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House Passes Bill –
ACA “Full-Time” Now 40 Hours
J
ust two days into its new session in January 2015, the House
of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation to change the
health care law’s definition of “full time” from 30 hours to 40
hours a week.
Changing the health care law’s full-time definition has been a
leading advocacy priority for the National Restaurant Association
since the law was passed in 2010. The NRA is concerned a 30-
hour definition of full-time would lead to more rigid scheduling
practices in the industry at the expense of the flexibility that
attracts millions of employees to work in the industry. Under the
health care law, businesses with 100 or more full-time-equivalent
employees—generally defined as those who average at least 30
hours per week—are required to offer health care benefits to those
employees and their dependents or face penalties in 2015. The
requirement will expand next year to include businesses with 50
to 99 full-time-equivalent employees.
Passing the bill in the Senate is expected to be more challenging, as
60 votes are required to bring it to a vote. The NRA and More Time
for Full Time initiative urge restaurateurs to write to Delaware
Senators Carper and Coons, and ask them to support the bill. For
sample letters & contact information, please contact the Delaware
Restaurant Association at (302) 738-2545.
Next for Delaware –
A $10.25 Minimum Wage?
S
ome Democratic lawmakers want to raise Delaware’s
minimum wage to $10.25 by 2017, a move that will be
strongly opposed by Delaware chambers of commerce,
restaurants and the state’s retail industry. The state’s bottom wage
will rise to $8.25 this June under legislation passed and signed by
Gov. Jack Markell last year.
The new proposal comes from the Low Wage, Service Industry
Task Force, a group chaired by two Democratic lawmakers. “We
made some progress last year, when we raised the minimum wage,
but we knew we still had work to do,” Sen. Robert Marshall, a
Wilmington Democrat and task force co-chair, said in a written
statement. “We think this plan has practical recommendations that
will help not just people at the bottom of the economic ladder,
but all Delawareans.” Delaware lawmakers should raise the state’s
minimum wage to $10.25 in two steps, and index future increases
to inflation, the task force said in a report published in January
2015. The group included lawmakers, representatives from
organized labor and the business community, but was stacked with
members who favor a minimum wage increase.
A minority of task force members, including two Republican
lawmakers and two representatives of the Delaware State Chamber
of Commerce, opposed the recommendations in a minority report
Legislative Update
