my initial reaction is this is gov't overreach however considering the current state of healthcare-attached-to-employment, this policy will probably be zero sum in the long run.
this allows more employees to hit "full time" status and thus be eligible for benefits. of course mega corps are simply going to re-organize their benefits package to cut out the marginal increase in healthcare and labor costs somehow. those who were scheduled 35h to stay below the cutoff will now only have work for 30h.
the "more true" solution, IMO, is decoupling healthcare and other benefits from employment rather than trying to band-aid the symptoms of this poor system with Sisyphean policy like this.
> this allows more employees to hit "full time" status and thus be eligible for benefits
Not directly, it doesn't. The full time for mandatory benefits (30 hours) is not changed by the threshold for mandatory overtime dropping from 40 hours to 32 hours.
(Of course, if an employer wants to avoid overtime and has the same number of hours of work, but otherwise minimizes headcount, it will need 25% more 32-hour workers qualifying for benefits than it had 40-hour workers qualified for benefits, so it will mean more total workers getting benefits.)
this allows more employees to hit "full time" status and thus be eligible for benefits. of course mega corps are simply going to re-organize their benefits package to cut out the marginal increase in healthcare and labor costs somehow. those who were scheduled 35h to stay below the cutoff will now only have work for 30h.
the "more true" solution, IMO, is decoupling healthcare and other benefits from employment rather than trying to band-aid the symptoms of this poor system with Sisyphean policy like this.