Business Owners May Face $100-Per-Day Penalty Under ObamaCare

Small business owners who thought they were off the hook for ObamaCare regulations until 2015 may be in for an expensive wake-up call next month.

Beginning Oct. 1, any business with at least one employee and $500,000 in annual revenue must notify all employees by letter about the Affordable Care Act’s health-care exchanges, or face up to a $100-per-day fine.

The requirement applies to any business regulated under the Fair Labor Standards Act, regardless of size. Going forward, letters are to be distributed to any new hires within 14 days of their starting date, according to the Department of Labor.

Earlier this summer, the employer mandate, which states that every business with at least 50 or more full-time employees must offer workers acceptable coverage or face a $2,000 penalty per-worker, per-year, was pushed back until 2015.

But the Oct. 1 employee-notification deadline stands. Keith McMurdy, partner at FOX Rothschild LLP, says the $100 per-day fine has been “unfortunately overlooked” by many small businesses, and the dollar amount on the penalty comes from the general per-day penalty under the ACA. Read more >>

Strongest employment growth is temporary help agencies

Unemployment in May ticked up to 7.6 percent as employers added 175,000 jobs, a tepid report that may cheer investors hoping for interest rates to stay low, boosting stocks.

Economists including JJ Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist of TDAmeritrade, had expected the addition of 167,000 jobs with the unemployment rate unchanged at 7.5 percent.

The industries with the strongest employment growth in the last month were temporary help agencies, which added 26,000 jobs; and food services, which added 38,000 jobs in May and 337,000 over the past year.

...The Labor Department revised the number of jobs added in April lower to 149,000 from 165,000. March's number was revised higher to 142,000 from 138,000. Read more >>

Class of 2013 faces grim job prospects

The Class of 2013 will face an "extremely difficult" job market when college students graduate in the months ahead, according to a new research report. Unemployment remains high for young college grads. For those who will find jobs, many will probably have to settle for low-level positions, the Economic Policy Institute said Wednesday.

The unemployment rate for recent college grads between the ages of 21 to 24 has averaged 8.8% over the last year, according to Labor Department data. Once you also include young grads who are working part-time for economic reasons, and those who have stopped looking for a job in the last year, the so-called "underemployment rate" is a whopping 18.3%.
Sure, the job market has improved during the past few years. But both these rates remain higher than pre-recession levels.

Meanwhile, graduating in the wrong place at the wrong time is likely to affect the earnings potential of these students over their entire careers.
"On average, they are not going to do well," said Heidi Shierholz, an EPI economist and co-author of the report. "They will face lower earnings, than they otherwise would have, for maybe the next couple of decades." Read more >>

Millionaires Got $80 Million in Jobless Aid in Recession

The U.S. government paid almost $80 million in unemployment benefits during the worst of the economic downturn to households that made more than $1 million, including a record $29.9 million in 2010, tax records show.

Almost 3,200 households -- about 20 percent of them from New York -- that reported adjusted gross income of more than $1 million received jobless-insurance payments averaging $12,600 in 2010, the latest year for which figures are available, according to IRS data compiled by Bloomberg. Those payments outpaced the total incomes for about 25 million U.S. households.

The $80 million represents less than 0.01 percent of this year’s $845 billion projected deficit. Yet the unemployment aid to millionaire households underscores the lack of means-testing in some federal aid programs as the Labor Department reports new jobless figures today. The aid also is a reminder of the difficulty of reining in spending. Read more >>

Wages Stink at America's Most Common Jobs

Workers in seven of the 10 largest occupations typically earn less than $30,000 a year, according to new data published Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a far cry from the nation's average annual pay of $45,790.

Food prep workers are the third most-common job in the U.S., but have the lowest pay, at a mere $18,720 a year for 2012. Cashiers and waiters are also popular professions, but the average pay at these jobs tallies up to less than $21,000 annually. There are 4.3 million retail sales workers out there, making them the most common job, but the position pays only $25,310 for the year.

Among the 10 most popular professions, only the nation's 2.6 million registered nurses earn a good living, bringing home nearly $68,000 a year on average. Another two of the most common jobs -- secretaries and customer service representatives -- have an average annual wage of about $33,000. Read more >>

The fastest growing job in America pays almost nothing in wages

Meet home health care aides. These nearly 2 million (mostly minorities and women) workers do everything from prepare meals and clean homes, to bathe and change bedpans for elderly and disabled patients.

As Baby Boomers age, this job is expected to explode, growing 70% between 2010 and 2020, according to the Labor Department. That makes it the single fastest growing job in the United States, according to their forecasts.

Call it the silver tsunami. Roughly every eight seconds, a Baby Boomer turns 65. And that has led to surging demand for in-home care.

"This isn't just a surge, a one-time hiring spurt. This is something we will do this year and into the future," said Paul Hogan, chairman of Home Instead Senior Care, which alone plans to hire 45,000 caregivers in North America this year. "It's all driven by the growth in the senior population." 

But even though there are plenty of job opportunities, many of these people make the same wage as teenagers flipping burgers or selling clothes at the mall. The average hourly wage is just $9.70 an hour, according to the Labor Department. Read more >>

Unemployed lose benefits if federal budget cuts go through

The long-term unemployed can kiss goodbye almost 10% of their weekly jobless benefits if federal budget cuts go into effect on March 1.

Many safety net programs, such as food stamps and Medicaid, are protected from the $85 billion in forced spending cuts, but extended federal unemployment benefits are vulnerable.

Those payments kick in when state benefits, which last up to 26 weeks, run out. Eligible workers can then collect federal benefits for up to 47 weeks. The payments, which average $300 a week, are an emergency measure Congress has been authorizing since 2008. It's a stopgap aimed at protecting the millions of Americans struggling to find new jobs in a challenging economy.

The forced spending cuts scheduled to take effect next month trim the program's funding. Recipients of those payments could lose an average of more than $400 in benefits each through the end of the federal fiscal year, according to the Department of Labor. The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. Read more >>

Incomes Continuing to Decline

Noel Sheppard
One of the negative features of the current economic recovery has been declining incomes of average Americans. This trend continued in October.

The Labor Department reported Friday that despite 171,000 jobs being added to nonfarm payrolls in October, average hourly earnings for such employees edged down by 1 cent to $23.58. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees also dropped by 1 cent to $19.79.

This continues a trend reported by the Census Bureau in August finding that since the recovery began in June 2009, median household incomes have fallen 4.8 percent adjusted for inflation.

Also of note, the manufacturing workweek edged down by 0.1 hour to 40.5 hours. The average
workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls also edged
down by 0.1 hour to 33.6 hours.

As such, despite the positive headline numbers in this report, this is by no means a strong jobs market this far into an economic recovery.

Jobless claims increased to 382,000

The job market is cooling as a global slowdown and looming U.S. tax policy changes keep businesses hesitant about hiring. Persistent unemployment, a “grave concern” according to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, is a focus for policy makers today as they meet to consider whether new steps are needed to boost the world’s biggest economy.

“The labor market continues to be disappointing,” said Guy Berger, a U.S. economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, who projected claims would rise to 380,000. “We’d like to see the hiring side pick up. Companies are very cautious given all the uncertainty.” Read more >>

America’s disappearing jobs

These are America’s disappearing jobs.

1. Postal service workers
 Percent decrease: -26.4 percent
 2010 jobs: 524,200
 Total job loss (2010-2020): -138,600
 Median annual wage: $53,090

2. Sewing machine operators
 Percent decrease: -25.8 percent
 2010 jobs: 163,200
 Total job loss (2010-2020): -42,100
 Median annual wage: $20,600

3. Shoe and leather workers
 Percent decrease: -23.1 percent
 2010 jobs: 13,300
 Total job loss (2010-2020): -3,100
 Median annual wage: $23,980

4. Communications equipment operators
 Percent decrease: -22 percent
 2010 jobs: 164,000
 Total job loss (2010-2020): -36,100
 Median annual wage: $25,570

5. Semiconductor processors
 Percent decrease: -17.9 percent
 2010 jobs: 21,100
 Total job loss (2010-2020): -3,800
 Median annual wage: $33,130

Read more >>

Most jobs added since recession ended pay slave wages

While a majority of jobs lost during the downturn were in the middle range of wages, a majority of those added during the recovery have been low-paying, according to a new report from the National Employment Law Project. The disappearance of midwage, midskill jobs is part of a longer-term trend that some refer to as a hollowing out of the workforce, though it has probably been accelerated by government layoffs.

“The overarching message here is we don’t just have a jobs deficit; we have a ‘good jobs’ deficit," said Annette Bernhardt, the report’s author and a policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project, a liberal research and advocacy group. The report looked at 366 occupations tracked by the Labor Department, and clumped them into three equal groups by wage, with each representing a third of U.S. employment in 2008.

The middle-third — occupations in fields like construction, manufacturing and information with median hourly wages of $13.84 to $21.13 — accounted for 60 percent of job losses from the beginning of 2008 to early 2010. The job market has turned around since then, but those fields have represented only 22 percent of total job growth. Read more >>

374,000 jobless claims - expect revision to 377k by next week

Initial claims were unchanged from last week - thanks to the now ubiquitous upward revision of the previous week's data. This is the highest print in six weeks and the third week in a row that the claims data has been greater than expected. The market is unsure - is this enough pre-FOMC to make a real difference or just more 'seasonal' noise? One thing is sure - the trend is higher in the last six weeks, hardly a positive sign (as the 4-week moving average rises 1,500 to 370,250) - and after the standard upward revision today's 374k claims will be 377k by next week. Read more >>

Jobs harder to get after layoffs

The U.S. economic recovery hasn't felt much like one even for people who managed to find new jobs after being laid off. Most of them have had to settle for less pay.

Only 56 percent of Americans laid off from January 2009 through December 2011 had found jobs by the start of this year, the Labor Department said Friday. More than half of them took jobs with lower pay. One-third took pay cuts of 20 percent or more.

The figures would be even lower if people who could find only part-time jobs were included in the total. The report provides an illustration of the job market's persistent weakness well after the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009. It also documents that while the economy has added nearly 3 million jobs since the recovery began, many pay less than those that were lost. Read more >>

Post office nears historic default on $5B payment

The U.S. Postal Service is bracing for a first-ever default on billions in payments due to the Treasury, adding to widening uncertainty about the mail agency's solvency as first-class letters plummet and Congress deadlocks on ways to stem the red ink.

With cash running perilously low, two legally required payments for future postal retirees' health benefits - $5.5 billion due Wednesday, and another $5.6 billion due in September - will be left unpaid, the mail agency said Monday. Postal officials said they also are studying whether they may need to delay other obligations. In the coming months, a $1.5 billion payment is due to the Labor Department for workers compensation, which for now it expects to make, as well as millions in interest payments to the Treasury.

The defaults won't stir any kind of catastrophe in day-to-day mail service. Post offices will stay open, mail trucks will run, employees will get paid, current retirees will get health benefits.

But a growing chorus of analysts, labor unions and business customers are troubled by continuing losses that point to deeper, longer-term financial damage, as the mail agency finds it increasingly preoccupied with staving off immediate bankruptcy while Congress delays on a postal overhaul bill. Read more >>

Companies Only Hiring Temps

As orders from food makers have picked up during the past year, Create-A-Pack Foods Inc. turned to a staffing company, Kelly Services Inc. to add about 100 workers. Hiring on a temporary basis saves money if an employee doesn’t work out and expands recruiting beyond Create-A-Pack’s Ixonia, Wisconsin, headquarters, Chief Executive Officer Glenn Cochrane said.

“You can build good crews with temp services,” he said, noting that the company -- which packages products including sauces and icings in pouches, bottles and jars -- is seeking to fill another 28 positions.

Create-A-Pack is among a growing number of businesses turning to staffing companies for temporary workers, reflecting employer concern about the U.S. economic outlook. The number of people on the payrolls of temp-staffing businesses grew 10.7 percent in June to 2.5 million from a year earlier, the biggest increase since May 2011, based on data from the Labor Department.

Demand for temporary employees is gaining momentum as companies seek more flexible staffing arrangements, according to Tobey Sommer, director of equity research in Nashville at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc. This has helped create a shift within the labor force, as a “not-easily-forgotten recession” has made many executives cautious about hiring, he said. Read more >>

Companies rely on existing workers and temporary employees instead of hiring

Companies are relying on existing workers and temporary employees instead of hiring, evidence the European crisis is hurting U.S. confidence more than demand. The average workweek climbed by six minutes to 34.5 hours in June, the first gain since February, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Temporary staffing rose by 25,200, the third consecutive increase.

“Firms are still seeing an increase in demand, and there is a need for more labor,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “But there are so many risks out there that businesses don’t want to commit to hiring full-time employees.”

Payrolls advanced by 80,000 workers in June, fewer than the median estimate of 100,000 in a Bloomberg News survey of economists, after a 77,000 rise the prior month, today’s report showed. The lack of hiring fueled concern the world’s largest economy was slowing, pushing stocks down, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index heading for its biggest weekly loss in a month. Read more >>

80K Jobs Added in June - 1/3 Were Temp Jobs

U.S. employers added only 80,000 jobs in June [need 120K to break even], a third straight month of weak hiring that shows the economy is struggling three years after the recession ended.

The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent.
The economy has added just 75,000 jobs a month in the April-June quarter. That’s one-third of 226,000 a month created in the first quarter. Job creation is also trailing last year’s pace through the first six months of 2012.

Stock futures fell modestly after the report came out. Dow Jones industrial average futures were down 24 points before the report at 8:30 a.m., and were down 60 points minutes later. About one-third of the jobs gained in June were in temporary services. Read more >>

60K drop off unemployment claims in past week; 1.260 million in past year

Initial Claims did precisely as expected: it improved even as it deteriorated: why - the media headline will blast: "Initial Claims Decline by 6K" because last week's number of 387K was just revised to 392K.

That what actually happened was a miss of baseline expectations, in that claims would drop to 385K is irrelevant. Just as it is irrelevant that next week, today's 386K number will be revised to 390K. And the media manipulation song and dance revisions will continue. More importantly, and continuing the 99 week cliff issue, 60,000 people dropped off initial and extended claims in the past week. In other words, 1.260 million people have fallen off extended benefits in the past year: people who no longer collect any form of unemployment benefits. Surely they have all "found jobs." Read more >>

Four-Week Jobless Claims Average Reaches 2012 High

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits was little changed last week, according to government data on Thursday that suggested the labor market was struggling to regain momentum.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 387,000, the Labor Department said. The prior week's figure was revised up to 389,000 from the previously reported 386,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 380,000 last week.  

The four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, increased 3,500 to 386,250 — the highest level since early December. Read more >>

The 86 Million Invisible Unemployed

There are far more jobless people in the United States than you might think. While it's true that the unemployment rate is falling, that doesn't include the millions of nonworking adults who aren't even looking for a job anymore. And hiring isn't strong enough to keep up with population growth.

As a result, the labor force is now at its smallest size since the 1980s when compared to the broader working age population. A person is counted as part of the labor force if they have a job or have looked for one in the last four weeks. Only about 64% of Americans over the age of 16 currently fall into that category, according to the Labor Department. That's the lowest labor force participation rate since 1984.

It's a worrisome sign for the economy and partly explains why the unemployment rate has been falling recently. Only people looking for work are considered officially unemployed. Last year there were 86 million people who didn't have a job and weren't consistently looking for one, according to Labor Department data. More...