A bill defining full-time employment under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) as 40 hours a week, instead of the statute’s current 30-hour threshold, passed the House Committee on Ways and Means on Feb. 4, 2014.
This has been a hot topic in Washington, under both the Senate version (S. 1188) and the House’s more recent version, H.R. 2575 – Save American Workers Act of 2013 (a.k.a. the “40 hours is full-time” bill). A recent announcement by The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimating that the change from 40 to 30 hours would cost the government more than $70 billion over 10 years, has slowed momentum on these bills and there is concern that they will likely not go far at the 40-hour level, despite the fact that The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) recognize a normal workweek of 40 hours, considering that is when overtime begins. These bills are still under consideration and there is conversation about increasing it to a yet to be determined number of hours. We hope to soon see that presented as an alternative.
We urge you to reach out to your congressional representatives to recommend your support for an increase in the hours from the current 30.