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Thirty Hours = "Full Time"?

How many hours should the base of "Full Time" employment be?


  • Total voters
    51

Zyphlin

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So talking with my dad tonight I actually heard something for the first time. Not sure how I missed it in previous readings of things (to be honest, Obamacare hasn't been one of those things I've been able to generate enough interest to look extremely heavily into, so that may be why) but he told me how one of the things his business is facing is the fact that...at least under the definitions of the ACA....30 hours of work is considered a Full Time Employee.

What?

Seriously, for as long as I've lived on this earth...even as a younger child...I understood that standard "Full time" was generally a "40 hour" work week minimum. That's definitely been my understanding for my entire working age. How in the world is it that we're randomly deciding that 30 hours is "full time" employment?

Do you agree with equating a 30 hour work week to "Full Time" employment?
 
So talking with my dad tonight I actually heard something for the first time. Not sure how I missed it in previous readings of things (to be honest, Obamacare hasn't been one of those things I've been able to generate enough interest to look extremely heavily into, so that may be why) but he told me how one of the things his business is facing is the fact that...at least under the definitions of the ACA....30 hours of work is considered a Full Time Employee.

What?

Seriously, for as long as I've lived on this earth...even as a younger child...I understood that standard "Full time" was generally a "40 hour" work week minimum. That's definitely been my understanding for my entire working age. How in the world is it that we're randomly deciding that 30 hours is "full time" employment?

Do you agree with equating a 30 hour work week to "Full Time" employment?

I've worked many jobs where the official work week was 37.5 hours (1/2 hour off for lunch).

If it was set a 40 hrs, most douchey bosses could lower your hours to 39 a week and you wouldn't be full time. By it being 30 hrs a week, it would be obvious what your boss was doing if he cuts you down to 29. Any number is arbitrary, but 30 seems to a safe number.
 
I've worked many jobs where the official work week was 37.5 hours (1/2 hour off for lunch).

If it was set a 40 hrs, most douchey bosses could lower your hours to 39 a week and you wouldn't be full time. By it being 30 hrs a week, it would be obvious what your boss was doing if he cuts you down to 29. Any number is arbitrary, but 30 seems to a safe number.

I think consider full time 40 hours, but this is a good point.
 
Such as nurses who work 3x12.
Oldtimers love to talk about 35x8.
My buddies on Nukes work 7x12.
Screwing workers is a time-honored tradition of Repub capitalists.
Their new excuse is HeritageCare.
 
So talking with my dad tonight I actually heard something for the first time. Not sure how I missed it in previous readings of things (to be honest, Obamacare hasn't been one of those things I've been able to generate enough interest to look extremely heavily into, so that may be why) but he told me how one of the things his business is facing is the fact that...at least under the definitions of the ACA....30 hours of work is considered a Full Time Employee.

What?

Seriously, for as long as I've lived on this earth...even as a younger child...I understood that standard "Full time" was generally a "40 hour" work week minimum. That's definitely been my understanding for my entire working age. How in the world is it that we're randomly deciding that 30 hours is "full time" employment?

Do you agree with equating a 30 hour work week to "Full Time" employment?

For someone as detail minded and exacting as you often are, I'm suprised that you don't realize that the 30hour/week standard applies only for PPACA. For all (or at least most) other things (ex overtime compensation), the 40hour/week standard is used.
 
They didn't make full time thirty hours because they thought it made sense, but because it provided them more ammunition to attack businesses with when they cut people to twenty-nine hours.
 
Obviously, my brain is deteriorating and I don't trust anything I think I know. But.

Wasn't 20 hours (or less) part time and then there was a no-mans land between 20 and 40. Whoever came up with that 30 number must have been incredibly stupid or incredibly cruel. 30 hours is enough for an employer to function and 30 is too little to earn a living.

I've hear the Obama-bashers speculate that the idea is to make 30 the new full time and thus create more jobs, jobs you can't survive on, but jobs you can boast about "creating". I neither love nor hate Obama but frankly, this could be societal manipulation.

Or do you think this is just an innocent mistake? Nobody thought it through? Or am I missing something?
 
I voted other because for some jobs it's 40, for some it's less, for some it's more.

Greece and Hungary are some of the hardest working countries in the world, and their economies are in the toilet.

France has a 35h work week policy in place and lo and behold, the French are the most efficient workers in the world when you measure what they produce to how much they spent working on it.

In Pictures: The World's Hardest-Working Countries - Forbes
Mexico is said to be more hard-working than USA but yet, it's in the toilet too.
 
Or do you think this is just an innocent mistake? Nobody thought it through? Or am I missing something?

If it was set at 40 you'd have a ton of employers putting their employees at 39 hours. If it was 35 they'd give them 34 hours. If it was 20 they would give them 19 hours.

The cheap f*****s will always be cheap no matter where you draw the line.
 
If it was set at 40 you'd have a ton of employers putting their employees at 39 hours. If it was 35 they'd give them 34 hours. If it was 20 they would give them 19 hours.

The cheap f*****s will always be cheap no matter where you draw the line.

I suppose but drawing the line at 40 and getting 39 still gives you a full time job. Medical is important and wonderful but working full time is even more important. 30 seems like a poor choice. 20 would break up into 2 at 19 but 29 really screws up the strategy.
 
If it was set at 40 you'd have a ton of employers putting their employees at 39 hours. If it was 35 they'd give them 34 hours. If it was 20 they would give them 19 hours.

The cheap f*****s will always be cheap no matter where you draw the line.

Yes, people will try to get out of being forced to do something by the government. Shocking..
 
If it was set at 40 you'd have a ton of employers putting their employees at 39 hours. If it was 35 they'd give them 34 hours. If it was 20 they would give them 19 hours.

The cheap f*****s will always be cheap no matter where you draw the line.

Is it really always someone being a "cheap ****"? Small business employs more Americans than Corporations. Not all "Corporations" actually employ people directly, many are Franchised. Most fast food places and several other businesses are franchised. This means that payroll does not come from a company like McDonald's, but from the local franchisee.

I have already seen several small businesses close their doors because they know they cannot afford Obama care, they simply do not make enough to pay for it. When the business owners are themselves middle class and struggling with their own heathcare and other expenses, they simply will not be able to afford the added costs. Some will cut hours to keep employees below the 30 hr limit, it is the only way they might be able to survive.

This extra cost mandated by such will also drive up prices. While some businesses will survive this, many who cannot maintain enough sales at the increased costs to customers will also be forced out of business.
 
There are no unintended consequences. Setting it at 30 reduces the average worker's hour without making it a simple thing to have two jobs. Two 20s with a secondary commute in the middle could be doable for some, two 30s not so much. The idea is to give people almost enough and then subsidize the gap, in effect locking in a much larger dependent class while claiming to have "created" 1/3 more jobs.
 
For someone as detail minded and exacting as you often are, I'm suprised that you don't realize that the 30hour/week standard applies only for PPACA. For all (or at least most) other things (ex overtime compensation), the 40hour/week standard is used.

I do understand that. It's why, in my post, I specifically stated this was the definition per the ACA.

The issue however is that this is the only place in federal law that I've discovered an actual definition for "full time". FLSA laws speak of working 40 hours before overtime, but give no official definition for that.

The fact that the only part of federal law DEFINING full time employment is in the ACA, and it defines it at 30 hours, does not sit right with me. At the least, it now creates conflicting standards in the law in terms of how the government treats the amount if hours employees work in relation to things that society generally relates to "full time status". It provides a leverage point for unions and others to highlight and utilize in attempting to force one standard over the other in the future.

As you pointed out, other parts I'd our federal laws dealing with issues commonly related to "full time" currently go odd 40 hours. As such, I find it inconsistent and troubling that this one law...the only one officially determining something as full time employment...does not
 
If it was set at 40 you'd have a ton of employers putting their employees at 39 hours. If it was 35 they'd give them 34 hours. If it was 20 they would give them 19 hours.

The cheap f*****s will always be cheap no matter where you draw the line.

Have you ever considered that most employers are not mega billionaires resembling the monopoly man but rather normal people trying to keep their business afloat?

Its insanely ****ing ignorant for you to claim that every company in America can afford to give healthcare to its workers.
 
So talking with my dad tonight I actually heard something for the first time. Not sure how I missed it in previous readings of things (to be honest, Obamacare hasn't been one of those things I've been able to generate enough interest to look extremely heavily into, so that may be why) but he told me how one of the things his business is facing is the fact that...at least under the definitions of the ACA....30 hours of work is considered a Full Time Employee.

What?

Seriously, for as long as I've lived on this earth...even as a younger child...I understood that standard "Full time" was generally a "40 hour" work week minimum. That's definitely been my understanding for my entire working age. How in the world is it that we're randomly deciding that 30 hours is "full time" employment?

Do you agree with equating a 30 hour work week to "Full Time" employment?

Man if 30 hours a week was full time I would have a lot more money than I do today due to all of the overtime I have put in over the years. :D
 
Arbitrary line drawn at 30 hours can very easily open the door for changing the rules regarding employers having to pay overtime at that line.

The cynical me also says keep an eye out for mandatory 'benefits' such as vacation also mandated at that line.

40 hour jobs are going to become less and less available, making more jobs with less hours, as many have said before me.
 
In my experience, part-time has always ended at 32+. I remember as a part time worker I would often find my last scheduled shift cut short so I did not go over 32 hours, because it was at that point that they considered you "full time"...and you were then entitled to all of the benefits (earned vacation time and PTO, specifically...health insurance secondary to that).

It's kind of a double-edged sword, I suppose.. If you cut hours you have to hire more employees to provide adequate coverage, and there are costs involved in that: some cities will charge you more for yearly operational permit renewals based upon your number of employees, workers comp rates can go up, training costs, supply/uniform costs, payroll costs, etc. At the same time, if you increase hours and decrease the number of employees you then have additional costs for healthcare and potential overtime. I have NO idea how those two costs equate to one another though...from the current climate it would seem that the latter is more expensive, but I'm not qualified to say for sure.

I think applying an hour cap specifically to ACA is a little...convoluted, FWIW.
 
OTHER, of course.
Forty hours is arbitrary and antique...We are in a computerized mechanized age....news to those who cannot keep up.....
Right off the bat, I cannot design a definite number of hours for a worker.
This definitely varies from task to chore and even with the individual.
I'd throw 40 hours and OT out the window, along with all other rigid tenets.
In the window would be far greater input and responsibility and profit sharing.
Happiness would have to be numero uno, for all.
Just look at the faces of workers entering and leaving...much less the consumers...things can be much better...
And, we need a better "spel-chek".
 
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Handle health care in a similar manner to today's social security.....make it a 50-50 deal.
Fifty years ago, many companies offered health care as a benefit (Blue Cross and Shield) Was this ever expensive, IMO.
But my company offered Travelers Insurance instead....I'd imagine the costs or either would be much the same as todays ACA ......
So why all this fuss ???
 
I've worked many jobs where the official work week was 37.5 hours (1/2 hour off for lunch).

If it was set a 40 hrs, most douchey bosses could lower your hours to 39 a week and you wouldn't be full time. By it being 30 hrs a week, it would be obvious what your boss was doing if he cuts you down to 29. Any number is arbitrary, but 30 seems to a safe number.

Of course it's a safe number, I can feel it too. :roll: You were probably working a shift job where they paid you for lunch. Most people work an 8.5 hour day that includes lunch time. But frankly salaried employees don't generally have a certain number of hours, except in some cases a minimum number of hours.

In Europe 35 hours is full time in many cases.
 
I would have to say anything between 35-40 hours should be considered full time
 
So talking with my dad tonight I actually heard something for the first time. Not sure how I missed it in previous readings of things (to be honest, Obamacare hasn't been one of those things I've been able to generate enough interest to look extremely heavily into, so that may be why) but he told me how one of the things his business is facing is the fact that...at least under the definitions of the ACA....30 hours of work is considered a Full Time Employee.

What?

Seriously, for as long as I've lived on this earth...even as a younger child...I understood that standard "Full time" was generally a "40 hour" work week minimum. That's definitely been my understanding for my entire working age. How in the world is it that we're randomly deciding that 30 hours is "full time" employment?

Do you agree with equating a 30 hour work week to "Full Time" employment?
I'd emphasize "keeping up"
We live in a computerized mechanized world (mostly)..
At one time , the slave and the working man were one and the same..
Then , a century ago, this changed to 48 hours as I recall.
Then 40 hours..
Change continues...
Some cannot keep up
My "working time" is but 10 hours per week, if that much....
 
A millennia or two from now, the money caused corruption will be a thing of the past.
The times (without money) will be a hell of a lot better than they are today.
People would be happy.
Human progression does take time - measured in an unknown numbers of years..
Soon, the term "full time" will be a TOTP(thing of the past).
What we need is more meshing of "boss" and worker.....envison a symphony orchestra.....the flute player and the conductor..
Who is the "boss" .
The music listener - of course....aka "the public"
As to "40" or "30" .
I remember being able to accomplish as much in 6 hours as 8.
6 with a 20 minute break as opposed to 8 with an unpaid lunch and two breaks...
We need innovation....
 
If it was set at 40 you'd have a ton of employers putting their employees at 39 hours. If it was 35 they'd give them 34 hours. If it was 20 they would give them 19 hours.

The cheap f*****s will always be cheap no matter where you draw the line.
As we all well know, the way around this cheapness is to be your own "boss" and own your own business..
Been there, done that..
This only works for some of us....
Rather than drawing lines, even red ones, we should be seeking better solutions.
 
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