30 is the new 40.
It is safe to assume that most professionals refer to a full-time job as a 40 hour work week. This has, in the past, been the standard and is still the standard in most aspects; however, the Affordable Health Care Act has redefined what the standard is for full-time eligibility in regards to health benefits for large employers.
“Well Brett, our company defines full-time as 40 hours” is a common response I have been given. The issue here is that although a company can define what hours constitutes a full-time employee, health benefits must be eligible at 30 hours, and if your employees work 30 hours, they are seen as full-time employees in the eyes of the new law. As I am sure you know this doesn’t go over well with owners. If you are expecting to offer insurance through your company and you are ready to add a health insurance policy your business, expect to have that same requirement.
At Buettner Insurance Agency, we like to keep up with all of the latest information in regards to health insurance benefits and human resource laws to ensure our advice to our clients is second-to-none. To add to that, we are closely watching both the House and the Senate while they both try to pass an Act which would bring the full-time eligibility for benefits back up to 40 hours a week. The push back to 40 hours seems to be aided by the fact that, by some opinion in congress, the current 30-hour requirement is doing more harm to American businesses, and thus the American economy, than good.
Thank you for reading, and having a great day!
Additional Disclaimer – Although I am an Insurance broker and a professional in the field, the Health Care laws are ever changing, especially in the age of the Affordable Health Care Act, and the laws, information, opinions, or understandings that I have wrote about may be obsolete by the time you come across them and I take no legal responsibility for what actions you may or may not take because of it. To keep yourself safe, please seek updated professional advice, because changes are happening and I would like to keep everyone safe from any misleading or dead information. Please check out the “Terms and Conditions” page for more information and/or bookmark my blog for upcoming changes and updates to the ACA. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!