President Obama on Tuesday struck back at critics who claim the Affordable Care Act is to blame for companies cutting back on employee hours. In a sprawling interview with BuzzFeed, the president put the onus on enormously profitable corporations — in this case Staples, which threatened to fire workers who go over 25 hours per week — for the cutbacks.
It's one thing when you've got a mom-and-pop store who can't afford to provide paid sick leave or health insurance or minimum wage to workers — even though a large percentage of those small businesses do it because they know it's the right thing to do — but when I hear large corporations that make billions of dollars in profits trying to blame our interest in providing health insurance as an excuse for cutting back workers' wages, shame on them. [BuzzFeed]
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