As bad as this undoubtably is for (presuming you are accurate that obamacare was directly and solely responsible, which I would need convincing of), such an experience is vastly outside of the norm. Unfortunately small macroeconomic trends (such as an x% decline in employment) work out very lump at the micro level with most people not receiving any cuts and a small amount receiving very big ones.

No time for aaron right now

They told us flat out. No employee is allowed to work over 28 hours a week any more because if one does (average out to 28+ over the course of the year) they have to supply us a health care package or face huge fines. They are just one of many, many companies who have openly done this. They are not even hiding it.

Now, I am not defending them. I think when a major company announces to employees that they are changing a scheduling policy based on who was elected president and the policy he instituted, it's douchey and manipulative as hell. But it's in the news and easily findable.

Now, I'm not an Obama-hater. I voted for him (yikes). I'm just making the point that since he was elected president, he instituted policy that directly and immediately effected my paycheck and my financial prospects in a deleterious fashion. This is a memorable event, as the president has never much mattered to me, since who was elected has never truly mattered to my life.

Ninja edit: Now, it is possible that they are using the law as an excuse to cut back hours for those who have been with the company for years and are being paid well. They even timed the cuts to coincide with the exact day the first part of the law went into effect. I'm sure almost everyone there suspects this. But if so, shouldn't they have instituted some kind of safeguard against this type of behavior? Fine them big if they try to skirt the law. Give them an incentive not to destroy the financial prospects of millions of people.

It's my understanding that it is the employees themselves who are voluntarily cutting back their hours, because they don't need them under the new plan. Many people work specifically for health insurance, because to get it on your own is much more expensive. So now, they don't need to work full time any more.

Again, I'm arriving late to the thread so sorry if this has been covered already.

Maybe this is true for a certain section of the workforce. But I can promise you that those working in supermarkets and department stores and retail businesses did not choose to cut their own hours in any way. They are barely surviving on the hours they get.

You can't know this (or if you do, please cite your source). These are exactly the types of places where employees are cutting their own hours down. I have a friend who is self employed and his wife works mostly to obtain health coverage for the family. Previously, she had to be employed full time (at a retail store) in order to qualify for insurance benefits. Now she she can work any number of hours she wants. The money comes in handy so she's not going to quit. But she certainly doesn't need to put in a 40 hour work week.

I'm inclined to believe that these polls republicans are using to show employment is dropping is deceptive and doesn't encompass the whole story.

My whole family, all of my friends, brother, etc-- all work in retail, supermarket, departments stores. I have worked in all 3. Nobody getting paid 10 dollars an hour is choosing to cut his own hours for any reason.

Wow. Just wow!!!!!

Cite my source?! I supervised a staff of over 20 of these people before we all got cut.

Try this. Walk into your nearest supermarket. Find the breakroom. Go in and announce to them that you suspect that they all are cutting their own hours because of all the money they have saved on healthcare.

Word up, dude. Walk into a breakroom and ask how many of them signed up for obamacare. I'd bet my life on it that not one hand goes up. Most of them have free healthcare already through a union. Why would they want to pay? They just all had their hours cut!

Every five minutes in those breakrooms someone uses Obama's name in vain, especially when they look at their new schedules. Every five minutes.

That is reality.

My God, liberals are so dangerous, and so out of touch with the reality the average person has to deal with.

But for real, why is this thread now about politics that can't reasonably be tied to religion?

The Indignation here actually made me laugh out loud.

"Cite my source!!??" How about a whole mess of unverifiable anecdotes instead?!!!

Which somehow led you to a conclusion that "liberals are so dangerous"


Thanks for that

I have to say, these last posts have given me the wake-up call I needed. Lestat's post was outrageous. It made me understand how China could happen, how North Korea and Soviet Russia could happen.

The more you guys type out your thoughts, the closer I get to God.

It's not your fault, really. You are searching for truth and sense in the noise and the tv-snow of a "godless" universe. So you have to sound stupid sometimes as you try to explain what you see while you sit before the screen. Seriously, it is better to keep your mouths shut than expose yourself.

I don't have to cite sources to prove that people making 9 dollars an hour don't need or want their hours cut.

Why not claim that black slaves did not want to be free, and then ask me to cite surveys that prove that they did?

Anybody who believes that kind of thing is dangerous and/or stupid.

I laughed at first at the responses. But I'm not laughing anymore. I realize that much of your political views (which are inextricably tied up with your views on religion) are more important to most of you than people are. You will go down with your ideologies, your political schemes and errant sociological systems. Don't bring the rest of us down with you. Real lives are at stake. People's financial futures. People I know and care about.

Admit when you are wrong, for God sake. I'm wrong 20 times a day, and do not fear it.

"Pride. It never helps. It only hurts." -- Marcellus Wallace.

Perhaps that reality is the problem, not the liberals.

The bolded is just a ridiculous statement to make. I know for a fact this isn't true. I personally know people who have either quit their jobs or voluntarily cut their hours, because inability to get health coverage at a reasonable cost for their families was the main cause of their having to work full time jobs.

I'm not calling you a liar. I'm sure you do know those people in the break room. But don't go making blanket statements or assume you know everyone's situation. A couple of years ago, I myself considered taking a P/T job at a grocery store just so I could get on a group health insurance plan at a cheaper cost than on my own. So I'd have been one of those people in the break room that raised their hand and caused you to lose that pathetic little life you were willing to bet.

People who's sole income is $9/hr. don't need or want their hours cut. But here's a newsflash: Not everyone employed for $9/hr. lives strictly off that $9/hr. There are wives who's husbands are self employed. Maybe as a painter, consultant, or sub contractor of some kind. Maybe he makes $50k/yr. and the previous cost of health coverage for their family was $700/mo. Now she goes to work in a retail store that offers insurance and this cost is cut by $500/mo. That's a $6k per year savings PLUS the $9/hr. she's making so they deem it worth it for her to work, instead of being a stay-at-home mom.

Another example would be someone who makes MORE than $9/hr. Maybe they make $27/hr., but can easily live off of $35k/yr. Now that they can get their own insurance at a reasonable rate, they can cut back their hours.

I admit these are probably minority examples and most people who work need all the money they make. My issue is that you're assuming. You're making a blanket statement for everyone. This line of thinking is more in line with a N. Korea ideology than anything I've said.

Typical theist who doesn't know what a claim is. I did not make any claim. I stated a fact. YOU are the one making claims. YOU claimed that EVERYONE in EVERY break room in America would not voluntarily cut their hours.

Dangerous how? For stupid, look in the mirror.

That's because you're so used to it by now.

LOL. Are you aware (Silly me; of course you aren't) That one of the major predictions the CBO made was that Obamacare would result in people cutting back their hours for the exact reason Lestat claimed earlier?

The CBO estimated that Obamacare would "reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor — given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...-predicts-oba/


The problem is you rarely know anything about what you attempt to argue, and just do the typical knee-jerk reactionary thing anytime your spidey sense says something is wrong. I don't know why you don't post in politics, you'd be right at home there.

A quick search through Google-news will show that major companies all over the country have openly cut hours down to 28 in response to Obamacare, even a few saying so in press releases.

Red Lobster. Olive Garden. Regal Entertainment. Applebees. Texas Longhorn. Locally- Kings Supermarkets and Shoprite. And the list goes on and on. I've heard from my friends at Mcdonald's that the 28 hour rule is also in effect there, but either they are smart enough not to issue a press release, or keep its implementation to floor-level management (which many companies are doing, including the one I worked for).

(I guess if it ain't on CNN, it didn't happen.)

You guys are dangerous. I stand by that statement.

It's a dangerous person who will stand by his political ideologies and defend these selfsame choices and stances, even when it becomes apparent that the common folk are being crushed by them.

Elitism at its worst.

And btw: Sommerset, really? No way you are that naive, my man. You should know by now that no matter what happens after these wide-scale bills are introduced, you will find that some think-tank predicted it, or it is "predicted" within the bill itself, which is usually 12,000 pages of such.

You're out of date:
As for Applebees, they took a huge hit in public opinion and then their CEO seems to have pulled back from his proselytizing:
It's not that I don't believe you. restraunts are exactly the category with more than 50 employees but who don't (rather shamefully) provide health care benefits. So yes, having to provide health care benefits is going to cost a bit (but then people get healthcare...so...hard to say). Any time you change economic incentives there will be changes, so obviously the employement and hours ratios won't have zero change. I'm sure it will. But from what I can tell, it doesn't seem to be the case that there is a massive readjustment across the country. And it was a bit ironic that the three examples of yours I actually googled (the biggest names) didn't seem to be good examples for your case.

Go on, tell us how you really feel! Might sound crazy, i know, but sometimes when people disagree with you it doesn't necessarily mean they would be soviet russia apologists.

Universal Healthcare is just so goddarn wasteful. The saving grace of poor people is they are cheap and easily threatened.

Stop ruining a perfectly good system.

So in lieu of what is written in these reports, we should just go on what you overhear in the break rooms at supermarkets? Thanks, no.

The funny thing is, you don't even know what my position is on Obamacare! I'd tell you, but it's too amusing letting you make a fool of yourself.

Some companies are cutting people's hours and some people are willfully cutting their own hours. It's almost like it can be both things!

Basically. But hey, let's just call each other dangerous commies.

I hope nobody thinks I was trying to say anything other than it can be both things!

My issue was with doggg's claim that: "Nobody getting paid 10 dollars an hour is choosing to cut his own hours for any reason." and then calling my post "outrageous". Not to mention his calling people like me "dangerous".

http://www.cato.org/publications/com...cent+Op-eds%29

Thanks for the link. It encompasses a lot of my initial thoughts. I'm all for same sex marriage and equal rights. But I'm also for allowing people the right to be prejudiced jerks if that's what they are. This in turn, allows us to take our business elsewhere and hopefully put these backwards thinking people out of business and make them outcasts in a tolerant society.

Of course, the problem is when an emergency room doctor refuses to treat a gay patient. Or when a police officer refuses to help or rescue a lesbian woman, etc. And obviously, if some huge bank decides they will not do business with homosexuals or Muslims based on religious grounds, it could create great hardship for such groups of people.

There was an uproar in my area when a politician tried to stop a Chic-filet from opening because the president had made derogatory comments about gay couples. Even though I take great delight in boycotting Chic-filet, I was very much against the blocking this chain from opening a store in my area. To do so would be discriminating against their beliefs. It's a tricky issue and I'm not sure what the solution is.

pretty sure that was clear to anyone following the thread.

im not sure what the answer is too

recently watching "42" amazed me how assbackwards we were only 75 years ago.

so i dont know if allowing people to refuse service to gays is a good thing at all