The National Retail Federation this week welcomed introduction of House and Senate legislation that would repeal the employer mandate provision of the health care reform law scheduled to take effect next year.
“Eliminating the employer mandate would greatly aid the retail community, which is heavily dependent on labor,” NRF Senior Vice President David French said. “One of every four jobs in the American economy is supported by retail, which would be jeopardized by the mandate effective in 2014. The employer mandate is already deterring job growth today at the expense of tomorrow’s economy.”
NRF is currently focused on helping retailers prepare to comply with the Affordable Care Act, but continues to have “myriad concerns and objections to” the law, French said.
French’s comments came in letters to Representative Charles W. Boustany Jr., R-La., and Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah. The lawmakers are the lead sponsors of the American Job Protection Act, which would strike provisions in the ACA requiring employers with 50 or more full-time workers to provide health insurance at government-mandated levels or pay large penalties if they fail to do so.
NRF has argued that increased employment costs brought on by the employer mandate will force some companies to reduce the size of their payrolls and discourage small companies in particular from growing to the 50-employee threshold. NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay emphasized the job implications in a joint op-ed published last week.
As the world's largest retail trade association and the voice of retail worldwide, NRF's global membership includes retailers of all sizes, formats and channels of distribution as well as chain restaurants and industry partners from the United States and more than 45 countries abroad. In the United States, NRF represents the breadth and diversity of an industry with more than 1.6 million American companies that employ nearly 25 million workers and generated 2010 sales of $2.4 trillion.
