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Companies offer part-time jobs instead of full-time ones because then they don't need to offer benefits that are required for a full-time job. In other words, t

Companies offer part-time jobs instead of full-time ones because then they don't need to offer benefits that are required for a full-time job. In other words, the current rules of the game are directly incentivizing this behavior. The incentive can be very easily removed by legislating that a part-time job would need to offer a fraction of the benefits proportional to the amount of hours the employee works per week. Ideally, there should be some sort of a credit transfer mechanism, where an employee working multiple part-time jobs that combine to 40+ hours a week could get benefits equivalent to a full-time job at one of the workplaces, proportionally covered by all employers. Another option would be to crack down on monopolies and large chains. If you employ 10000 corporate drones, who are expected to follow the same corporate instructions day-to-day and can be swapped out by a fresh hire without any loss of productivity, they by definition don't have any economic leverage. On the other hand, if the same market niche is occupied by 1000 independent 10-employee companies, the overall efficiency is lower, but the leverage of each employee (and the salary they can negotiate through supply/demand) is higher. Because in a smaller company you are someone the owner trusts to delegate part of their business, and not just a line on the spreadsheet.

grecy 6y ago
> Ideally, there should be some sort of a credit transfer mechanism, where an employee working multiple part-time jobs that combine to 40+ hours a week could get benefits equivalent to a full-time job at one of the workplaces, proportionally covered by all employers. There's actually a much simpler solution - divorce basic human rights (healthcare) from the employer.
- FlownScepter 6y ago
  And preferably from insurance companies too.
foolmeonce 6y ago
Why not just get rid of the connection between employer and benefits? Employer pays cash, tax system allow people to manage roth/health/etc accounts based on caps and percentages of earned income. If the free market was supposed to handle the distortion of employer benefit programs, then every employee would need to monitor their employer's yearly benefit negotiations such that 10-20% of them would be giving notice on the basis of any negative benefit change. That isn't happening.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Ah, but that would be socialism. Sure, many other countries are doing it, and it's working quite well, but it's socialism, and we all know that socialism is bad, so this must be bad.
  - john_moscow 6y ago
    Socialism creates another bunch of perverse incentives. If you let a central system manage everyone's funds without competing against dozens of other parallel systems, the management's incentive would be to appropriate as much of the funds as possible as management expenses, as long as they won't be called out and fired/jailed. In the current climate, they would create numerous equity and social justice committees, making sure that everyone gets a personalized pat on the back and 10% of the population will get a small bonus, while 50% of the funds will be spent on the friends of the management sitting in the committees. Anyone trying to call out the corruption will be immediately called racist/sexist by the media, and the economic state of an Average Joe will continue declining at even faster pace.
    - AlexandrB 6y ago
      > If you let a central system manage everyone's funds without competing against dozens of other parallel systems, the management's incentive would be to appropriate as much of the funds as possible as management expenses. How is this different than the current US situation across multiple industries, especially in the medical field? Except that in the case of socialism you can actually vote the leadership out while under the current oligarchy your only recourse is to complain on Twitter.
      - john_moscow 6y ago
        >How is this different than the current US situation across multiple industries, especially in the medical field? The current mess with the medical field happens because the hospitals can charge you whatever they think you can afford to pay. You can't compare quotes, pick a reasonable bidder and pay what you were quoted for. Sure, each case is unique and sometimes there are unforeseen circumstances, but currently the majority of out-of-the-network medical billing is just outright extortion. And, of course, it's done in the name of a great cause. "We are doing it out of necessity to pay for those poor folks that cannot afford healthcare". Except, most of this money is landing in the pockets of administrators [0]. >Except that in the case of socialism you can actually vote the leadership out while under the current oligarchy your only recourse is to complain on Twitter. In the current situation you could vote for someone that would offer to bring more transparency and competition to medical billing. Except, you won't get a chance because people benefiting from the current system and people owning mainstream media play golf together and intend doing it for years to come. [0] https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/practice-management/expert-forum-rise-and-rise-healthcare-administrator https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/practice-manageme...
bumby 6y ago
>legislating that a part-time job would need to offer a fraction of the benefits proportional I mean, I think you’re spot on with the incentives but but I worry that your proposed solution would just take what is already a complicated system related to benefits like healthcare and just turn it into a bigger rats nest. It’s hard enough for people to navigate providers for in-network services, then haggle with insurance companies etc. I can’t imagine if this was fractured along different more complicated means. I know it may be a pipe dream in the US but it seems like a better solution would be to divorce benefits from employers entirely through a single payer system
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
threwaway4392 6y ago
What benefits are we talking here? I presume mostly healthcare, though I may me missing something. What you suggest is overly complex compared to untying health care from work. In many countries healthcare is not tied to work.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Making the cost of healthcare visible to everyone that currently thinks their employer is screwing them with $100 premiums isn't exactly going to get in the way of a better system.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  ...including the US when you look more closely at Medicare and Medicaid. At least that holds true for a lot of peoples.
doanerock 6y ago
Or actually solve the problem and stop making companies offer health care. This is a stupid system. So many people worry about losing their job in fear of loosing their health care. So many people do not have healthcare because they do not have a job. A job and healthcare should not be connected is any way.
- dnndev 6y ago
  Completely agree. Once I quit and realized I was only paying $50 more per month with about the same crappy insurance (most insurance is completely bonkers unless you need meds- forget natural treatments) was amazing. Making a lot more as a 1099 worker without the company politics.
the_only_law 6y ago
Years ago I worked in retail as a night stocker. When I was hired, I was hired part time. Most other new employees were as well for the reason mentioned in this comment. Eventually, the company underwent a large merger with two other regional retail chains. After this, they decided to go back to the grandfathered full time employees outside management and gave them an ultimatum: be dropped down to part time or take a small severance package and leave. Well, most decided they would take the severance. I decided since I was finally starting my software career, working some part time contracts, that I would take the opportunity to demand and wage, reduced hours, and control of my schedule. It worked at the time, probably because of their inability to hire and retain employees, albeit the raise was pathetic. Eventually however, they started shifting more and more responsibilities on us and the work was taking much longer because the newest hires we're not very good. I started spending more time there and often wouldn't go home till mid morning. I decided I didn't need it and just quit on the spot. A few months later, the company ended up filing for bankruptcy.
AshWolfy 6y ago
or if those 10000 workers were in a union we could maintain productivity while putting workers on a more even playing field in negotiations
pmiller2 6y ago
Or, we could just realize that when you say "benefits," what you're mostly talking about is stuff like health insurance, which can be handled more efficiently by moving to a single payer system. I don't have a reference immediately handy, but there was a study done a little before the 2016 elections that pointed out how single payer (essentially Medicare for All) would reduce costs throughout the healthcare system, while still providing an excellent quality of care.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  > I don't have a reference immediately handy, but there was a study done a little before the 2016 elections A more recent survey of studies looking at single payer healthcare plans found[0]: "The evidence abounds: A "Medicare for All" single-payer system would guarantee comprehensive coverage to everyone in America and save money. Christopher Cai and colleagues at three University of California campuses examined 22 studies on the projected cost impact for single-payer health insurance in the United States and reported their findings in a recent paper in PLOS Medicine. Every single study predicted that it would yield net savings over several years. In fact, it’s the only way to rein in health care spending significantly in the U.S. All of the studies, regardless of ideological orientation, showed that long-term cost savings were likely. Even the Mercatus Center, a right-wing think tank, recently found about $2 trillion in net savings over 10 years from a single-payer Medicare for All system. Most importantly, everyone in America would have high-quality health care coverage." [0] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003013 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Thanks for backing me up on this.
scythe 6y ago
I think a better way to do it would be to basically cut the crap and target companies based on what they're obviously up to. If a company has more than say X% of their workforce part-time (say between 10-30 hours/week, with <10 hour employees ignored in the denominator) for a period of Y years, every part-time worker gets full benefits, unless they are working another part-time job in a similar company, in which case they get benefits from one and the other will add their average employer contribution to their salary (this reduces uncertainty). Or, if they are working a full-time job (this is unlikely, except for a few businesses e.g. bars) or attending a university that offers healthcare, the requirement can be waived or some appropriate counterbalance can be devised. The relaxation of labor laws for part-time work is intended to allow employers to efficiently deal with acute labor shortages, not maintain a firm of intentionally precarious and uninsured employees. An exception can be made for businesses which operate less than 30 hours per week, since they have no choice. Granted, more systemic reforms would be nice, but this problem can be dealt with directly and harshly because it simply shouldn't happen.
burlesona 6y ago
As a repeat small business owner I would say the lack of public healthcare is the biggest obstacle to entrepreneurship and business formation in the US. It is brutal trying to get a company off the ground and not being able to afford to offer benefits, as it puts you at such a huge hiring disadvantage. Having to pay fractional benefits etc. would not “fix” things, it would just making starting a new business even harder. For big companies it might end some bad shenanigans they pull, but more likely would just result in layoffs as they consolidated to a smaller labor force.

grecy 6y ago

> Ideally, there should be some sort of a credit transfer mechanism, where an employee working multiple part-time jobs that combine to 40+ hours a week could get benefits equivalent to a full-time job at one of the workplaces, proportionally covered by all employers. There's actually a much simpler solution - divorce basic human rights (healthcare) from the employer.

FlownScepter 6y ago
And preferably from insurance companies too.

foolmeonce 6y ago

Why not just get rid of the connection between employer and benefits? Employer pays cash, tax system allow people to manage roth/health/etc accounts based on caps and percentages of earned income. If the free market was supposed to handle the distortion of employer benefit programs, then every employee would need to monitor their employer's yearly benefit negotiations such that 10-20% of them would be giving notice on the basis of any negative benefit change. That isn't happening.

wizzwizz4 6y ago
Ah, but that would be socialism. Sure, many other countries are doing it, and it's working quite well, but it's socialism, and we all know that socialism is bad, so this must be bad.
- john_moscow 6y ago
  Socialism creates another bunch of perverse incentives. If you let a central system manage everyone's funds without competing against dozens of other parallel systems, the management's incentive would be to appropriate as much of the funds as possible as management expenses, as long as they won't be called out and fired/jailed. In the current climate, they would create numerous equity and social justice committees, making sure that everyone gets a personalized pat on the back and 10% of the population will get a small bonus, while 50% of the funds will be spent on the friends of the management sitting in the committees. Anyone trying to call out the corruption will be immediately called racist/sexist by the media, and the economic state of an Average Joe will continue declining at even faster pace.
  - AlexandrB 6y ago
    > If you let a central system manage everyone's funds without competing against dozens of other parallel systems, the management's incentive would be to appropriate as much of the funds as possible as management expenses. How is this different than the current US situation across multiple industries, especially in the medical field? Except that in the case of socialism you can actually vote the leadership out while under the current oligarchy your only recourse is to complain on Twitter.
    - john_moscow 6y ago
      >How is this different than the current US situation across multiple industries, especially in the medical field? The current mess with the medical field happens because the hospitals can charge you whatever they think you can afford to pay. You can't compare quotes, pick a reasonable bidder and pay what you were quoted for. Sure, each case is unique and sometimes there are unforeseen circumstances, but currently the majority of out-of-the-network medical billing is just outright extortion. And, of course, it's done in the name of a great cause. "We are doing it out of necessity to pay for those poor folks that cannot afford healthcare". Except, most of this money is landing in the pockets of administrators [0]. >Except that in the case of socialism you can actually vote the leadership out while under the current oligarchy your only recourse is to complain on Twitter. In the current situation you could vote for someone that would offer to bring more transparency and competition to medical billing. Except, you won't get a chance because people benefiting from the current system and people owning mainstream media play golf together and intend doing it for years to come. [0] https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/practice-management/expert-forum-rise-and-rise-healthcare-administrator https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/practice-manageme...

bumby 6y ago

>legislating that a part-time job would need to offer a fraction of the benefits proportional I mean, I think you’re spot on with the incentives but but I worry that your proposed solution would just take what is already a complicated system related to benefits like healthcare and just turn it into a bigger rats nest. It’s hard enough for people to navigate providers for in-network services, then haggle with insurance companies etc. I can’t imagine if this was fractured along different more complicated means. I know it may be a pipe dream in the US but it seems like a better solution would be to divorce benefits from employers entirely through a single payer system

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

threwaway4392 6y ago

What benefits are we talking here? I presume mostly healthcare, though I may me missing something. What you suggest is overly complex compared to untying health care from work. In many countries healthcare is not tied to work.

maxerickson 6y ago
Making the cost of healthcare visible to everyone that currently thinks their employer is screwing them with $100 premiums isn't exactly going to get in the way of a better system.
908B64B197 6y ago
...including the US when you look more closely at Medicare and Medicaid. At least that holds true for a lot of peoples.

doanerock 6y ago

Or actually solve the problem and stop making companies offer health care. This is a stupid system. So many people worry about losing their job in fear of loosing their health care. So many people do not have healthcare because they do not have a job. A job and healthcare should not be connected is any way.

dnndev 6y ago
Completely agree. Once I quit and realized I was only paying $50 more per month with about the same crappy insurance (most insurance is completely bonkers unless you need meds- forget natural treatments) was amazing. Making a lot more as a 1099 worker without the company politics.

the_only_law 6y ago

Years ago I worked in retail as a night stocker. When I was hired, I was hired part time. Most other new employees were as well for the reason mentioned in this comment. Eventually, the company underwent a large merger with two other regional retail chains. After this, they decided to go back to the grandfathered full time employees outside management and gave them an ultimatum: be dropped down to part time or take a small severance package and leave. Well, most decided they would take the severance. I decided since I was finally starting my software career, working some part time contracts, that I would take the opportunity to demand and wage, reduced hours, and control of my schedule. It worked at the time, probably because of their inability to hire and retain employees, albeit the raise was pathetic. Eventually however, they started shifting more and more responsibilities on us and the work was taking much longer because the newest hires we're not very good. I started spending more time there and often wouldn't go home till mid morning. I decided I didn't need it and just quit on the spot. A few months later, the company ended up filing for bankruptcy.

AshWolfy 6y ago

or if those 10000 workers were in a union we could maintain productivity while putting workers on a more even playing field in negotiations

pmiller2 6y ago

Or, we could just realize that when you say "benefits," what you're mostly talking about is stuff like health insurance, which can be handled more efficiently by moving to a single payer system. I don't have a reference immediately handy, but there was a study done a little before the 2016 elections that pointed out how single payer (essentially Medicare for All) would reduce costs throughout the healthcare system, while still providing an excellent quality of care.

nobody9999 6y ago
> I don't have a reference immediately handy, but there was a study done a little before the 2016 elections A more recent survey of studies looking at single payer healthcare plans found[0]: "The evidence abounds: A "Medicare for All" single-payer system would guarantee comprehensive coverage to everyone in America and save money. Christopher Cai and colleagues at three University of California campuses examined 22 studies on the projected cost impact for single-payer health insurance in the United States and reported their findings in a recent paper in PLOS Medicine. Every single study predicted that it would yield net savings over several years. In fact, it’s the only way to rein in health care spending significantly in the U.S. All of the studies, regardless of ideological orientation, showed that long-term cost savings were likely. Even the Mercatus Center, a right-wing think tank, recently found about $2 trillion in net savings over 10 years from a single-payer Medicare for All system. Most importantly, everyone in America would have high-quality health care coverage." [0] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003013 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Thanks for backing me up on this.

scythe 6y ago

I think a better way to do it would be to basically cut the crap and target companies based on what they're obviously up to. If a company has more than say X% of their workforce part-time (say between 10-30 hours/week, with <10 hour employees ignored in the denominator) for a period of Y years, every part-time worker gets full benefits, unless they are working another part-time job in a similar company, in which case they get benefits from one and the other will add their average employer contribution to their salary (this reduces uncertainty). Or, if they are working a full-time job (this is unlikely, except for a few businesses e.g. bars) or attending a university that offers healthcare, the requirement can be waived or some appropriate counterbalance can be devised. The relaxation of labor laws for part-time work is intended to allow employers to efficiently deal with acute labor shortages, not maintain a firm of intentionally precarious and uninsured employees. An exception can be made for businesses which operate less than 30 hours per week, since they have no choice. Granted, more systemic reforms would be nice, but this problem can be dealt with directly and harshly because it simply shouldn't happen.

burlesona 6y ago

As a repeat small business owner I would say the lack of public healthcare is the biggest obstacle to entrepreneurship and business formation in the US. It is brutal trying to get a company off the ground and not being able to afford to offer benefits, as it puts you at such a huge hiring disadvantage. Having to pay fractional benefits etc. would not “fix” things, it would just making starting a new business even harder. For big companies it might end some bad shenanigans they pull, but more likely would just result in layoffs as they consolidated to a smaller labor force.