Less Than 40 Hours

Obamacare is driving America’s workforce into a nation with more part-time than full-time workers.

July 31, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. – One of the unintended side effects of the Affordable Care Act is the shift from full-time employment to part-time work for many retail and foodservice companies. The Chicago Tribune’s recent op-ed piece — not the first to address this concern — talks about how the Obamacare “will give companies — and, surprisingly, their workers — a big incentive to embrace more part-time employment.”

The newspaper pointed out that those who will be paying for this shift isn’t the companies or the workers themselves — it’s the taxpayers. “Some of the motives at play here will strike you as familiar; others are fresh insights on the part-timing of America. Opponents of Obamacare have long predicted that the 2010 law would lead to reduced working hours for many Americans. We all know from high-profile announcements that some employers, notably restaurants, plan to avoid hiring full-time workers because of the new health care rules.”

The Affordable Care Act mandates that companies with 50 or more full-time workers must offer health insurance to any employee who clocks at least 30 hours per week — or pay a fine. “That's a big incentive to keep the staff at 49 full-timers or, if the business demands more bodies, a big incentive to have as many employees as possible working a maximum of 29 hours,” writes the Chicago Tribune.

However, part-time work could be beneficial to workers, too. “Several million employees could work fewer hours for as much take-home pay by shifting to part-time labor. … Part-time work does become a problem when Washington tilts the balance of incentives against full-time work. Not only will Obamacare raise costs for the government, it stands to make one of the most competitive features of the U.S. economy — a flexible labor market — less efficient.”

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