Obamacare, Part-time, and the Minimum Wage?

My husband had a loony theory that I thought I'd post here because I'm not sure where else you would put it.

Obamacare has driven a lot of employers to cut employee hours down to under 30 hours per week in order to avoid the mandate which has created a nation of part-time workers, many of them minimum wage.

The current national minimum wage is $7.25/hour. For someone who had been working full-time, that earns $290/week.

However, there is now a push on to raise the federal minimum wage to $10/hour.

If people are working only 29 hours/week at $10/hour, they are making $290 ...

Coincidence? Or is this a cynical attempt to assuage the workers into not realizing how badly their hours and pay have actually been cut?

Of course, the flaw in the ointment here is that employers will still have the exact same labor needs they always have had. This makes paying labor much more costly to them even if the workers are working less hours per worker.

reply to post by ketsuko


I don't know if I would have started an entire thread based on a speculation; but oh my... What an interesting speculation. So I gave you a star for what it is worth. I had my suspicions about the sudden ruffling of political feathers regarding the minimum wage (although for the record, I think it should be raised), but I couldn't put my finger on why the timing seemed fishy. I think you may have just said what was hiding in plain sight.

reply to post by ketsuko


What was the excuse for cutting Hours before they could Scapegoat Obamacare?

What did the so called "Job Creators" blame in 2008 before Obama was even elected?

reply to post by redhorse


I only did because the coincidence seemed just a little too perfect. That's why it's here in this forum.

It would put everyone whose hours got hacked in half on one big treadmill, not really ahead, but not behind either.

But then you have all the other effects that a minimum wage increase has on the economy at large, so I think this would be a net negative.

ketsuko

Obamacare has driven a lot of employers to cut employee hours down to under 30 hours per week in order to avoid the mandate which has created a nation of part-time workers, many of them minimum wage.

Large employers have been keeping people under 30 hours a week to avoid providing benefits (thirty years) long before The Affordable Care Act. Mostly large employers with minimum wage workers (fast food, big retail, etc).

The current national minimum wage is $7.25/hour. For someone who had been working full-time, that earns $290/week.

Yeppers - well done.

However, there is now a push on to raise the federal minimum wage to $10/hour.

If people are working only 29 hours/week at $10/hour, they are making $290 ...

Yeppers again.

Coincidence? Or is this a cynical attempt to assuage the workers into not realizing how badly their hours and pay have actually been cut?

Who knows? Does it matter? $290 a week (can anyone live on that other then a teen at home?) is $290 a week. With Obamacare you can get subsidised health care at least regardless of hours or income. A good thing for most people, yes???

Of course, the flaw in the ointment here is that employers will still have the exact same labor needs they always have had. This makes paying labor much more costly to them even if the workers are working less hours per worker.

Yes - but employers now just shove extra work onto remaining employees. More work for fewer people = less service for the few remaining customers.

It's kinda like - cutting the government over the last 40 years has dratically cut needed civil servants to help citizens at the DMV, any taxing body, police and fire call take a lot more time, less weights and measures inspectors (businesses would never cheat on weighting goods like gas or produce or ....), health and safety inspectors (businesses would never put the publice health in danger)....

We need more public servants --- not less. And private business need the same and service people that speak English (and Spanish) as first languages.

That's the business model of trickle down devotees. Not provide a better service or product then a competitor (there are very few any longer) just grab the money and run and to **** with people afterward.

Fact is - A raise in the minimum wage will only effect cusumers prices by a miniscule amount:

Overall, price increases are modest: For example, a 10% increase in the minimum wage would increase food prices by no more than 4% and overall prices by no more than 0.4%, significantly less than the minimum-wage increase.

- See more at: journalistsresource.org...

The benefits far outweight any negatives.

And what this has to do with healthcare, I don't have a clue.

reply to post by FyreByrd


You were right about most things in your post, but not subsidized healthcare being better.

They still can't pay the deductible unless they 1/2 a years pay in the bank, so it is worthless, and simply wasting money on the premiums.

These people will still be flocking to the emergency room, so nothing will change but the government dumping heaps of money into the insurance industry for products no poor person can still afford to use.

The average poor person might need what $5,000 a year in medical care they don't have, now they insurance with a $5,000 deductible they still don't have the money for.

This changes nothing for 9 out of 10 poor people. They will still be forced into the emergency rooms.

I don't see how you qualify this as a good thing.

reply to post by oblvion

The poor think this is great, not realizing they now have an account to which debt can be applied.

One has to realize the ACA was written by some very smart people in the insurance industry. There's no way the lazy-asses in Congress could have written such comprehensive law.

Keeping this short ... just in case ... for people who still don't get it.

Why don't all these idiots get real jobs or go to college and get away from this stupidity?

If they weren't so lazy, or prone to making poor decisions then they wouldnt have to have mothers and fathers working these crap jobs designed for kids to support their family.

The problem isn't healthcare, or min wage its the idiots working these crappy jobs. They need to grow up.

reply to post by ketsuko


Basically don't expect a raise anytime soon,in fact watch for more jobs/businesses (many more) to move to China/India etc where labor is cheap
Imo and more than a few would agree, this nation is being systematically gutted by the very people entrusted to protected it,
not assigning blame but all those who voted for "change" better start getting used to it..
Peace.

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

Albert Einstein

onequestion
Why don't all these idiots get real jobs or go to college and get away from this stupidity?

If they weren't so lazy, or prone to making poor decisions then they wouldnt have to have mothers and fathers working these crap jobs designed for kids to support their family.

The problem isn't healthcare, or min wage its the idiots working these crappy jobs. They need to grow up.

That is sarcasm right?

I will assume so, since there are many with degrees working these " entry level" " low skill" jobs because there is nothing else out there.

And up you a, these people are just lazy, everyone knows it is much easier to walk miles to work in the middle of winter, to stand in the heat of a kitchen than it is to sit in a comfy chair talking on the phone and hitting up ATS for a few hours of your 8 hour work day, I mean those climate controlled walks to the water cooler are brutal. Only a 1 hour paid lunch......animals are treated better. WTF, they are doing at least 2 hours of work a day for their $100,000 salary, these poor idiots just don't work this hard, that's why they get paid so little.

reply to post by oblvion


Oh it was sarcasm and yes your right.

Second line.

onequestion
Why don't all these idiots get real jobs or go to college and get away from this stupidity?

If they weren't so lazy, or prone to making poor decisions then they wouldnt have to have mothers and fathers working these crap jobs designed for kids to support their family.

The problem isn't healthcare, or min wage its the idiots working these crappy jobs. They need to grow up.

Yes, it's only because people are lazy that they're working these jobs. Not like potential employers aren't asking for years of experience which often makes the degree of any recent graduate practically worthless or the fact that age discrimination seems rampant in regards to filling "entry level" positions supposedly available. If you ask around, you might find that some of those people working crappy jobs are much more "overqualified" than you'd think.

College these days seems to be another expensive debt added on with the reward of "nope we're not interested in what you have to offer right now" until you break down and take yet another crappy job doing the kind of stuff you were trying to get away from. (Ok there might be some fields still in demand, but unless your interests lie in healthcare, teaching, or arcane business-related number-crunching type stuff, the pickings tend to be very slim in what you can get out of college.)

reply to post by onequestion


I am just curious how much longer this house of cards can stand in the of a hurricane before it all falls down.

I honestly thought folks would do something about it long ago. I try to do my part, but soooo many are sooooo blind and naive.

They look at me like am speaking Greek when I talk about this stuff.

It can't possibly continue much longer.

On a side note, I saw a lady with a Gucci bag get out of the drivers seat of a brand new escalade last week at the store, she bought about $50 worth of garbage on food stamps.....the clerk laid her receipt on the counter, it said she had $1200 left on it, how do these people do it.

I barely cleared $20,000 last year and can't get anything, how can she drive an escalade, afford a Gucci purse, and an outfit worth more than my car yet get assistance?

Maybe the problem is all us regular folks aren't gaming the system.

Maybe they enforce it like the border and immigration laws, and want us all to lie for free money.

I am half tempted honestly, I work 6 days a week at least 4 out of 5 weeks and barely make it, why I should I live less well when I could just mooch and live much better?

My conscience won't let me at present, but I am close to talking it into it.

I mean the ship is sinking anyways, why keep helping keep it up when most seem to be trying to take it down?

pauljs75
College these days seems to be another expensive debt added on with the reward of "nope we're not interested in what you have to offer right now" until you break down and take yet another crappy job doing the kind of stuff you were trying to get away from. (Ok there might be some fields still in demand, but unless your interests lie in healthcare, teaching, or arcane business-related number-crunching type stuff, the pickings tend to be very slim in what you can get out of college.)

Add to that, college can be a major setback in terms of time itself. The four-year degree has turned into five. Having a degree may not be enough of a qualification to compete against one's peers. And, sometimes, that degree's not important in the workplace until you've reached upper-management levels (where you can finally afford to pay it off).

-Cheers

Snarl

pauljs75
College these days seems to be another expensive debt added on with the reward of "nope we're not interested in what you have to offer right now" until you break down and take yet another crappy job doing the kind of stuff you were trying to get away from. (Ok there might be some fields still in demand, but unless your interests lie in healthcare, teaching, or arcane business-related number-crunching type stuff, the pickings tend to be very slim in what you can get out of college.)

Add to that, college can be a major setback in terms of time itself. The four-year degree has turned into five. Having a degree may not be enough of a qualification to compete against one's peers. And, sometimes, that degree's not important in the workplace until you've reached upper-management levels (where you can finally afford to pay it off).

-Cheers

I just find it so disturbing that none of us are socialists, yet we pick apart the current state of capitalism so easily.

The system used to work.....for the most part, for most folks.

Now we can easily lay literally thousands of examples out at the drop of hat as to why it is utterly broken from the ground up.

Have we unintentionally drank " the kool-aid", or has our country really fallen so far?

I have never really felt despair for the future before, worry....yes, concern....of course, but just absolute hopeless despair......not until recently.

We will never wake enough in time, THEY will own it all and the feudal system will return, the robber barons will be the new kings, with our children as their serfs..........

oblvion
Have we unintentionally drank " the kool-aid", or has our country really fallen so far?

How did that Virginia Slim's cigarette jingle go? "You've come a long way baby, to get where you've got to today."

Here's how I keep my sanity. I know I've bottomed-out three times, I've been to the edge at least a couple of times ... and I've still managed to get where I am right now. It's a minor acknowledgement that there's a streak of success in me somewhere. If I get off the vein, I'll find it again sooner or later.

Here's how you get past where you are: There ain't nothing special about me. You're smarter than I am. You're still young.

I wouldn't worry about the country. There's a lot of chaff, but there's a lot of good wheat there too. It doesn't take 300M people to run the USA. Make sure you're a wheat grain when the threshing machine is cranked up.

reply to post by FyreByrd


this is a great theory,not sure if it was intended,but it makes sense.The other upside is,that with more PT workers,you need to hire to fill in the gaps,so you'll get lower unemployment figures.Would you like more PT workers,or more unemployed FT workers?At least a part time worker will get reduced food stamps/welfare,where a FT needs none,hopefully.I'd support a "starting wage".say 7.50 an hour,for young people entering the workforce,then a "living min wage" of 10 or so for those over 21. A stepped wage?

reply to post by oblvion


It's because she knows how to work the system.

There are numbers out there in the internet that show that a single mother of three who knows all the ins and outs of the system can wind up with more disposable income than a family of four making $64K/year. And, that's assuming she's not engaging in any fraud along the way.

There are some states that only have a handful of fraud inspectors in their social services divisions to oversee thousands of recipients.

The system is constructed to get you hooked on it, not make you stand up on your own and independent.

reply to post by oblvion


We continually forget that we don't actually have true capitalism and haven't for a very long time.

None of us knows what actual capitalism and free markets are like. The closest thing we have to that system is the Internet, and they are working very, very hard to regulate it, tax it and make it less free as we speak.

blkcwbyhat
reply to post by FyreByrd

 

this is a great theory,not sure if it was intended,but it makes sense.The other upside is,that with more PT workers,you need to hire to fill in the gaps,so you'll get lower unemployment figures.Would you like more PT workers,or more unemployed FT workers?At least a part time worker will get reduced food stamps/welfare,where a FT needs none,hopefully.I'd support a "starting wage".say 7.50 an hour,for young people entering the workforce,then a "living min wage" of 10 or so for those over 21. A stepped wage?

The problem with that is if you can get away with paying teenagers $7.50 for the same wage it costs paying an adult worker $10 to do, why on earth would you ever hire an adult?