Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Obama Calls out Staples for Skirting Obamacare Rules

I guess this is the power of the jawbone or shame them into compliance.
"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.
Staples also payed $355 million in taxes last year as well. I guess that isn't their fair share. This is the same tired line from Obama that companies shouldn't be maximizing profits. These companies need to make profits in order to stay in business and keep employing the 46,000 people that Staples currently employs.

They are cutting back hours so that they don't have to pay fines. Sounds like a perfectly sound business decision. That is what happens when you use the stick instead of the carrot to get companies to comply. Lets say for the sake of argument each company got $500 per 40 hour a week employee (or some arbitrary number) in tax deductions or credits to offset higher health insurance costs you would bet that no hours will be slashed.

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