Tag Archives: Regulation

News

Five Guys franchise owner says Obamacare will force him to raise prices

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Five Guys is my favorite place to go for a reasonably-priced cheeseburger. But the reasonable prices might be changing now.

Excerpt:

Business owners across America say they’re experiencing poor sales, holding back hiring, and planning layoffs because of “Obamacare,” or so says the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book (an overview of the business conditions in each of its 12 districts).

But in case you don’t trust the Beige Book’s anecdotal reporting, here’s something else to consider: Five Guys franchise holder Mike Ruffer said on Monday that the cost of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s landmark healthcare bill, will force him to raise the price of burgers and hot dogs, according to the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard.

“He will need all the profits from at least one of his eight outlets just to cover his estimated added $60,000-a year in new Obamacare costs,” Bedard’s report notes.

“Any added costs are going to have to be passed on,” said Ruffer, who operates eight Five Guys in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C. area.

But wait! There’s more: Ruffer also said that he had to scrap plans to build three additional restaurants because he’s still waiting for after the Obama administration to explain all the rules and penalties involved in the healthcare bill.

[…]The report goes on to explain that Ruffner thought he’d be exempt from “Obamacare” because he built each restaurant as its own company. However, the healthcare law doesn’t recognize this distinction – so now he’s exploring whether laying off employees or cutting back hours will keep his franchise safe from “Obamacare.”

“He said that ‘scorched earth plan,’ however, would hurt his restaurants, so Ruffer is likely to either pay the fine or buy insurance,” the Washington Exmainer reports. “But spreading the costs over his basic menu of fries, drinks, burgers and hot dogs, could scare off customers, he worries. He said that the recent spike in gas prices cut into his profits since fewer people were stopping at his restaurants.”

“And the health care law isn’t only going to hit Ruffer. He’s quizzed his workers to ask if they understand that they will be fined if they don’t get health insurance. Just one of 20 workers were aware of the $95 tax penalty that rises to $695 by 2016,” the report adds.

The recent spike in gas prices is also caused in part by Obama’s blocking of American energy development. It as if everything he does hurts the individual consumer.

Maybe next time, people will turn off their televisions and hit the books before voting. In the meantime, the fairest way to decide which employees to lay off is to take a walk through parking lot and pick every employee with an Obama sticker on their car.

News

Fracking propels North Dakota to 3.2% unemployment rate

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What happened when North Dakota lowered its regulatory barriers to energy development?

This:

North Dakota had the highest payroll-to-population rate (P2P) and the lowest underemployment rate in 2012, thanks mostly to the state’s booming oil & gas industry.

According to Gallup’s “State of the States” analysis released today, North Dakota ranked number one among the lower 48 states, with a payroll to population rate of 53.6 percent.

Gallup said it measured each state’s P2P rate by the percentage of the adult population aged 18 and older employed full-time by an employer for at least 30 hours per week.

The analysis noted that the numbers are not seasonably adjusted and variations across states reflect a number of factors, including the overall employment situation for each state as well as the demographic composition of that state’s population. P2P rates in Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia were not considered in the analysis.

Factoring in the most recent unemployment data is key to the Gallup analysis. North Dakota reported just a 3.2 percent unemployment rate, well below the national average unemployment rate of 7.9 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The number one ranking should not come as much of a surprise given the Peace Garden state’s rise in oil and gas production and the subsequent rise in jobs over the past few years.

According to North Dakota Jobs Service data from 2011, the most recent available, the number of oil and gas jobs in North Dakota has risen 57.5 percent since 2010 – going from 10,660 jobs in 2010 to 16,786 jobs in 2011, with the oil and gas payroll nearly doubling — going from $852 million in 2010 up to $1.5 billion in 2011.

North Dakota now produces more oil than any other state, including Alaska, which ranked number one in 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” which uses high-pressure water, sand, and chemicals to force oil from underground rock formations, has largely contributed to the recent boom in North Dakota’s fossil fuel industry.

North Dakota, as you might expect, is a very, very conservative state.

What about the US as a whole, under Barack Obama and the Democrats? Well, Obama killed the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have created 20,000 jobs. His administration has introduced many burdensome regulations on energy development, as well. Democrat energy policies have been a disaster, and it explains, in part, why we have a huge number of people not in the work force. We could have allowed North Dakota’s success to spread across the United States, if we had only approved that pipeline and removed barriers to energy development imposed by high taxes and regulations. But we didn’t. There’ll be another chance to vote for jobs in 2016.

News

Unemployment rate rises: 169,000 more people not in labor force

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First, I hope everyone remembers about the William Lane Craig vs Alex Rosenberg debate tonight at Purdue University. There is live-streaming available, details here.

And now, three scary stories from CNS News.

First, this one about the recent depressing jobs report.

Excerpt:

The number of Americans not in the labor force grew by 169,000 in January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest jobs report.

BLS labels people who are unemployed and no longer looking for work as “not in the labor force,” including people who have retired on schedule, taken early retirement, or simply given up looking for work. There were 89 million of them last month.

[…]The nation’s unemployment rate increased a tenth of a point in January, rising to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent, a level the Labor Department described as “essentially unchanged.”

Second, this one about Obamacare health care plans.

Excerpt:

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.

Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

And finally, this one about Obamacare’s effect on job creators, aka “the rich” who need to “pay their fair share”.

Excerpt:

Sixty-one percent of U.S. small business owners said they were “worried about the potential cost of healthcare” and 56 percent said they were “worried about new government regulations,” according to the Wells Fargo/Gallup small business index released on Jan. 31, which also showed that 30 percent of small business owners are not hiring and fear going out of business within a year.

“At the bottom of the list, but still at a surprisingly high level, 30% of owners say they are not hiring because they are worried they may no longer be in business in 12 months,” according to Gallup’s index summary. “This is up from 24% who had the same worry in January 2012.”

[…]Gallup said the reasons given for less hiring, such as healthcare and government regulations, are “troublesome” and have negative implications for the U.S. economy.

Bad news! I remember the good old days of the Bush administration, when we had lower taxes, a 4.4% unemployment rate, and a $160 billion dollar budget deficit. Maybe watching tonight’s debate with WLC and this Duke University naturalist tonight will cheer me up.