Franklin Special School District makes substitute teachers "29'ers."

The below article reports that the Franklin Special School District has began limiting substitute teachers to working four days a week to avoid paying for health care for them.  If they did not make this move, paying health care for substitute teachers could add $1 million to District expenses. The article goes on to quote a teacher who says she has her insurance through her husband's plan and doesn't want the School District to provide her with insurance, she just wants to work full time. She says most of the substitute teachers are in the same boat, they have insurance yet they will be restricted to working less than 30 hours a week.

This is being called one of the "unintended" consequences of ObamaCare and perhaps it is, but it is not and "unexpected" consequence. Critics of ObamaCare have been warning that it would create many "29'ers" and "49'ers."  Twenty-niners are those who are not allowed to work thirty hours a week. It is predicted that many companies will change their work week to less than 30 hours a week to avoid the requirement that they offer their employees health care. This will hit hardest those people in low paying jobs already. With their hours cut, more people will be forced into poverty. "Job sharing" in the fast food industry may become the norm, where a person works 20 hours a week for say, a Taco Bell and another 20 hours for a McDonald's. The fast food industry may help facilitate the job sharing system. The forty-hour work week may no longer be the norm.

Forty-niners are those employers who will be sure they do not have more than 49 full time equivalent employees on the payroll to avoid coming under the provisions of providing health insurance or paying a penalty. Companies will be in a position of earning more profit being smaller. This will kill jobs.  Some small companies will cap their growth and number of employees. Other companies will terminate employees and have services that were performed by employees performed by contractors. A lot of employees in construction, sales, janitorial, and many other fields may become self-employed contract workers, doing the same job but getting a 1099 rather than a w-2.

Most likely this story about the Franklin School District will become so common it will soon no longer be news.

Health care law may cause TN substitute teachers to lose work hours

The Tennessean, by Maria Giordano, Oct. 3, 2013- With the launch of the Affordable Care Act nationwide, substitute teachers are among those apparently suffering “unintended consequences” of the law meant to extend health benefits to millions of people without any form of insurance.

Beginning Tuesday, the Franklin Special School District began limiting substitute teachers to working four days a week to avoid paying for health care that could strain the small district’s budget.