Some Huge Bakken Wells Reported; "I Can Understand Mom-And-Pop Businesses Not Being Able To Afford ObamaCare" -- Presdident Obama; Staples To Mandate 25-Hour Work Weeks; ObamaCare Is High-Cost Catastrophic Health Insurance

A large number of Bakken wells came off the confidential list today; they have been updated. There are some huge well (again, as usual). 

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ObamaCare? That Was Easy -- Staples

The Federally-mandated 30-hour work week? Think again: it's 25 hours.  Staples, the No. 1 U.S. office supplies retailer, has told its employees not to work more than 25 hours per week.

I'm not exactly sure where to place this story; I have a link at the bottom of the blog about companies "leaving" ObamaCare, but "leaving" needs to be in "air quotes" because everyone seems to have their own way of dealing with ObamaCare.

The tag: http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/search/label/ObamaCareCosLeaving.

Regular readers know that I have been tracking ObamaCare from day 1. 

The story I am referring to today come from Reuters:  Obama slams Staples, big companies on healthcare: 'Shame on them' - :

U.S. President Barack Obama singled out office supply giant Staples Inc as undercutting his healthcare reform law and said large corporations should not use the health insurance issue as an excuse for cutting wages. 

"It's one thing when you've got a mom-and-pop store who can't afford to provide paid sick leave or health insurance or minimum wage to workers … but when I hear large corporations that make billions of dollars in profits trying to blame our interest in providing health insurance as an excuse for cutting back workers’ wages, shame on them,” Obama said in an interview with BuzzFeed.

The Affordable Care Act requires companies with more than 50 employees to pay for health insurance for people who work 30 hours a week or more. Reuters has reported that some businesses are keeping staffing numbers below 50 or cutting the work week to less than 30 hours to avoid providing employee health insurance.

Staples, the No. 1 U.S. office supplies retailer, has told its employees not to work more than 25 hours per week.

So many story lines here. I love the line from President Obama that he could understand mom-and-pop businesses not being able to afford ObamaCare. Does he not realize that the bulk of American businesses in the US are small business?

Whatever.  Wait until Staples defines their employees as "individual contractors." LOL.

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Minimum Wage? That Was Easy -- Aldopho Gomez

By the way, speaking of cutting hours for employees because of ObamaCare, the same thing is happening with regard to the minimum wage, but I guess it's a win-win: the employee gets the same amount of pay but has more free hours to spend at home (maybe less day-care expenses); and the employer gets to bring in family members to take up the slack. The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

[Due to the minimum wage] wage increases ate into profits at businesses in San Francisco, San Jose, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M. And that fundamentally changed the way they did business. Owners couldn't simply absorb the costs, so they scrubbed their budgets to preserve profits.

Many question whether workers benefited.

"The thought process is that you're going to put more money in people's pockets," said Ghattas, who owns the Slate Street Café, a wine bar and restaurant in Albuquerque. "In theory, that makes sense. But people end up getting hours cut, and they don't actually make any more money."

I think this administration has done more to hurt the "working class" than any recent administration in history:

• ObamaCare: mandates the 25-hour work week maximum (story above)
• minimum wage: employees' hours are cut (story above)
• illegal immigration: all employment growth since 2000 went to immigrants

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Health Insurers Move High-Cost Patients Off Their Rolls

Forbes is reporting (and quoting The New York Times):

The health insurance market is changing. And the changes are not good. Even before there was Obamacare, most insurers most of the time had perverse incentives to attract the healthy and avoid the sick. But now that the Affordable Care Act has completely changed the nature of the market, the perverse incentives are worse than ever.
Writing in Sunday’s New York Times Elizabeth Rosenthal gives these examples:

• When Karen Pineman of Manhattan sought treatment for a broken ankle, her insurer told her that the nearest in-network doctor was in Stamford, Connecticut – in another state.
• Alison Chavez, a California breast cancer patient, was almost on the operating table when her surgery had to be cancelled because several of her doctors were leaving the insurer’s network.
• When the son of Alexis Gersten, a dentist in East Quogue New York, needed an ear, nose and throat specialist, the insurer told her the nearest one was in Albany – five hours away.
• When Andrea Greenberg, a New York lawyer, called an insurance company hotline with questions she found herself speaking to someone reading off a script in the Philippines.
• Aviva Starkman Williams, a California computer engineer, tried to determine whether the pediatrician doing her son’s 2-year-old checkup was in-network, the practice’s office manager “said he didn’t know because doctors came in and out of network all the time, likening the situation to players’ switching teams in the National Basketball Association.”

But aren’t these insurers worried that if they mistreat their customers, their enrollees will move to some other plan? Here’s the rarely told secret about health insurance in the Obamacare exchanges: insurers don’t care if heavy users of medical care go to some other plan. Getting rid of high-cost enrollees is actually good for the bottom line.

Insurers are going to do very, very well under ObamaCare. This on Facebook (possibly a dynamic link):

Frances Fisher avoiding seeing the doctor for gastro-intestinal bleeding because of a high deductible.  

ObamaCare is essentially high-cost catastrophic insurance. People just don't get it.

A great opportunity for investors.

See disclaimer.

Thursday -- January 8, 2015; EPA Delays Coal Rules But No Date Provided (Probably After President Obama Leaves Office); Post-Modern Science -- "Fake But Accurate"; EU Sending Russia $2.1 Billion To Pay For Natural Gas For The Ukraine

Initial production numbers for wells coming off confidential status today have been posted. 

Perhaps the best two minutes of reading you can do today: The Coyote Blog. For me, perhaps the two best blogs I stumbled across early were The Coyote Blog and Bakkenshale. It is very, very unfortunate/sad that the latter is no longer with us; it was perhaps the best among the Bakken blogs. But I digress (again); here is the blurb over at The Coyote Blot that caught my attention.

If you want post-modern science in a nutshell, think of the term "fake but accurate." It is one of the most post-modern phrases I can imagine.  

It means that certain data, or an analysis, or experiment was somehow wrong or corrupted or failed typical standards of scientific rigor, but was none-the-less "accurate."

How can that be?  Because accuracy is not defined as logical conformance to observations.  It has been redefined as "consistent with the narrative."  She actually argues that our standard of evidence should be reduced for things we already "know." But how do we "know" it if we have not checked the evidence?  Because for Oreskes, and probably for an unfortunately large portion of modern academia, we "know" things because they are part of the narrative constructed by these self-same academic elites.

Kemp: Bakken oil prices nearing 2008 - 2009 lows.

UAE oil minister says oversupply may last months, years. Reported by Reuters at Rigzone. Note the minister's internal inconsistency in these quotes:

"Depending on the actual production growth from non-OPEC countries, this problem could take months or years. If they act rationally, we can see positive corrections during 2015."

Mazrouei also said the UAE would not panic over low prices and the market would eventually stabilise itself, adding that low prices would not delay the country's plans to boost its output capacity to 3.5 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2017.

Active rigs:

	1/8/2015	01/08/2014	01/08/2013	01/08/2012	01/08/2011
Active Rigs	166	193	181	200	163

EPA delays CO2 rules until President Obama leaves office. Link here. 

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday it will postpone finalizing new rules for carbon dioxide emissions.

The new rule will affect coal burning plants across the country.

[A spokesman] expects the EPA's new rule will be implemented in 2017 with lower carbon dioxide emissions standards phased in by 2030. [Update, January 11, 2015: EPA says rules will be out mid-summer, 2015.]

Jobs: the numbers without the spin at this link. (Monthly unemployment report comes out tomorrow.)

Initial jobless claims fell 4,000 in the January 3 week to 294,000, helping to pull down the 4-week average slightly to 290,500. The average is trending about 10,000 lower than the month-ago comparison which points to steady improvement underway in the labor market.

Data on continuing claims, which are reported with a 1-week lag, are mixed. Continuing claims in the December 27 week rose a sizable 101,000 to 2.452 million but the 4-week average fell 17,000 to 2.397 million. This average has been steady around the 2.400 million mark since late November. The unemployment rate for insured workers is unchanged for a fourth week at a recovery low of 1.8 percent.

Natural gas fill-rate: -131

The big story is that current storage now hits the mid-point of the 5-year average. Scroll to the graph at this link.

RBN Energy: final in a 9-part series on Canadian diluent. "If Canadian oil sands survives the current slump in prices, there will be adequate diluent for the Canadian western oil industry."

ONEOK has new presentation. The PDF is linked here.

GE should buy National Oilwell Varco -- writer, SeekingAlpha. See Disclaimer.

The EU to send $2.1 billion to Russia to pay for natural gas for the Ukraine -- the Russian winter is coming. -- This is actually being reported in The Moscow Times. 

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Apple

GE, no gee, I seem to have just written a note regarding Apple yesterday, and now a new record for Apple: a half billion dollars spent on apps in one week (remember, after Christmas mobile devices activated? 51% went to Apple). The AP is reporting:

Apple said Thursday that its App Store customers set a record for billings by spending nearly half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases during January's first week.

It said New Year's Day was also the single biggest day ever in App Store sales history. Apple Inc. said billings climbed 50 percent in 2014 and apps produced more than $10 billion in revenue for developers. The company launched the App Store in 2008.

The store has more than 1.4 million apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in 155 countries. Apps are available in 24 categories, including games, social networking, photo & video, sports, health & fitness, travel and kids. 

This is no longer about "cool." This is about "real." This is about functionality and convenience.

By the way, another typical Apple story. Apple is turning its retail stores in "fine art museums": 

Apple is turning its retail stores into art galleries featuring the work of professional photographers and other artists who use iPads, iPhones and Mac computers to create.

Travel photographer Austin Mann used an iPhone 6 to take otherworldly panoramic photos of an Icelandic glacier. Mann, who recalls mowing lawns for a summer as a 7th grader to save up for his first, bright green iMac in 1998, says his use of an iPhone and high-end cameras is "split pretty even" when it comes to professional work.

"In the photography industry especially, when you are getting started you are always seeking gear, 'If I could only get this $1,000 lens,'" he says. Using just an iPhone to take great photos encourages people to "shift away from focusing on gear and equipment."

Apple commissioned the work of 12 artists at various stages of their career to create works meant to inspire. Showcasing the people who use its technology — in this case, painters, photographers, filmmakers and other visual artists — is a shift for a company long focused on making its products front and center.

The artwork, done on iOS devices and Macs using various apps, is displayed on Apple's website as part of an ad campaign called "Start something new." And the Cupertino, California-based company is replacing all product signage in its retail stores with the artwork. Some of the artists are gathering Thursday evening at 6 p.m. at Apple's SoHo store in New York to talk about their work.

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29-Hour Work Week

The AP is reporting:

The measure would increase the definition of a full-time worker who must be offered health coverage at work to 40 hours from the current 30.

A similar bill cleared the House last year with the support of 18 Democrats but died in the Senate, which was then under Democratic control.

Republicans argue the health law's 30-hour requirement is encouraging companies to cut workers' hours. They cited a study by the conservative Hoover Institution that says 2.6 million Americans making less than $30,000 a year are most at risk of having their work time and wages cut as a result of the 30-hour rule. Of that group, it said 63 percent are women and over half have a high school diploma or less education.

But the White House said in a statement there is no evidence the law has caused a broad shift to part-time work, and said the new measure would create incentives for companies to shift employees to part-time work.

It pointed to an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the bill would boost federal deficits by $53.2 billion over a decade.

LOL. The Obama administration is worried about federal deficits. $55 billion over 10 years is $5 billion; a rounding error in US debt.

I heard this on the news earlier; I was surprised. It warms the cockles of my heart. I noted the 29-hour week back in 2012, and was blogging about it on a regular basis; I even have a tag at the blog, the "29-Hour-Work-Week."

I don't think mainstream media ever took on this story; now that it's in a bill, we will see lots of stories and lots of debate.

Obama will veto it and then we will see how many Senators are willing to risk re-election on voting to support Obama and ObamaCare.

For the record, I no longer care; it's political theater. I don't recall if I ever cared.

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Global Warming

Ice Age Now

It Depends Where You Place Your Thermometers

Chicago arctic blast continues; near record, now snow
Mobile, AL, freezes; beats 1886 temperatur of 18 degrees
New Orleans temps plunge to historic lows
Teams to fight frigid air in Green Bay (Dallas), New England
Governments warned to plan for "climate change" migrants (remember, they are fleeing two feet of water rising on their beaches; and they have a century -- 100 years -- to prepare for it -- that's the worse case scenario -- if you believe the hype):

Sea level rise of 19 cm (8 inches) since 1900, caused by factors including a thaw of glaciers from the Andes to the Alps and of Greenland's ice sheet, aggravates storm surges in many coastal regions, according to the U.N. panel of climate experts.

The panel's scenarios point to a further rise of 26 to 82 cm by the late 21st century. The panel says it is at least 95 percent probable that human activities, led by burning of fossil fuels, are the main cause of warming.

82 cm/2.54 = 32 inches.

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At Least It's Hard To Catch

By the way, the measles outbreak in California was predictable. 

Congress: Full Time Jobs; Working Hours Will Plummet Due To ObamaCare; Non-Partisan Estimate; This Is Not FOX News Reporting; The Analysis Is Particularly Interesting

I predicted this from the very beginning ... ObamaCare would result in fewer full-time jobs. I was so sure of this I even have a tag at the bottom of the blog: "29_Hour_Work_Week."

Now, the Congressional Budget Office says the same thing -- and it's not a trivial number. CNBC is reporting:

A historically high number of people will be locked out of the workforce by 2021, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.

President Barack Obama's signature health-care law will contribute to this phenomenon, the CBO said, citing new estimates that the Affordable Care Act will cause a larger-than-expected reduction in working hours—eliminating the equivalent of about 2.3 million workers in 2021.

In 2011, the CBO estimated the law would cause a reduction of about 800,000 full-time equivalent workers. 

The CBO is nearly tripling the number of jobs lost from earlier estimates. 

The Washington Times is saying the same thing:

Obamacare will push the equivalent of about 2 million workers out of the labor market by 2017 as employees decide either to work fewer hours or drop out altogether, according to the latest estimates Tuesday from the Congressional Budget Office.

That’s a major jump in the nonpartisan budget agency’s projections and it suggests the health care law’s incentives are driving businesses and people to choose government-sponsored benefits rather than work.

And those who are able to keep their jobs will start paying more for their own insurance. The gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" will simply widen.

The third article has a particularly analysis. Yahoo!Finance reports:

..... a new Congressional Budget Office report says the Affordable Care Act may cost the economy more jobs than previously projected while insuring fewer Americans.

Newly revised CBO projections show that President Obama’s signature health care law may reduce workforce participation by about 2.3 million workers by 2017. That’s compared to the previous estimate of 800,000 fewer workers by 2021.

The CBO suggests the reason for the reduction essentially boil down to employees deciding to work less or opt out of the workforce entirely if they can obtain coverage and subsidies under the new health exchanges.

That CBO analysis is MOST interesting: the CBO says that workers themselves will make the decision to opt out or work less; it is not because employers will be cost shifting or decreasing the number of job openings. If that turns out to be true, that could result in huge changes in monthly "unemployment" numbers.

The Fiscal Times has an in-depth analysis of jobs and ObamaCare as well as numerous additional links: The Great ObamaCare Workforce Exodus. 

Mainstream Media Gets It: The 29-Hour-ObamaCare-Work-Week Has Arrived

MDW has blogged about it for quite some time. It was an early observation.

Finally mainstream media is reporting on what was obvious. The latest: LA Times is reporting:

Many part-timers are facing a double whammy from President Obama's Affordable Care Act.

The law requires large employers offering health insurance to include part-time employees working 30 hours a week or more. But rather than provide healthcare to more workers, a growing number of employers are cutting back employee hours instead.
The result: Not only will these workers earn less money, but they'll also miss out on health insurance at work.

Consider the city of Long Beach. It is limiting most of its 1,600 part-time employees to fewer than 27 hours a week, on average. City officials say that without cutting payroll hours, new health benefits would cost up to $2 million more next year, and that extra expense would trigger layoffs and cutbacks in city services.

There is still some confusion out there, and I've seen it both ways. The question is this: who determines the number of part-time workers an employer has? The employer or the IRS. If it's the IRS, which I suspect, this will be quite a surprise for some employers.

Let's consider a company with 100 employees, and they are all considered part-time by the employer, each working less than 30 hours, to fall under the 30-hour threshold. Let's say 25 hours each. The employer tells the IRS the company has 100 part-time employees and is not subject to requirement to provide $2,000/employee for ObamaCare health insurance.

The IRS says: 100 workers x 25 hours = 2500 hours. Twenty-five hundred hours divided by the 30-hour threshold, and one gets 83 full-time equivalents. The IRS will tell the employer to pony up enough health care to cover 83 FTEs. In fact, the IRS will do the calculations over a two-week pay period but the math works out the same.

So this employer who thinks he/she has no full-time employees (except himself/herself) will be told by the IRS he/she has 83 full-time employees. 

Again, I don't know. I've seen it both ways. But I don't think the IRS is going to let employers define part-time employees. [Later: I'm being told that rules may be different for companies with federal contracts.]

More Evidence of the 29-Hour-Week As The Official US Work Week

The MDW started talking about this long before it became a mainstream issue: employers would start cutting hours now that the Federal government has defined the "official US work week" as 30 hours. Another employer has announced it will start cutting hours.

Breitbart is reporting:

Monday, Regal Entertainment Group, the largest movie theatre chain in the country, announced that thousands of employees will have their work hours cut -- as a direct result of the added cost of the new ObamaCare mandates that become effective later this year. 

In a memo to employees, management was blunt: “To comply with the Affordable Care Act, Regal had to increase our health care budget to cover those newly deemed eligible based on the law's definition of a full-time employee.” 

Fox News reports that, as a result of cutting employees' work hours (which is, of course, the same as a pay cut), full-time Regal managers have resigned in "a wave" after their hours and pay checks were slashed by as much as twenty-five percent. 

I am still willing to wager that ObamaCare implementation will be delayed until after the mid-term elections, or at least generous waivers will be the norm.  In addition to more stories like this, Ms Sibelius is simply not prepared to enroll tens of million of new healthcare beneficiaries later this year.

WSJ Links -- Friday and Saturday

Only section A from both editions for now (due to number of articles). Perhaps more, later.

Minimum wage? Not for Congressional internships; mileage and parking not reimbursed either; oh, by the way: ObamaCare? Congress exempted itself.

Forrest Gump at Treasury; Jack Lew doesn't seem to know much about how or why he got paid; I saw a bit of his testimony on television; that was my impression; he did not know why he was paid his salary at Citi, nor what he actually was in charge of; it was quite remarkable.

Wow, comparing the price of a cup of Starbucks coffee based on currency exchanges:

• San Francisco: $3.55
• Detroit (the bankrupt city): $3.55
• New York: $4.30
• Frankfurt, Germany: $5.53
• Moscow: $7.27
• Oslo, Norway: $9.83

Not to be outdone, the Economist has the "Big Mac Index" and it's interactive.

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Drivers feel pinch of climbing gas prices -- on page 3; no links; story is everywhere; Keystone XL delayed 4.5 years; policy decision to kill Keystone XL 1.0 one year ago.

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Flu shots offer poor protection to seniors: in WSJ, but link to CBS News

A new government report on the effectiveness of this year's flu vaccine finds dramatic discrepancies in the amount of protection Americans received, with senior citizens being left the most vulnerable.

.... the vaccine offered 58 percent protection against the most common and dangerous H3N2 strain for children ages 6 months to 17 years old, 46 percent protection for adults ages 18 to 49, and 50 percent protection for adults 60 to 64 years of age.

However, for seniors 65 and older, this year's flu shot was found to be only 9 percent effective against the more virulent H3N2 strain...

Tea leaves suggest no sequester; so what's new? No links; multiple stories

ObamaCare and the '29ers -- how the new mandates are already reducing full-time employment; MillionDollarWay noted this back in September, 2012, and I believe it was one of the first sites to talk about the new reality; I've yet to see mainstream media report that the US now has a federally-mandated work week: 30 hours. Folks still do not understand that the IRS determines the number of full-time employees a company has, not the company nor the employer. For hourly workers, on a monthly basis, the number of full-time employees is the total number of hours worked/120 hours.

Maybe more, later.

Wow! Could This Be? The US Postal Service Looking At ObamaCare's 29-Hour Work Week?

It could be. The article doesn't come right out and say it, and my hunch is that the cut in hours would have come anyway, but with the push by industry to cut employees to 29 hours/week wherever possible to save on health insurance costs, one has to bet that this issue came up in discussions about hourly cuts.

The link is at the Rapid City Journal.

The latest U.S. Postal Service plan to save money will hit hard in rural America, including in South Dakota, where more than 200 post offices in mostly small towns are likely to see a reduction in counter service.

Residents of Keystone will find out firsthand about the postal cuts on Tuesday evening, when residents can come to the town's small post office, at 111 Winter St., to give input on the proposal to reduce service hours.

Cue up Connie Francis.

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Back to the linked article, another story line. Cut and paste from the article:

In Keystone, residents will have a choice to close their local office or accept service reductions. The office could be closed if more than 60 percent of Keystone residents opt to close it; otherwise the Keystone post office would be open six hours each weekday, a 30-minute daily reduction, he said.

Maybe I'm misreading this but that paragraph suggests that the folks have a tough decision to make: a) close the post office entirely; or, b) a 30-minute daily reduction in counter service.

Is it just me, or am I missing something. Chester, that's rhetorical. Please don't comment.

Go back and read that article to the end; it borders on inanity. Or insanity. Memo to self: file under "Nuts."

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Actually, the more one thinks about it, it has to be health care costs.  Except for counter hours, all other post office hours / services remain intact. Certainly 30 minutes / day / wages / counter service is not the difference whether a post office stays open or not. Half an hour's pay each day? No, but cutting to 29 hours will eliminate the huge health care expense.

The 29-Hour Week

Update

January 9, 2013: Wendy is joining others with a 29-hour workweek to avoid ObamaCare.

WOWT-TV reports that nearly 300 employees at 11 Wendy’s locations in the Omaha area will have their hours reduced to 28 hours a week because the franchise owner says he can’t afford to pay his employees health care.

November 23, 2012: with regard to the Wal-Mart employee walk-out on Black Friday, there was one lone employee who walked out of his scheduled shift at a Wal-Mart on the south side of Chicago. He says he worked in the produce section, earning $8.95/hour, and recently had his hours cut to below 40 hours. Unfortunately for workers, I assume Wal-Mart will be looking for positions that can be cut to 29 hours so as not to incur ObamaCare expenses wherever possible. As for the Black Friday Wal-Mart walk-out, this, too, shall pass.

Original Post

Headline: Pennsylvania College Slashes Instructors' Hours to Avoid Obamacare

Pennsylvania's Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is slashing the hours of 400 adjunct instructors, support staff, and part-time instructors to dodge paying for Obamacare. 

"It's kind of a double whammy for us because we are facing a legal requirement [under the new law] to get health care and if the college is reducing our hours, we don't have the money to pay for it," said adjunct biology professor Adam Davis.

On Tuesday, CCAC employees were notified that Obamacare defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week and that on Dec. 31 temporary part-time employees will be cut back to 25 hours. The move will save an estimated $6 million. 

Million Dollar Way has blogged about this unintended consequence for some time. This was posted back in early October, 2012:

A referendum on ObamaCare and liberty. "Without an immediate course change, the health-care law will become irreversible." It's already irreversible. There are too many good things about it. Including the 29-hour workweek. If the 29-hour workweek is "legalized," folks can start earning overtime pay at 30 hours. What a great country. Even better than the French 35-hour workweek.

Obamacare defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week. Wow, this is absolutely nuts. The IRS will police the program; if folks don't purchase health care insurance, they will incur a tax penalty. And whether one is a highly paid, full-time employee, or a minimum wage, part-time employee, one will be required to obtain health care insurance. At least that's how I understand it. And companies are looking for ways to move full-time employees to part-time employee status to avoid the cost. 

A few days ago, an owner of several Denny's restaurants took some heat for doing this. Folks suggested the reason for ObamaCare was because of folks like him (owners of restaurants). I guess they can start adding university presidents.

Denny's: Only The Latest To Fall In Line With Federally Mandated 29-Hour Work Week; Will Add 5% ObamaCare Surcharge

Updates

February 4, 2014: CBO (Congressional Budget Office) triples the number of workers expected to be locked out of full-time jobs due to ObamaCare. For investors: not a concern. Companies will save money, hiring fewer folks and cost-shifting health care to their workers. This is actually pretty good news for businesses and investors.

June 2, 2013: Wake County, North Carolina, considering limits on hours for substitute school teachers, so they don't exceed 30 hours; qualify for ObamaCare.

May 3, 2013: Mainstream media starts to see the impact of ObamaCare on part-time workers.

February 23, 2013: ObamaCare and the '29ers -- WSJ.

December 2, 2012: Dairy Queen franchise owner with 90 employees watching ObamaCare very closely; options -- fewer permanent employers; fewer hours for employers.

Like many franchisees, Robert U. Mayfield, who owns five Dairy Queens in and around Austin, Tex., is always eager to expand and — no surprise — has had his eyes on opening a sixth DQ. But he said concerns about [ObamaCare] had persuaded him to hold off.

"I'm scared to death of it," he said. "I'm one of the ones sitting on the sidelines to see what's really going to happen."

Mr. Mayfield, who has 99 employees, said he was worried he would face penalties of $40,000 or more because he did not offer health insurance to many of his full-time workers — generally defined as those working an average of 30 hours a week or more. Ever since the law was enacted in 2010, opponents have argued that employers who were forced to offer health insurance would lay off workers or shift more people to part-time status to compensate for the additional cost. Those claims have drawn considerable attention — and considerable anger in response — in recent weeks.

November 16, 2012: it turns out that "Denny's" is not taking this action; the headline in the DailyMail.com was very, very misleading. The decision to charge a 5% surcharge for ObamaCare as reported by the DailyMail.com was that of an independent franchise operator who happens to own several Denny's restaurants, but is not the CEO of Denny's or on the board. This is Denny's response to that independent operator's plans for a surcharge.

November 16, 2012: I don't follow Denny's so I can't comment on what is powering Denny's share price; see first comment. But Denny's is obviously doing something right, powering through the recession. I know Denny's has treated veterans very, very well; I have enjoyed free meals at Denny's on Veterans Day in San Antonio. The waitstaff always got great tips on those days. So, perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the CEO's plan to include a 5% surcharge will last longer than a "New York minute." It would be sad if it came at the expense of tips, but who knows, it may be a great marketing move. I know Starbucks does well by charging more to ensure their employees are better compensated. Time will tell. Not following Denny's I do not know how it has powered through the recession so well. Denny's has had huge expansion overseas. Putting things into perspective, during the past five years, DENN has had a 20% return compared with McDonald's 60% (until the recent pullback following the election and the uncertainty with the "fiscal cliff"). It just shows how deep the recession was.

Original Post

Link here to the Daily Mail.com (which begs the question: why are the Brits so much better at reporting US news in such an entertaining manner?; the pictures are outstanding; the writing, well, fun).

Several other restaurants including Papa John's, Apple Metro and Jimmy John's have announced plans to skirt Obamacare by reducing employees hours to make them part-time.

Indeed, Metz is adding the surcharge because he believes that eventually firms will be fined for not covering staff who complete over 30-hours in a week.

In November, a poll for Kaiser Health Tracking found that 43 percent of the United States had a favourable opinion of ObamaCare, while 39-percent had an unfavourable one. [It will be interesting to follow the results of this poll over time.]

'Instead of indirectly charging customers by raising prices, he is directly charging and making a political statement,' said Paul Fronstin, director of the health research program at the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington. 

Yes, I would say that is true, that he is making a political statement. My hunch: the 5% surcharge will last a "New York minute" when customers start voting with their feet. It's also possible the 5% surcharge will replace the 15% tip.

It is generally agreed that the federally-mandated 29-hour work week will force most service employees to work two jobs. One solution: coops among restaurants. Employees would get their 29 weeks x 2 and restaurants would not be saddled with an additional $5,000/employee for health care premiums. A win-win for all.

For The US, the New 29-Hour Work Week -- I Can't Make This Stuff Up

On October 9, 2012, I posted a commentary on "unintended consequences of ObamaCare." It looks like I hit the bull's eye!

From today's WSJ: health law spurs shift in hours.

Some low-wage employers are moving toward hiring part-time workers instead of full-time ones to mitigate the health-care overhaul's requirement that large companies provide health insurance for full-time workers or pay a fee.

Several restaurants, hotels and retailers have started or are preparing to limit schedules of hourly workers to below 30 hours a week. That is the threshold at which large employers in 2014 would have to offer workers a minimum level of insurance or pay a penalty starting at $2,000 for each worker.

The shift is one of the first significant steps by employers to avoid requirements under the health-care law, and whether the trend continues hinges on Tuesday's election results. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has pledged to overturn the Affordable Care Act, although he would face obstacles doing so.

But Americans are content/satisfied. We will see a Chavez outcome Wednesday morning. I define a "Chavez outcome" elsewhere.

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Additional WSJ links of interest today:

For blacks, the Pyrrhic victory of the Obama era:

Today, Asian-Americans are the nation's best-educated and highest-earning racial group. According to a Pew study released earlier this year, 49% of Asians age 25 and older hold bachelor's degrees, compared with 31% of whites and 18% of blacks. The median household income for Asians is $66,000, which is $12,000 more than white households and double that of black households. As with other groups, political clout has not been a precondition of Asian socioeconomic advancement.

There are a handful of prominent Asian-American politicians today, including Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, but Asians have tended to avoid politics compared with other groups. Between 1990 and 2000, for example, the number of elected officials grew by 23% for blacks but only by 4% for Asians. In 2008, Asians were significantly less likely than both blacks and whites to have voted.

The election of Barack Obama four years ago gave blacks bragging rights, but bragging rights can't close the black-white achievement gap in education or increase black labor-force participation or reduce black incarceration rates. A civil-rights leadership that encourages blacks to look to politicians to solve these problems is doing a disservice to the people they claim to represent.

This article reminds me of the joke about two hikers seeing a bear, with one of the hikers putting on his tennis shoes. And that's why I see tomorrow's election as a win-win.

Failure to stimulate: the redistribution recession: book review. "The Obama administration has expanded unemployment and thwarted recovery with unprecedented levels of government spending."

I didn't leave the Democrats. They left me.  "There is an anti-Israel movement among the rank and file, and the party no longer appears to value self-reliance, charity, and accountability."

A referendum on ObamaCare and liberty. "Without an immediate course change, the health-care law will become irreversible." It's already irreversible. There are too many good things about it. Including the 29-hour workweek. If the 29-hour workweek is "legalized," folks can start earning overtime pay at 30 hours. What a great country. Even better than the French 35-hour workweek.

Unintended Consequences of the 29-Hour Work Week

Updates

October 10, 2012: small group of unionized Wal-Mart workers stage publicity stunt/strike drawing attention to their wages. Wait until ObamaCare kicks in and Wal-Mart moves to 29-hour work weeks (see below). Not only will overall pay go down, but they won't qualify for ObamaCare.  Oh, by the way, Wal-Mart's average full-time pay is $5.00 greater than the federal minimum wage:

[Wal-Mart's] full-time average wage is $12.54 an hour, which is $5 above the federal minimum wage.” He said that 300,000 Wal-Mart employees had worked at the company for more than 10 years and that Wal-Mart’s turnover rate was lower than the industry average.  

For the record, federal minimum wage is $7.25; the state with the highest rate: Oregon, at $8.80, which rises with inflation; it was increased by 30 cents in January, 2012 (I thought inflation was tamed).

October 9, 2012: link to Orlando Sentinel with same story below regarding Olive Garden, Red Lobster

Original Post

On Saturday, September 22, 2012, I posted the following:

Harley Davidson embraces flexible production; google Hog maker Harley gets lean; I don't think the article references that under the ObamaCare legislation, a 30-hour work week is now considered full-time. If that stands (the 30-hour work week), companies will figure out ways to get around it; part-time workers will work even fewer hours. Unintended consequences.

They've already started. From CarpeDiem:

Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants are putting more workers on part-time status in a test aimed at limiting the impact of looming health coverage requirements. The test entails increasing the number of workers on part-time status, meaning they work fewer than 30 hours a week. Under the new health care act, companies will be required to provide health care to full-time employees by 2014, which would significantly boost labor costs for businesses. 

Incredible. So the college student, or senior, or whoever, looking to work more than 30 hours to make ends meet, is now being told that a) no, you won't work 30 weeks; and, b) oh, by the way, since you are not working 30 hours, you will not qualify for ObamaCare. At least not "through" us.

By the way, with unemployment somewhere between 7.8% and 30% (for teenagers), there should be an adequate pool from which to draw wait-staff. They might have to "up" the hourly wage a bit, but that still beats what it would cost to provide ObamaCare. Adding salt to the wound, as they say, I bet some of these companies already provided some medical benefits.  The company to follow: Wal-Mart.

One solution that will pop up:  companies will pop up providing temporary workers to fill slots required by fast service restaurants. Think of "waiter-pools."  These will be pools in which waiters will occupy, and then move from restaurant to restaurant, to get the more than 30 hours they need, even though they won't get the 30 hours they need to qualify for ObamaCare.

But I digress. The point is that service industries, and perhaps even manufacturing industries, will lean to adapt to the 29-hour work week.

Unintended Consequences: Definition of Full-Time Employee in US -- 30 Hours

I forget the story now, but it's my understanding that the development of the 401(k) was a bit of serendipity.

From wiki:

The section of the Internal Revenue Code that made 401(k) plans possible was enacted into law in 1978. It was intended to allow taxpayers a break on taxes on deferred income. In 1980, a benefits consultant named Ted Benna took note of the previously obscure provision and figured out that it could be used to create a simple, tax-advantaged way to save for retirement. Ironically, the client he was working for at the time chose not to create a 401(k) plan. 

My hunch is that the 906-page ObamaCare health care bill is filled with such nuggets. Maybe I will eventually have to add a "top ten" list of unintended consequences of the health care bill.

For now, this one may be most interesting.

Hold this thought: the official work week in France is defined as 35 hours. Any more hours than this and it is considered over time.

So, in the ObamaCare health care bill, how many hours define a full-time worker? 30 hours.

A couple of things.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no uniform US "rule" on what constitutes a full-time worker for pay or salary, and wiki seems to confirm that.  With ObamaCare, it appears the US now has a standard definition for full-time employee. It may not be spelled out in that law, but it will eventually be sorted out in court. The 30-hour worker will take the matter to court: that more than just ObamaCare is relevant.

The second thing: if this ends up being the new legal standard for full-time employment, the US has a shorter workweek than France.

What a great country.