First, ACA Medicaid expansion.
Those who had means to buy expensive private insurance, and used the ACA to reduce their rates were happy. Those who didn't get a big break, or couldn't afford plans, were ticked off. They weren't going to be helped by Medicaid expansion and did not talk about that.
For those who did qualify, some of whom had never had benefits or insurance, and were getting behind healthwise, it was a life saver. Not being able to afford insurance anymore, even though I once had full insurance and a job that paid about fifty grand in the eighties, at times I wish that I now qualified for it. No way I'm gonna get it.
Do I resent those who get it? No, because they never had the years of higher income I had. I help people (for free) that qualify when I'm able to get about.
I think this is the reason we saw the baggers running nuts over the ACA. Remember this?
They figured their coverage was sacrosanct, those Other people, not so much. Mememe!
Second, this still holds true from Matthew 20, The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard:
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
No matter what the workers who had been there longer thought, possibly built the business up and felt they should get more, they did not contract for more.
Apparently there is no union at his place, no one negotiating pay grades. They are his employees. They are not owners or if there is one, likely not on the board of directors. If they think someone else will pay them above $70K, they can go for it.
Not saying I agree with this kind of arbitrary action the man did. But this is the environment that many live in, and a lot of those people wouldn't join a union to negotiate a fair wage scale if their lives depended on it. Some I know regard themselves almost as entrepreneurs of self-employed or have been taiught that way.
Perhaps they are right. But their complaining may or may not yield them anything. Just my 2¢.
YMMV.
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