Save American Workers Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this commonsense proposal to change the Affordable Care Act definition of full-time employment back to 40 hours per week, where it belongs.

The 40-hour workweek has been recognized for decades as the standard for full-time employment. Small business owners, union leaders, and individual workers have recognized that the ACA's definition of full-time employment risks damaging the traditional 40-hour workweek and the paychecks that those 40 hours bring.

As we have heard with the Hoover Institution study, the 30-hour rule puts 2.6 million workers at risk of losing their jobs or losing their work hours, harming those who can least afford to take a pay cut.

Those workers have a median income of $30,000. More than half of them have a high school diploma or less, and more than half of them are women. In practice, many of these workers will have to find two part-time jobs to equal what they were bringing home.

Balancing two jobs means less time with your family, not to mention the tremendous stress that folks who will have to go in this direction will feel.

Passing this bill will help create jobs. One-half of small businesses recently surveyed said they will either cut hours for full-time employees or replace them with part-time employees.

We need to make it easier for businesses to hire full-time employees, not harder, but the ACA's mandate and the administration's repeated delays have only created more uncertainty for businesses and moms throughout this country.

I urge my colleagues to join me in helping working families and working women and job-creating small businesses by voting for the Save American Workers Act.

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