Posted on 12/10/2012 3:03:18 AM PST by lowbridge
After making a big deal of publicly supporting the Affordable Care Act, Walmart—the nation’s largest private sector employer—is joining the ranks of companies seeking to avoid their obligation to provide employees with health insurance as required by Obamacare.
It was not all that many years ago that Walmart announced, in response to harsh criticism over the low pay provided to Walmart ‘associates’, that the company would provide a healthcare benefit to its part-time, low earning employees. The uncharacteristically generous nod to worker needs was short lived as the company partially pulled back on the commitment in 2011, citing premium rate increases that Walmart deemed beyond their capacity to pay.
Now, Huffington Post is reporting that the party is over for many more existing Walmart employees, along with all employees hired after February 1, 2012 that the company can classify as “part-time.”
According to the 2013 Walmart “Associate’s Benefit Book”—the manual for low-level Walmart employees—part-time workers who got their jobs during or after 2011 will now be subject to an “Annual Benefits Eligibility Check” each August.
Employees hired after Feb. 1, 2012, who fail to average the magic 30-hours per week requiring a company to provide a healthcare benefit, will lose their healthcare benefits on the following January. Part-time workers hired after Jan. 15, 2011, but before Feb. 1, 2012, will be able to hang onto their Walmart health care benefit if they work at least 24 hours a week.
Anyone hired before 2011 will not be cut off from the company provided health insurance.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Can you tell this article was written by a leftie? Pretty obvious. To the idiot author of this article, Bozo is the reason for this sh**, not Walmart.
They get what they voted for.
Yep, Democrats Stick Taxpayers With Obamacare Costs
Only an observation...but what exactly do you have by the end of 2014? A bunch of folks who had 40-hour a week jobs...now on 28-hour a week jobs, and hustling up some secondary job to fill another 10-15 hours a week. The second job only crowds out the teenage workers or lesser-capable folks. You fix one problem....to create four new problems. No one is happy with this solution, and everyone whines about 30-hour strategy (unfair is a commonly used word by early 2015).
So what is new at Walmart?
You have spotted Obozo’s plans, I see...
What do you mean? There are hundreds of thousands just waiting for Obama’s inauguration when their health insurance will be paid by him. (Or does the free insurance kick in on April 1st?)
John Roberts says Obamacare is a tax.
And it is a truism that if you tax something you get less of it.
In this case what you will inevitably get less of is health care and full time jobs that pay a living wage.
The cost of a product, say, a shirt, is the expense of the shirt, plus overhead times profit. If the shirt costs $2.00 and the apportioned cost of the overhead (lights, rent) is $2.00 and the profit is 10% then the shirt costs $2.00+$2.00=$4.00. Multiply the total by profit $4.00*1.1= $4.40.
My former employer spent $6,500 per employee per year on medical. I spent another $3,500 for individual coverage. $10,000/year per employee. (BTW, the HR guy told me that the plan was to dump everybody; 30,000 employees, onto the Obamacare and just pay the fine come 2014.)
Back to Wal-Mart. Let’s say the average employee makes $12.50/hr and works 2,080 hours per year. He’s making $12.50 * 2,080 or $26,000. Adding $10,000 on top of that is a $10,000/$26,000 or a 38% raise. Wal-Mart employs 2.1 million people. Assuming they all make $26,000 that’s 2,100,000 * 26,000 or $54,600,000,000/year. Multiply that by 1.38 and you get $75,348,000,000. And, remember, we only used take-home pay. If you add in Wal-Mart’s social security, etc. then the cost to Wal-Mart is even more significant.
Now, back to the shirt. Because the cost of medical care was increasing exponentially when private companies did the work imagine how inefficient the government will be at controlling costs. (Every plane, tank and dam the government bought went wildly over budget.) The shirt could go from $4.40 to $8.80 in no time. Since the nation’s poorest people shop at Wal-Mart (The average Wal-Mart shopper’s income is $25,000; compared to Target’s average shopper income of $75,000.) Wal-Mart covering medical care would be a TAX on the poorest Americans. Whereas if Wal-Mart “dumps” their employees on the taxpayers then the medical costs will be picked up by those evil (/s) rich people.
What is new with WalMart?
That they are still paying entry level and unskilled workers higher wages and benefits than thousands of other employers; trying to instill Sam Walton’s ethics of a sense of pride in the workplace and being part of a team, and unlike Darden restaurants chains and thousands of other employers of first resort- they are keeping health benefits for 24 hr a week part timers
If you disagree with WalMart’s business plan, don’t shop there. If enough people follow you and the union agitators, Walmarts business willl drop and there will be that many less seniors, single parents, students, and other unskilled people hired who need flexible and part time work, at 30% above minimum wage, to start.
New tagline ...
WalMart and other LARGE employers are just the tip of the iceberg. The sector that this is likely to become a near-universal practice is in the restaurant industry. The Federal minimum wage for tipped employees is still $2.13 per hour (plus tips, of course). But anyone who stayed awake during grade school arithmetic class can tell that an employer can't possibly afford to provide free health insurance in addition to $2.13/hour wages.
The more obvious results; 1.) restaurant employees will see their hours cut by more than one-quarter AND 2.) The employees will be on the hook for paying for their own overpriced Obamacare insurance. Or be fined. Or "taxed" as the SC decided. It's regressive taxation, but that's not news since so far most of the pain of Obamanomics has been directed at the core Obama voter constituencies.
I've considered the possibility that this was deliberate -- except for Nancy Pelosi's famous quote "But we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." NOBODY knew what was in the bill. So no, it's not a nefarious plot, IMO. It's that liberals are idiots. Which is not news.
Brilliant!
The American people are going to get the government they want, good and hard.
There is a point of diminishing returns. Any business/investment person knows this. When that point is “hit” it is ususally better to either stop contributing to whatever it is or cut contributions as it is counterproductive to generating increased revenues.
When paying taxes decreases a business’s ability to hire new FULL TIME workers and grow the business, that tipping point has been breached. When investors realize a diminishing return that point has been reached.
It is not about the “perception of fair,” it is about what creates work and jobs. The sooner Americans get back to that concept, the sooner we get our country out of this mess.
Sounds like a sound business decision for Walmart.
their fine will be less than if they supplied insurance, plus it will cut down on their HR involvement and other management involvement.
and for zer0bummer? it is what the turd actually wants.
all around it is Marxism...no getting around it.
That's known as a failure in the gov't and lefties eyes. The question is can Walmart make it work with the FAILURE Obamacare is going to be?
God bless Wal-Mart
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