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Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2013
- Messages
- 55
I hate sharing personal information about myself, whether it be good or bad. But I am curious if people have found themselves in a situation similar to mine.
I was hired yesterday at CVS for a part-time Pharmacy Technician position. During the interview, I was informed that the reason why I was being hired was because part-time techs had been working for 40 hours a week and corporate had informed the store that they needed to double-down on reducing hours per employee. In other words, I was informed that I was stealing someone else's job (go me) and management was planning on hiring more workers to cut more hours from each individual. I told the manager I was hardly surprised explaining that the corporate tightening was likely due to required health insurance for full-time workers under the ACA. To wit, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) stipulates that starting in 2014, firms are required to subsidize health insurance for full-time workers.
More specifically, firms with fifty or more full-time "equivalent" workers must offer health plans to employees who work more than thirty hours a week (the law says equivalent because two fifteen hour a week workers counts as one full-time worker). Employers that pass the fifty employee threshold and don't offer insurance face a $2,000 penalty for each uncovered worker beyond thirty employees. So if a firm were to hire a fiftieth worker, the firm would pay a penalty on the previous twenty. This would come out to a $40,000 penalty once crossing the "fiscal-hiring cliff" so to speak if they hire what constitutes a "50-th worker." Each additional hire that is not subsidized results in an additional $2,000 tax, therefore 60 workers would bring the penalty to $60,000.
Although health insurance benefits are not required until 2014, the "measurement period" being used by the feds to determine a firm's average number of full-time employees started last month. Notable cutbacks have been the State of Virginia limiting all state-employees from janitors to to associate professors, to working no more than 29 hours per week so they would not qualify for mandatory health insurance. Florida’s Palm Beach State College, Pennsylvania’s Community College of Allegheny County, Ohio’s Youngstown State University, and New Jersey’s Kean University have instituted similar rules,as have restaurants such as Applebee's, Olive Garden, Denny's,Red Lobster, Papa John's Pizza, and some Wendy's and Taco Bell franchises (Wikipedia). McDonalds, KFC, and Dunkin' Donuts have also started to cut back on full-time employment (Wall Street Journal).
Gonna be applying tomorrow for a second job. Because, what else is there to do.
This transition can shift businesses unwilling to pay for insurance to do more with less, or on a more novel spin in my case, doing less with more.
Sources:
1. Wikipedia - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
2. Wall Street Journal - Review & Outlook
Disclaimer:
The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp. (Fox) and has issues with political objectivity at times.
I was hired yesterday at CVS for a part-time Pharmacy Technician position. During the interview, I was informed that the reason why I was being hired was because part-time techs had been working for 40 hours a week and corporate had informed the store that they needed to double-down on reducing hours per employee. In other words, I was informed that I was stealing someone else's job (go me) and management was planning on hiring more workers to cut more hours from each individual. I told the manager I was hardly surprised explaining that the corporate tightening was likely due to required health insurance for full-time workers under the ACA. To wit, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) stipulates that starting in 2014, firms are required to subsidize health insurance for full-time workers.
More specifically, firms with fifty or more full-time "equivalent" workers must offer health plans to employees who work more than thirty hours a week (the law says equivalent because two fifteen hour a week workers counts as one full-time worker). Employers that pass the fifty employee threshold and don't offer insurance face a $2,000 penalty for each uncovered worker beyond thirty employees. So if a firm were to hire a fiftieth worker, the firm would pay a penalty on the previous twenty. This would come out to a $40,000 penalty once crossing the "fiscal-hiring cliff" so to speak if they hire what constitutes a "50-th worker." Each additional hire that is not subsidized results in an additional $2,000 tax, therefore 60 workers would bring the penalty to $60,000.
Although health insurance benefits are not required until 2014, the "measurement period" being used by the feds to determine a firm's average number of full-time employees started last month. Notable cutbacks have been the State of Virginia limiting all state-employees from janitors to to associate professors, to working no more than 29 hours per week so they would not qualify for mandatory health insurance. Florida’s Palm Beach State College, Pennsylvania’s Community College of Allegheny County, Ohio’s Youngstown State University, and New Jersey’s Kean University have instituted similar rules,as have restaurants such as Applebee's, Olive Garden, Denny's,Red Lobster, Papa John's Pizza, and some Wendy's and Taco Bell franchises (Wikipedia). McDonalds, KFC, and Dunkin' Donuts have also started to cut back on full-time employment (Wall Street Journal).
Gonna be applying tomorrow for a second job. Because, what else is there to do.
This transition can shift businesses unwilling to pay for insurance to do more with less, or on a more novel spin in my case, doing less with more.
Sources:
1. Wikipedia - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
2. Wall Street Journal - Review & Outlook
Disclaimer:
The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp. (Fox) and has issues with political objectivity at times.