Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
A Night At The Movies: Higher Costs, Less Hours For Employees
A Night At The Movies: Higher Costs, Less Hours For Employees
Jan 30, 2026 4:00 AM

If your next date night costs you more, you can thank Obamacare. Regal Entertainment Group, the country’s largest movie theater chain, has announced that it is cutting employee hours due to Obamacare related costs.

One Regal theater manager told the move has sparked a wave of resignations from full-time managers who have seen their hours cut by 25 percent or more.

“In the last couple weeks, managers have been quitting on a daily basis from various locations to try and find full-time work,” said the manager, who asked not to be named. “Regal up until now has never restricted anyone to anything below 40 hours.”

Restaurants such as Red Lobster and Olive Garden are also trying to figure out ways to meet health-care costs, and that typically means cutting employee hours so that the employees do not meet full-time status, and thus do not require health care coverage. This “under-employment” is growing.

So-called “underemployment” is already a widespread problem in the weak economy, with many workers unable to get the hours they need to get by. According to an analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), the percentage of workers clocking in on a part-time basis grew from 17 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2011. Only 28 percent panies that offer health benefits make them available to part-time employees, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

One website, Obamacarefacts, states that Obamacare will create jobs:

Small businesses have increasingly stopped providing health benefits to their employees over the past decade due to the ever rising cost of health care premiums. The rising costs don’t effect larger firms hiring processes. ObamaCare helps to regulate insurance making it more affordable to small businesses increasing job retention rate and making those jobs more attractive.

While jobs may be available, increasingly they will e with health-care benefits. According to Ed Haislmaier, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, “If you want to have reduced work, lower wages and economic stagnation, this is a great way to do it.” Further, Haislmaier points out that a majority of states have opted out of – at least for now – health care “exchanges” that are part of Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The costs for the states to set these exchanges up are high, impacting state budgets and these states consider the government plan to risky.

Obamacare is costing people money in many ways: lower salaries, higher consumer costs and taxes, and less consumer spending. Rather than dinner out and a movie, more Americans may be choosing dinner at home and a television program.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
How Are Jobs Created?
Trump promises he’ll be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.” And Sanders says he’d spend $18 billion to create jobs. But can the president actually create jobs? And if so, do we want the government to do so? In this brief video, economist Don Boudreaux discusses what happens when the government takes tax money from some businesses to create jobs in others. ...
Radio Free Acton: Brexit’s Aftermath with Todd Huizinga
Last week on Radio Free Acton, we sat down with Acton Institute Director of International Outreach Todd Huizinga to preview the ing Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. This week, we’re back again with Todd to review the stunning results of the referendum, the reactions to it in boththe United Kingdom and the European Union, and the prospects for EU reform and British prosperity in the near and long-term future. You can listen to the podcast via the audio player...
The Costs of Jailing Teens
In early June 2016, Matthew Bergman, 15, allegedly admitted to police that he killed his aunt and stabbed his mother in Davidson County, Tennessee near Nashville. When mit crimes in the suburbs or in urban areas, experts are ambivalent about what to with them because of the long-term consequences of youth incarceration. Low munities get hit the hardest. Since the 1980s juvenile incarceration rates have increased steadily creating a phenomenon often referred to as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” There are many...
Is Shifting The Justice Reform Burden Better?
The brokenness of America’s criminal justice system is not just an urban issue. Working class defendants in small towns across America are vulnerable to system that does not protect them from government negligence. For example, New York’s state legislature approved new indigent defense measures last week that finished an almost decade long battle over statewide indigent defense problems. The case began with a 2007 lawsuit by the NY Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several indigent defendants (Hurrell-Harring et al....
Video: Vernon Smith on Faith and the Compatibility of Science and Religion
Acton University is a unique conference, a fact noted by Nobel Economics Laureate Vernon L. Smith, who used his appearance on Wednesday, June 15 as an opportunity to “speak on a topic that my fellow economists would never have asked me to speak on”: religious faith and patibility with modern science. We’re pleased to present Smith’s lecture below. ...
What motivated ‘leave’ voters in Brexit?
In the wake of the British vote to leave the European Union, many are wondering what led the majority of voters to affirm the Brexit. In mentary Brexit: Against the Political Class, Samuel Gregg points out mon element in all of the motivations behind the “Leave” decision: a frustration with established career politicians. Gregg writes: The reasons why a majority of British voters decided that their nation was better off outside the European Union were many and not always in...
Investing prudently and morally
David Bahnsen explains “value investing” at Acton University. How should your views on morality affect your investment strategy? David Bahnsen, Chief Investment Officer at The Bahnsen Group, argues in an Acton University presentation titled “Value Investing” that the question is a plex one. He begins by outlining the purpose of investment consistent with its definition: to make a profit. Without growth, there is no investing. Similarly, there is no such thing as a risk free investment. Biblical investment is therefore...
Understanding Austrian economics
Carl Menger (1840-1921) | Wikimedia Commons The central theme of the Austrian tradition, which might better be called the liberal tradition, is that society runs itself. This is strongly linked to the idea of freedom in the liberal sense, meaning the opportunity for the individual to advance and to create wealth. Jeffrey Tucker, Director of Content at FEE (Foundation for Economic Education) argues that the Austrian school started by Carl Menger revived an old method of thinking in the liberal...
Daniel Hannan on the Conservative Case for Brexit
In the hubbub surrounding Brexit, many conservatives have cheered the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union, hailing it as a win for freedom, democracy, and local sovereignty. Yet forthosewho disagree, support for Brexit is painted as necessarily driven by fear, xenophobia, and protectionism.Although fear of immigrants and narrow nationalism have surelyplayed their part, such sentiments and attitudes aren’t the only driversat play, and they mustn’t be heeded if Brexitis actually going to succeed. Indeed, for conservatives in the...
We’re all Dead: How J.M. Keynes – And His Critics – Went Wrong
“Critics of John Maynard Keynes were so determined his economics were wrong that they allowedKeynes to dictate the terms of the debate,” says Victor Claar, professor of economics atHenderson State University, in his Acton University lecture. He continues to describe Keynes flawed anthropology with respect to classical economists and the Great Depression. Key observations of human nature include the principles of work, property, exchange, and division of labor. We can survive and prosper, take ownership of our work, support and...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved