Aha, that’s what I thought they were all along, @sherpa!
Our son works 30-38 hrs per week at Publix, is considered part time, and has employer subsidized health insurance. Our neighbor works at Target, I don’t know how many hours per week, mainly for the health insurance. Her husband is self employed and does pretty well.
We were very lucky with health insurance since I stopped working in 2007, going from COBRA to private insurance to ACA with subsidies to currently Medicare.
And speaking of retirement, I haven’t worked a real job since 2007, and I have a recurring dream that I am working in a large bank (sometimes my old job, sometimes just being there) either for no pay or for very little pay, and I finally tell my boss that I am actually retired and don’t need to be there at all. It is very strange!
Not a knock to small businesses but it is very rare for small, local businesses to offer the healthcare benefits being offered here by large corps - Target, Publix, Starbucks, etc. and places like Walmart.
At least with Target, your eligibility for health insurance is based on your average hours worked per week in the past twelve months, so you have to work twelve months before you qualify if you are an hourly employees. Ask me how I know.
When I worked for the state they made sure we never worked more than 17 hours per week and never got ANY benefits—no sick leave, pension, SS contributions, definitely no healthcare, nothing! Other than that, I enjoyed the job for the most part.
I have justified teaching at a community college in several ways through the years - it allowed me to have time after school and during summers with kids as they were growing, retirement contribution percentages were good (10% from system, 5% from me) and health insurance has been excellent. I have good retirement coverage through the Medicare supplement offered and it is currently so over-funded that system has considered waiving retiree monthly co-pays.
Ex-H is a financial advisor and says retirement health care is the greatest concern for all his clients (and I would say all are in better circumstances than I am). As I read comments from others with much deeper pockets, at least I can feel good about health care coverage available and just worry about staying relatively healthy. My biggest worry is targeting retirement for sometime in 2021 and wondering if we will be in the middle of a recession.
Whenever there is a benefits cliff based on the number of hours worked per week, do not be surprised if there are many part time employees just below the cliff, because some of these benefits are expensive to the employer.
And reductions in the threshold for any benefits cliff won’t necessarily result in more people having benefits. May well result in people being able to work fewer hours.
When DD worked for Walmart (2008, not sure if things have changed) they arranged it so that almost nobody had more than 30 hours per week to avoid paying health insurance. It was ok for her, still on our insurance. But she felt bad for some of her coworkers, single moms with no health insurance.
Walmart likes to claim some really high percentage of their employees have health insurance, but truth is that many are covered on parents’ insurance and through Medicaid. I believe the book “Nickel & Dimed” focuses on their treatment of employees. They have provided a better hourly wage in recent years, but they still don’t rise to my threshold of a great employer. I do shop there about once a month and have mixed feelings. I know many on CC have more willpower in terms of avoiding them, but for some things I buy they are the only option in my small city.
The only employer that provides health care access for part-time employees as far as I know is Starbucks. Not always a Howard Schultz fan, but I applaud him for that commitment. Also, not sure how great the coverage is or about the cost.
My son delivered pizzas one summer. They were all over keeping weekly hours under 30. You would be chased out of there in the middle of any work task if you were going to reach 30 hours.
Apple store offers health insurance to its part-time employees but I don’t know what they charge.
That it is traditional in the US to get medical insurance from one’s employer causes labor market distortions like keeping part time employees below the cliff number of hours, because crossing the cliff makes the employee much more expensive to the employer.
The incentive for the employer is to hire full time employees or part time employees just under the cliff. Even paying 1.5 x time for full time hourly employees doing overtime may cost less than letting part time employees cross the cliff to get medical insurance.
I am working for a healthcare organization that has either FT people or PRN people. The PRN people do get 401k matching if they have worked over 1000 hours on the prior calendar year and at the next quarter after their 1 year anniversary get 4% matching. If a PRN person regularly works over 30 hours/week, they also get health insurance - it is good health care insurance, however lower paid employees don’t take it unless they have a spouse in a pretty good job and they cover the family on this insurance. Since I don’t want to be tied to 30 or more hours a week regularly, and I have health care coverage through H, I am OK with having my flexibility come at a ‘price’. I get no holiday pay, no vacation pay, no pay raises…
Most health care organizations have regular full time and regular PT, and PT people have pro-rated benefits. This one is odd in these respects. They changed how OT was measured, and I use to get quite a lot of OT. Now usually none. But as long as I can hang in, I hang in. A lot of turnover lately and managerial people are having to pick up the slack. A 24/7 facility has to have the skilled personnel…and they choose not to use a temporary agency.
Dear stock market,
You are NOT helping with my retirement plans.
FWIW, Mr. B is now all cash in his trading IRA. Did not touch anything in his 401(k). Election year. Plus, the stupid virus.
When does it become a buying opportunity? That’s my question.
When I feel like I want to barf when looking at the Yahoo Finance webpage. 
Not there yet! We are only down 1,800 on Dow. 1,100 to go for a full correction.
We’ve been in a 10 year bull market, juiced by quantitative easing and deficit fueling tax cuts. The party can’t go on forever.
I think Mr. will eventually buy a balanced fund and call it. He has doubled this small but not insignificant IRA in the past year.
We are holding onto our biotechs because they are the only ones that missed the 10x party.