Workers in Missouri are beginning to have their hours cut and moved to part-time because of Obamacare, KMOV St. Louis reports:
Businesses employing 50 or more workers must offer health insurance or pay $2,000 for every full-time worker which is already leaving some local workers with few options.
"I was close to 40 hours, about 30 hours at least. Then about a month ago, boom, no more than 29 hours," said Rose Whitten.
She is not alone, a number of smaller companies and some bigger ones across the country have to cut workers’ hours so the workers are not considered full-time.
"Obviously that means less money to go toward bills obviously; we know we still have a car payment," said Whitten.
Tom McAuliffe with the Missouri Foundation for Health said he’s not surprised, "One of the things about this law, you are going to see people trying to get around components."
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"It’s very frustrating actually. I did previously work a full-time 40 hour-a-week job and was hoping to go back to that soon," said Whitten. "Now this is definitely something that is going to be coming in to play I am definitely going to be doing some research to learn what it’s about."
The trend of businesses both large and small cutting worker hours because of new healthcare expenses continues to grow across the country.
In total, 313 employers (both public and private) have been announced plans to reduce hours because of Obamacare.
Financial analysts and labor experts fear the trend threatens to increase as employers get closer to the 2015 employer mandate.