Expert Compliance Insights & Tips for Businesses

May 6, 2014

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Maryland Joins List of States Raising the Minimum Wage

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has signed legislation to gradually raise the state's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, reaching the target rate by July 2018. The first step is a hike to $8 an hour on Jan. 1, 2015. The wage hike was O'Malley's legislative priority for the last of his eight years in office, though he wanted an earlier start date for the new minimum wage. &l...

May 5, 2014

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HSA Contribution Limits to Rise for 2015

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced slight increases in maximum allowable contributions to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for 2015. For individual-only health plans, the contribution maximum rises from $3,300 this year to $3,350 in 2015. For family health plans, the limit goes up to $6,650 from $6,550 in 2014. To qualify for an HSA, an employee must have either an individ...

May 5, 2014

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'Young Invincibles' Enroll in Obamacare at 28 Percent Clip

The Obama administration has released figures on total health care enrollment through April 19 (the extended deadline), showing that 28 percent of all state and federal enrollees fell into the premium-lowering 18-to-34-year-old demographic. Original hopes were for a 40 percent enrollment of "young invincibles" in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, but administration off...

May 4, 2014

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DOL Rewrites COBRA Notice to Make It More ACA-Friendly

COBRA

The Department of Labor (DOL) has published a proposed rule that would amend the COBRA Notice that employees receive when leaving a company that offers health insurance to make it clear these employees can purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces. Under provisions of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, workers leaving jobs or underg...

May 2, 2014

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Report Says Employers Could Save Trillions by Shifting to ACA

American companies with 50 or more employees could save $3.25 trillion over the next decade by dropping health coverage and paying the shared responsibility penalties of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), while shifting their employees onto the Obamacare marketplaces, a report by a division of McGraw Hill Financial concludes. In a press release, S&P Capital IQ Global Markets Intelligence ...

May 2, 2014

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Seattle Mayor Proposes $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage

Vaulting his city to the forefront of the nationwide minimum wage debate, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is sending his City Council a plan to phase in a $15-an-hour minimum wage for employees in the Emerald City. The mayor said his proposal would "improve the lives of workers who can barely afford to live" in the high-tech city. Mayor Murray's initiative has been bolstered by ...

May 1, 2014

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OSHA Chief Proposes Swifter, Harsher Whistleblower Violation Penalties

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) oversees enforcement of the nation's many whistleblower protection laws, which largely involve retaliation safeguards for workplace whistleblowers, and its chief, David Michaels, feels the agency lacks the enforcement tools it needs. Testifying before the Senate Sub-Committee on Employment and Workplace Safety, Michaels pushed f...

April 29, 2014

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Senate Confirms David Weil as WHD Chief

The long-vacant position of administrator of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the Department of Labor (DOL) has been filled by the Senate's confirmation of David Weil. Weil was the principal investigator for a report submitted to the DOL in May 2010 titled "Improving Workplace Conditions through Strategic Enforcement: Report to the Wage and Hour Division Strategic Enforcement....

April 28, 2014

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Sixth Circuit Court Holds That Telecommuting Is 'Attendance'

In a complete break with previous court decisions regarding telecommuting as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has not only thrown open the doors of working at home as a reasonable accommodation but also established it as a new mode of "attendance" in the modern, technologically driven workplace. In EEOC ...

April 27, 2014

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Obama Orders DHS to Move Alone on Immigration Reform

Failing, so far at least, to persuade Congress to pass his vision of immigration reform, President Obama has ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “conduct a review of practices” to ensure “we are carrying out these policies in the most humane way possible,” DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson told ABC News this past week that his agency "pretty soon"...

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