Long Beach Cuts Worker Hours to Duck Insurance $$

The City of Long Beach made national news this week following acknowledgment that it is cutting worker hours to avoid providing them health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

The Congressionally approved health care act, often called Obamacare, requires employers to provide health insurance to any employees working 30 or more hours weekly, and the Los Angeles Times reported that some companies and cities are dodging the expense. The result is that part-timers are losing the benefits but also income from reduced work hours. 

"Consider the city of Long Beach. It is limiting most of its 1,600 part-time employees to fewer than 27 hours a week, on average," the Times reported. "City officials say that without cutting payroll hours, new health benefits would cost up to $2 million more next year, and that extra expense would trigger layoffs and cutbacks in city services."

Given that the country's workforce is moving increasingly to part-time, such a move by business and government potentially impacts an estimated 2.3 million people - a quarter million of them Californians.

Long Beach city officials estimated that only 13% of part-time employees would be impacted by the insurance and hourly wage loss, or about 200 people, and that to eliminate full-time employee insurance would cost $8 million in federal penalty, the Times reported.

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