David Goldman suggested the headline query — sadly, the query works “very well” though the policy works very badly.
(…) What I hear from business people who are walking away from investments that require new hiring is precisely what a restaurant owner (and economics professor) at a Pennsylvania college explained last April:
With the passage of Obamacare, we won’t be knocking any new archway through the wall at our restaurant and expanding into the empty storefront next door.
With a waiting line on weekends, we could use the additional seats. But there will be no sawing, hammering or reducing the neighborhood’s unemployment rate because we already have 42 employees and it’s at 50 workers that the hefty new fines, mandates and penalties kick in under Obamacare.
As the National Federation of Independent Business explains:
“Businesses with 50 or more workers will now have to pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker if they do not offer health-care coverage and have workers who access the exchanges.
“This penalty has nothing to do with affordability and everything to do with punishing businesses for something the government has decided businesses should be forced to provide.
“Worse, with new mandates like these, what incentive is there for a firm to grow any bigger than 49 employees when it means employers may face such stiff fines?
“This approach is the exact opposite of a recipe for incentivizing job growth.”
(…)
There is much more, so read more »
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