Free Republic

We’ve reached the stage where Obamacare is the punchline to a bad joke. The law has been a disaster, both for the economy and for the Democratic Party. Not that we should be surprised. You don’t get better healthcare with a poisonous recipe of higher taxes, added government spending, and more intervention. With any luck, Obamacare will be a textbook example of why we should never again give power to a bunch of political hacks and dreamy-eyed central planners. Because when they try to buy votes and create more dependency with Rube Goldberg schemes, the results are…well, we seethe cluster-you-know-what...

The Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time workers by more than two million in coming years, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday in the most detailed analysis of the law’s impact on jobs.

How terrible. Home Depot (HD) and Trader Joe’s have decided to stop offering health insurance for part-time employees, moving them over to Obamacare instead. More companies seem sure to follow. And more wailing about greedy, heartless corporations is sure to follow that. Some workers may start to drop dead from sheer anxiety before Obamacare even goes into effect on January 1. Once the new health law has been in place for a few months, however, Part-Time America may issue a collective sigh of relief. Nobody ever held up today’s part-time "mini-med" plans as model coverage. The majority of part-time workers...

Inquiring minds are digging into average weekly hours of workers looking for Obamacare effects on which to place blame. Average Weekly Hours Of Production And Nonsupervisory Employees  Since this data series began in 1964, the average weekly workweek has been trending lower. Note the tendency following each recession. 1990-1998 is the only exception to the general rule that hours never recovered to the previous pre-recession level. Last Five Observations 2013-07: 33.6 Hours 2013-06: 33.7 Hours 2013-05: 33.7 Hours 2013-04: 33.7 Hours 2013-03: 33.8 Hours  Lets' zero in to a tighter timeline for a closer look. The second chart shows that in spite of Obamacare,...

Keeping in mind that, under ObamaCare, a “full-time” work week is only 30 hours, the SBA website provides an example: Company X has 40 full-time employees working 40 hours per week, along with 20 part-time employees working 15 hours per week. The 20 part-time employees are counted as 10 full-time equivalent employees. Company X has 50 full-time employees and is subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions. The rules are a “problem for employers at the margin” of 50 full-time workers, said Edmund F. Haisimaier of the Heritage Foundation. In addition, the mandates include seasonal employees, so even if a...

In an experiment apparently aimed at keeping down the cost of health-care reform, Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few Olive Gardens, Red Lobsters and LongHorn Steakhouses. Darden said the test is taking place in "a select number" of restaurants in four markets, including Central Florida, but would not give details. The company said there has been no decision made about expanding it. In an emailed statement, Darden said staffing changes are "just one of the many things we are evaluating to help us address the cost implications health care...

Under ObamaCare, companies of more than 50 workers who do not provide health-insurance coverage have to pay significant fines, although not nearly as costly as the insurance itself. That alone might have employers bailing out of the health-insurance market, but the Orlando Sentinel reports that at least one company is testing a way to avoid both costs. Employers do not have to provide health-insurance coverage to part-time workers under ObamaCare as long as they work less than 30 hours a week, and one restaurant company has begun experimenting with changing over entire staffs to part-time work to avoid the ObamaCare...

Don't be surprised that ObamaCare drives unemployment up. CNBC interviewed a restaurateur who fears the combination of workers comp, ObamaCare and sick time could bury her chain of restaurants she's sent the last 25 years building. Madelyn Alfano has a chain or restaurants in the LA area and is President of the LA Chapter of the California Restaurant Association. She' especially worried about her part time employees who have second job. "If we were to pay for the 400 employees, because the bill talks about part-timers--but for each two part-timers that makes that makes one full-timer--from what I gather, it...

Part-Time Workers Mask Unemployment Woes DAVID LEONHARDT July 14, 2009 In California and a handful of other states, one out of every five people who would like to be working full time is not now doing so. Chris Keane. After Richard Smith, 58, was laid off from jobs at two carmakers, he moved to Charlotte, N.C., and found only part-time work. He makes $9.50 an hour repairing clubs at a Golf Galaxy store. It is a startling sign of the pain that the Great Recession is inflicting, and it is largely missed by the official, oft-repeated statistics on unemployment. The...