It is a huge argument in favor of socialized healthcare.
However, if you want to leave it to "the market", the proper solution to both sides of the equation is that companies should be required by law to pay one "person unit of benefits" for every 40 hours worked (healthcare, vacation, pension/401K) no matter whether those hours are done by 4 people or a single person.
You can either pay it to a person or it goes into a government fund to help cover the people being shortchanged (ie. food stamps and healthcare for WalMart employees).
This would immediately stop all the stupidity around "just under full time hours" as well as "too much overtime".
>companies should be required by law to pay one "person unit of benefits" for every 40 hours worked
Yes, the government could levy this "fee" on all employer-employee relationships and put it into some "government fund".. Wait a second! That sounds suspiciously familiar.
The point is that once you make it revenue neutral, most companies would rather pay it out to an employee rather than pay it out to the government.
Yes, there would likely be a few obtuse companies (maybe make paying it to the government 10% more expensive than paying it directly to the company), but most would simply grant their existing benefits directly to the employee once they couldn't make any money off of not doing so.
Getting rid of the employer from non cash/equity compensation (especially tax advantaged) completely would be even easier and more effective for making markets transparent.
However, if you want to leave it to "the market", the proper solution to both sides of the equation is that companies should be required by law to pay one "person unit of benefits" for every 40 hours worked (healthcare, vacation, pension/401K) no matter whether those hours are done by 4 people or a single person.
You can either pay it to a person or it goes into a government fund to help cover the people being shortchanged (ie. food stamps and healthcare for WalMart employees).
This would immediately stop all the stupidity around "just under full time hours" as well as "too much overtime".