job they used to have. Imagine the free time people will have to raise a family, go to school, or exercise when they have to commute to 3 different job sites every day.
Think of all the jobs that will be created, just don’t think about how one person is working so many of them just to get by.
Businesses and economic systems prefer to bake in changes they need (or are forced) to make, early. It promotes predictability.
You’d know that if you knew anything whatever about business. You claim to run a business Jim – what is it’s name and what does it do?
And one of the many reasons the economy has been in the doldrums for the last 5 years, is because Obama, Pelosi, and Reid destroyed predictability (“You have to pass the law to see what’s in it.”). Predictability maximizes the ability to adjust in the future based upon real life action/result. Real Life results. Not bogus cartoon predictions based upon lies and multiple use of the same dollar.
For many decades businesses kept full time employees and offered health insurance.
Obamacare is passed with a rule that seriously affects businesses – affects how businesses have to fork out money and it’s based upon how many hours employees work.
Businesses now change decades worth of behavior.
Baghdad Jim sees no connection.
Quelle Surprise.
They were going to cut those hours less, because they like seeing their workers suffer. They’re only saying it’s because of Obamacare because they want to undermine the President. Right?
They aren’t doing their patriotic duty. Where is their dedication to the homeland? Something needs to be done…
the mandate doesn’t kick in until 2015
Hey Baghdad Jim, the US Code of Regulations Title 26 Section 4980H is the law of the land, and it says “shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013”.
Either you’re ignorant or a liar. If you read this, you’re no longer ignorant.
Since most business owners realize ignorance of the law is no defense (particularly when it comes to paying taxes), I’m sure those business are preparing for the law to take place when the law says it starts.
Obama can violate the law if he wishes. He certainly has done it enough already. But business owners ought to consider that while the Senate will protect Obama, there is no sign that the federal government will protect their business.
The article never explains why they’re cutting hours now, when the mandate doesn’t kick in until 2015.
Um, actually, if you read the whole article, it does:
“St. Petersburg college officials said they don’t want to undo the cuts they’ve already made only to revisit them next year.”
So, while the Subway owner is going to wait-and-see, employers like schools, who have to plan their August-to-June labor force in April or May, already made the change before Obama decided to ignore the law and “grant a reprieve”, and are too far into the game to turn back now, just to go through it all again next year.
I, for one, am happy that there are “public” institutions whose actions mirror those of the private sector, inasmuch as it deflates the argument about “fat-cat evil business owners”. Not that those arguments aren’t still made, of course, since the comments are full of them.
My biggest non-surprise (and cringing moment) is that the comments over there continue to focus on further entangling the relationship between employment and health care coverage, and continue to conflate health care with actual insurance. Any person who has been an independent contractor and/or lost their job (and insurance coverage, unless they paid extortion rates for COBRA) should be fully aware of how ludicrous the idea is to put the onus of health care benefits on the employer.
Of course, if this country was run by sane people who used reason and logic, it might take all of the “fun” out of life. Frankly, I’d welcome the “boredom” of such a world…
Remember, Gregg, that in Baghdad Jim’s red-sun universe, you could increase the costs of labor indefinitely with no deleterious effects on the labor force! And Obama is the greatest president ever!
Where are the rest of the golden eggs, and why is that damn goose just bleeding everywhere instead of cooperating?
Love the proposed solution to lower the mandate to 20 hours in a week. Apparently the union guy is under the impression that they won’t just cut to 19 hours and hire more workers. Must be using the government’s unemployment numbers.
Jim, business owners are required to be responsive to changing business conditions, particularly regarding laws surrounding the operation of the business. Those that do not find themselves out of business. I would be embarrassed for you that you need this explained to you if I suspected you weren’t being deliberately dense.
No doubt Jim, like his hero Obama, knows what he’s talking about because, like Obama, he has had such great success starting and operating profit-making enterprises in the private sector.
This is why listening to Jim is bad for your business health:
“They relied on California law as it was written, that they would get a tax break if they invested in certain kinds of businesses,” Lieu said.
But a court ruled in December that practice by the state was unconstitutional. Now, the Franchise Tax Board wants its money.
That was a written law. What Obama wants to do is by fiat change a written law to say explicitly something else. In order for businesses not to be harmed by going along with Obama, no one can challenge the constitutionality of Obama’s authority to rewrite legislation passed by Congress. If someone does, and Obama loses, then there may be a hefty fine to pay in the future.