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The Latest Obamacare Victim: the Chicago Cubs

Failure to cover infield with tarp blamed on Obamacare

A heavy rain soaked Wrigley Field / AP

President Barack Obama’s shameful pitching is not the only way the administration has tarnished America’s national past time.

Obamacare forced the beleaguered Chicago Cubs to reduce staffing hours for its ground crew, resulting in an embarrassing game cancellation on Tuesday because of the failure to get a tarp on Wrigley’s infield.

Obama’s hometown paper, the Chicago Sun Times reports:

The staffing issues that hamstrung the grounds crew Tuesday during a mad dash with the tarp under a sudden rainstorm were created in part by a wide-ranging reorganization last winter of game-day personnel, job descriptions and work limits designed to keep the seasonal workers–including much of the grounds crew–under 130 hours per month, according to numerous sources with direct knowledge.

That’s the full-time worker definition under "Obamacare," which requires employer-provided healthcare benefits for "big businesses" such as a major league team. …

Sources say 10 crew members were sent home early by the bosses Tuesday night with little, if any, input from the field-level supervisors.

Employers across the country are cutting worker hours in order to avoid additional costs of maintaining full time workers. The administration has proposed a $10.10 minimum wage, a hike of 40 percent over the current federal wage of $7.25, to help offset these costs. However, former Majority Leader Eric Cantor has pointed out that the White House solution will do little to address lost wages from reduced hours.

Cantor’s office found that a current minimum wage employee working 40 hours per week would make only $2.50 less than a worker earning $10.10 per hour and working 29 hours per week. That, according to the Virginia Republican’s blog post, is the best-case scenario.

  • Because of Obamacare’s regulations, an hourly worker’s hours can be reduced by as much as 25 percent to get below the 30 hour threshold.

  • In 2013, President Obama proposed a $9/hour minimum wage ($261/week @ 29 hours).Coincidentally this year, he upped his proposal to an amount that just replaces the money robbed from hourly worker’s paychecks by Obamacare.

  • Yet, 21 states already have a minimum wage higher than $7.25. An hourly worker in Washington may be celebrating the Seahawks win, but he isn’t celebrating Obamacare gutting his pay by $102.52/week.

Published under: Obamacare