Obamacare Forces Walmart To Cancel Health Insurance Coverage For 30,000 Workers

[hadit]

Obamacare Forces Walmart To Cancel Health Insurance Coverage For 30,000 Workers

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Walmart has 2.1 million employees. At $6,000 per employee per year, that's 12.6 billion/year just in insurance costs.

 

[hadit]

The poor six Walton's who inherited their wealth and have reduced their ownership of Walmart to a mere 50% share of the company have been forced to divide a piddling 1.5 million dollar per hour income. and that has to be divided among all six of them. It means their income has been reduced to a little over 3.6 billion dollars a year. With only a 135 billion dollar total combined wealth it is obvious they can not afford to pay their employers health insurance.

Wal-Mart is a place where poor people can buy stuff cheap that they can't get anywhere else. Forcing Wal-Mart to buy insurance for all 2 million employees would raise prices in the stores. Why do you want to punish the poor by preventing them from buying cheap TV's?

It would only cause prices to rise if the rich kids who inherited obscene wealth insisted that they continue to make more obscene wealth at tax payers expense. I have no sympathy for people who are so greedy that 10's of billions of dollars are not enough to prevent them from partaking in government subsidized labor so that they can increase their billions even more.

So your appeal is to somehow cause those who inherited wealth to spontaneously forgo that wealth so as to pay people more than their labor is worth? Has anyone told the Kennedys about this idea?

I haven't suggested people give up their wealth. I'm suggesting that when folks reach a certain level of wealth they should not depend on the government to subsidized their labor force. There is absolutely no evidence to indicate paying decent wages and benefits would drastically impact the income of the owners of Walmart. I see no reason why people with 135 billion dollars stashed away and an income of over 3.6 billion dollars a year can not operate a business that pays for itself, but instead needs assistance from the government to subsidize their work force.

The answer is, they don't. If the government forces them to spend an additional $12.6 billion/year, they'll raise prices and lay off workers to make up the difference, and poor people won't have a place to buy cheap stuff any more. Why would you do that to the poor and to the now unemployed Walmart workers?

 

[Siete]

Obamacare Forces Walmart To Cancel Health Insurance Coverage For 30,000 Workers

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Walmart has 2.1 million employees. At $6,000 per employee per year, that's 12.6 billion/year just in insurance costs.

in 2014 Walmart had 476.29 BILLION dollars in sales ...

16 billion net imcome

WMT Annual Income Statement - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Annual Financials

 

[Camp]

Obamacare Forces Walmart To Cancel Health Insurance Coverage For 30,000 Workers

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Walmart has 2.1 million employees. At $6,000 per employee per year, that's 12.6 billion/year just in insurance costs.

This story is about 30,000 employees being dropped. The 2.1 million employees you reference have already been included the operations cost and with those cost included they are still able to make 3 million dollars an hour profit.

 

[hadit]

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Walmart has 2.1 million employees. At $6,000 per employee per year, that's 12.6 billion/year just in insurance costs.

in 2014 Walmart had 476.29 BILLION dollars in profit ...

WMT Annual Income Statement - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Annual Financials

Good for them. It wasn't too long ago that US auto manufacturers were making money hand over fist too. They allowed themselves to get saddled with massive financial commitments, thinking they would always be able to meet them. Didn't work out that well for them.

 

[hadit]

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Walmart has 2.1 million employees. At $6,000 per employee per year, that's 12.6 billion/year just in insurance costs.

This story is about 30,000 employees being dropped. The 2.1 million employees your reference have already been included the operations cost and with those cost included they are still able to make 3 million dollars an hour profit.

Ultimately, if you really want Walmart to pay its people more, and offer more benes, the best way is to convince millions of people not to shop there unless they do. That's the only reason they're in business.

 

[Camp]

Ultimately, if you really want Walmart to pay its people more, and offer more benes, the best way is to convince millions of people not to shop there unless they do. That's the only reason they're in business.

That is not the the best way. It is the least efficient, longest and unfairest way. It gives the poorest people the task of making the richest people adhere to morals and decency and stop being obscenely greedy mooches who profit off the federal government.

 

[toxicmedia]

What's your problem?.....nobody knew the complexities of the law, it's just that simple, and nobody who supported it would admit that

The problem is complex, and so any comprehensive solution will be complex. I do not understand the idiocy which opposes a law just because of page count. This suggests a fear of reading. Perhaps this is the reason the GOP has never put a plan on the table. They no longer have in their ranks the intellectual weight required to straighten out the health care mess. And this is the biggest reason which makes single payer inevitable: sheer laziness.

I'm pretty sure that almost everyone who speaks on this subject has never actually read the law. So if "nobody knew the complexities" it is because they did not read it.

This is also why so many tards ate the manufactured bullshit they were fed about ObamaCare. Since the rubes had not read it, they believed what they were told to believe, e.g. "death panels".

Rubes and tards are intellectually lazy by nature, and thus easily fooled. It is simpler and easier to get the mindless minions angry than it is to actually come up with solutions.

That's the GOP standard operational procedure for all of our problems today: Get the rubes whining and angry to distract from the fact their leadership has no answers.

Repeal ObamaCare...AND THEN WHAT!?!

Thank you!.....I work for a large California based medical insurer, and I get so tired of hearing righties cite anything that goes wrong with the inusrance industry as a whole was caused by Obamacare. If anyone loses their job anywhere, or companies cut back on anything, it's because of Obamacare.

 

[the_human_being]

You have a heart attack and go to the Hospital.

Care begins and lasts whatever.

At the end when all of the dust settles.....your bill may be 100 K.

Your ded can be anywhere from 200 up....you pay that then in most plans co-insurance kicks in at whatever level you have chosen.

Could be 90-10, 80-20, 70-30 or 60-40.

With ACA plans the Max out of pocket for one individual is $6350, $6450 in 2015.

So out of your 100 K bill all you owe is 6350, you also pay 0 out of pocket expenses for the rest of the year (except for premiums)

But I didn't pay $6350 out of pocket. I paid $350.00 out of pocket. I had BSBS self and family. It was employer sponsored insurance, not Obamacare.

I'm glad you had insurance and got out cheap, more importantly LIVEDto tell about it. You were fortunate on 2 counts.


ALL current healthcare policies are mandated to comply with ACA these days, In essence YOU have Obama care now...

Same policy and same company I've been insured with since I was eighteen. Same $350.00 deductible today as it has been since before I even heard of Obama.

and your insurance company has to comply with ACA standards... it's the LAW... whether your pay differs or not it's your ins company who sets the scale, not ACA ... thanks for proving a point.. ACA DID NOT MAKE YOUR INSURANCE INCREASE..

Mine is not an ACA policy. Mine is an open market policy and one that has been around for a long time.

 

[the_human_being]

Ultimately, if you really want Walmart to pay its people more, and offer more benes, the best way is to convince millions of people not to shop there unless they do. That's the only reason they're in business.

That is not the the best way. It is the least efficient, longest and unfairest way. It gives the poorest people the task of making the richest people adhere to morals and decency and stop being obscenely greedy mooches who profit off the federal government.

The very people who bitch the most about Walmart shop there. It's where you get the most bang for your buck.

 

[the_human_being]

What's your problem?.....nobody knew the complexities of the law, it's just that simple, and nobody who supported it would admit that

The problem is complex, and so any comprehensive solution will be complex. I do not understand the idiocy which opposes a law just because of page count. This suggests a fear of reading. Perhaps this is the reason the GOP has never put a plan on the table. They no longer have in their ranks the intellectual weight required to straighten out the health care mess. And this is the biggest reason which makes single payer inevitable: sheer laziness.

I'm pretty sure that almost everyone who speaks on this subject has never actually read the law. So if "nobody knew the complexities" it is because they did not read it.

This is also why so many tards ate the manufactured bullshit they were fed about ObamaCare. Since the rubes had not read it, they believed what they were told to believe, e.g. "death panels".

Rubes and tards are intellectually lazy by nature, and thus easily fooled. It is simpler and easier to get the mindless minions angry than it is to actually come up with solutions.

That's the GOP standard operational procedure for all of our problems today: Get the rubes whining and angry to distract from the fact their leadership has no answers.

Repeal ObamaCare...AND THEN WHAT!?!

Thank you!.....I work for a large California based medical insurer, and I get so tired of hearing righties cite anything that goes wrong with the inusrance industry as a whole was caused by Obamacare. If anyone loses their job anywhere, or companies cut back on anything, it's because of Obamacare.

Hate to burst your balloon but the data proves it. We have more part-time jobs now than ever and more people on SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. More people having to accept lower paying full time jobs as well. Obama's economic policies have hurt the country.

 

[Siete]

You have a heart attack and go to the Hospital.

Care begins and lasts whatever.

At the end when all of the dust settles.....your bill may be 100 K.

Your ded can be anywhere from 200 up....you pay that then in most plans co-insurance kicks in at whatever level you have chosen.

Could be 90-10, 80-20, 70-30 or 60-40.

With ACA plans the Max out of pocket for one individual is $6350, $6450 in 2015.

So out of your 100 K bill all you owe is 6350, you also pay 0 out of pocket expenses for the rest of the year (except for premiums)

But I didn't pay $6350 out of pocket. I paid $350.00 out of pocket. I had BSBS self and family. It was employer sponsored insurance, not Obamacare.

I'm glad you had insurance and got out cheap, more importantly LIVEDto tell about it. You were fortunate on 2 counts.


ALL current healthcare policies are mandated to comply with ACA these days, In essence YOU have Obama care now...

Same policy and same company I've been insured with since I was eighteen. Same $350.00 deductible today as it has been since before I even heard of Obama.

and your insurance company has to comply with ACA standards... it's the LAW... whether your pay differs or not it's your ins company who sets the scale, not ACA ... thanks for proving a point.. ACA DID NOT MAKE YOUR INSURANCE INCREASE..

Mine is not an ACA policy. Mine is an open market policy and one that has been around for a long time.

it doesn't have to be a ACA policy, and time is totally irrelevant ... your policy and every other policy in the country is mandated by LAW to comply with ACA standards ..sheesh, RW's gripe about crap they know absolutely NOTHING about

 

[the_human_being]

Obamacare Forces Walmart To Cancel Health Insurance Coverage For 30,000 Workers

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Why don't you insure some of them out of the goodness of your own heart then?

 

[the_human_being]

But I didn't pay $6350 out of pocket. I paid $350.00 out of pocket. I had BSBS self and family. It was employer sponsored insurance, not Obamacare.

I'm glad you had insurance and got out cheap, more importantly LIVEDto tell about it. You were fortunate on 2 counts.


ALL current healthcare policies are mandated to comply with ACA these days, In essence YOU have Obama care now...

Same policy and same company I've been insured with since I was eighteen. Same $350.00 deductible today as it has been since before I even heard of Obama.

and your insurance company has to comply with ACA standards... it's the LAW... whether your pay differs or not it's your ins company who sets the scale, not ACA ... thanks for proving a point.. ACA DID NOT MAKE YOUR INSURANCE INCREASE..

Mine is not an ACA policy. Mine is an open market policy and one that has been around for a long time.

it doesn't have to be a ACA policy, and time is totally irrelevant ... your policy and every other policy in the country is mandated by LAW to comply with ACA standards ..sheesh, RW's gripe about crap they know absolutely NOTHING about

I probably know a little bit more than you. You see, my policy pretty much included all the things you tout about in the ACA even before the ACA came about. My policy is considered one of the "Cadillac policies" I been getting free flu shots, annual physicals, colonostrophies etc., for years and my wife has been receiving free mammograms and pap screenings for years. BCBS has long recognized the merits of early detection and treatment and was probably used as a model for the ACA.

 

[toxicmedia]

What's your problem?.....nobody knew the complexities of the law, it's just that simple, and nobody who supported it would admit that

The problem is complex, and so any comprehensive solution will be complex. I do not understand the idiocy which opposes a law just because of page count. This suggests a fear of reading. Perhaps this is the reason the GOP has never put a plan on the table. They no longer have in their ranks the intellectual weight required to straighten out the health care mess. And this is the biggest reason which makes single payer inevitable: sheer laziness.

I'm pretty sure that almost everyone who speaks on this subject has never actually read the law. So if "nobody knew the complexities" it is because they did not read it.

This is also why so many tards ate the manufactured bullshit they were fed about ObamaCare. Since the rubes had not read it, they believed what they were told to believe, e.g. "death panels".

Rubes and tards are intellectually lazy by nature, and thus easily fooled. It is simpler and easier to get the mindless minions angry than it is to actually come up with solutions.

That's the GOP standard operational procedure for all of our problems today: Get the rubes whining and angry to distract from the fact their leadership has no answers.

Repeal ObamaCare...AND THEN WHAT!?!

Thank you!.....I work for a large California based medical insurer, and I get so tired of hearing righties cite anything that goes wrong with the inusrance industry as a whole was caused by Obamacare. If anyone loses their job anywhere, or companies cut back on anything, it's because of Obamacare.

Hate to burst your balloon but the data proves it. We have more part-time jobs now than ever and more people on SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. More people having to accept lower paying full time jobs as well. Obama's economic policies have hurt the country.

You haven't proved that more part-time jobs now than ever and more people on SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, etc was caused by Obamacare.

Once again, you're just listing everything bad, and saying it's because of Obamacare

 

[Camp]

Obamacare Forces Walmart To Cancel Health Insurance Coverage For 30,000 Workers

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Why don't you insure some of them out of the goodness of your own heart then?

That is exactly what we are all doing when we have to subsidize private business by supplementing their work force with federal and state funds. Why do you think that is OK? I think business should pay their own way. You seem to think the tax payers should help billionaires buy more penthouses and mansions around the world, visit them in private jets and entertain themselves on 20 million dollar yachts.
]

 

[the_human_being]

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Why don't you insure some of them out of the goodness of your own heart then?

That is exactly what we are all doing when we have to subsidize private business by supplementing their work force with federal and state funds. Why do you think that is OK? I think business should pay their own way. You seem to think the tax payers should help billionaires buy more penthouses and mansions around the world, visit them in private jets and entertain themselves on 20 million dollar yachts.
]

No. I just think if you are going to complain about how someone else is spending their money then you should practice what you preach. It's really none of your business how Walmart spends its money. It's not yours. You are free to go out and start a corporation of your own and run it the way you wish.

 

[the_human_being]

"Forces"? Really? A cadre of money-grubbing corporatist scumbags choose to deliberately screw over thousands of working-class cytyzyns in order to further maximize their own profit, and you blame President Obama for this?

Your racism has taken hold of your infinitesimally small manpig "brain" and destroyed all sense of logic and fairness. You are truly beyond reason.

thats something these repub-lie-cans don't get ... when a corporation does something thats bad for its employees, its obamas fault ... and these repub-lie-cans are fine with that kind of thinking ...

Obama raising and regulating the cost of healthcare to where WalMart can't afford it isn't on Obama? Serioiusly? If he craps in his pants, is he responsible for that or would that be WalMart too?

Walmart can't afford it? Do you have a calculator? How much would it cost to insure 30,000 employees at lets say, $6,000 per year?

Why don't you insure some of them out of the goodness of your own heart then?

That is exactly what we are all doing when we have to subsidize private business by supplementing their work force with federal and state funds. Why do you think that is OK? I think business should pay their own way. You seem to think the tax payers should help billionaires buy more penthouses and mansions around the world, visit them in private jets and entertain themselves on 20 million dollar yachts.
]

Take it up with your Congress and your President. Business operates in its own best interests within the confines of whatever laws, taxes, and regulations are imposed upon them by the government. If you are standing around waiting on any business to volunteer any more contributions, you will be waiting a long time. Business does not operate for the benefit of its employees. Business operates for the benefits of their owners and stock holders. Wave your patriotic flag somewhere else.

 

[Siete]

I'm glad you had insurance and got out cheap, more importantly LIVEDto tell about it. You were fortunate on 2 counts.


ALL current healthcare policies are mandated to comply with ACA these days, In essence YOU have Obama care now...

Same policy and same company I've been insured with since I was eighteen. Same $350.00 deductible today as it has been since before I even heard of Obama.

and your insurance company has to comply with ACA standards... it's the LAW... whether your pay differs or not it's your ins company who sets the scale, not ACA ... thanks for proving a point.. ACA DID NOT MAKE YOUR INSURANCE INCREASE..

Mine is not an ACA policy. Mine is an open market policy and one that has been around for a long time.

it doesn't have to be a ACA policy, and time is totally irrelevant ... your policy and every other policy in the country is mandated by LAW to comply with ACA standards ..sheesh, RW's gripe about crap they know absolutely NOTHING about

I probably know a little bit more than you. You see, my policy pretty much included all the things you tout about in the ACA even before the ACA came about. My policy is considered one of the "Cadillac policies" I been getting free flu shots, annual physicals, colonostrophies etc., for years and my wife has been receiving free mammograms and pap screenings for years. BCBS has long recognized the merits of early detection and treatment and was probably used as a model for the ACA.

you have a high end policy at a high end cost ... good for you.

the ACA is designed to help people on the other end of the spectrum ... hence the name AFFORDABLE Care Act

 

[the_human_being]

What's your problem?.....nobody knew the complexities of the law, it's just that simple, and nobody who supported it would admit that

The problem is complex, and so any comprehensive solution will be complex. I do not understand the idiocy which opposes a law just because of page count. This suggests a fear of reading. Perhaps this is the reason the GOP has never put a plan on the table. They no longer have in their ranks the intellectual weight required to straighten out the health care mess. And this is the biggest reason which makes single payer inevitable: sheer laziness.

I'm pretty sure that almost everyone who speaks on this subject has never actually read the law. So if "nobody knew the complexities" it is because they did not read it.

This is also why so many tards ate the manufactured bullshit they were fed about ObamaCare. Since the rubes had not read it, they believed what they were told to believe, e.g. "death panels".

Rubes and tards are intellectually lazy by nature, and thus easily fooled. It is simpler and easier to get the mindless minions angry than it is to actually come up with solutions.

That's the GOP standard operational procedure for all of our problems today: Get the rubes whining and angry to distract from the fact their leadership has no answers.

Repeal ObamaCare...AND THEN WHAT!?!

Thank you!.....I work for a large California based medical insurer, and I get so tired of hearing righties cite anything that goes wrong with the inusrance industry as a whole was caused by Obamacare. If anyone loses their job anywhere, or companies cut back on anything, it's because of Obamacare.

Hate to burst your balloon but the data proves it. We have more part-time jobs now than ever and more people on SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. More people having to accept lower paying full time jobs as well. Obama's economic policies have hurt the country.

You haven't proved that more part-time jobs now than ever and more people on SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, etc was caused by Obamacare.

Once again, you're just listing everything bad, and saying it's because of Obamacare

I don't have my head in the sand either. I keep up with the news on he economy, the jobs markets, etc.