The Employer Shared Responsibility Provisions (commonly known as the “employer mandate”) under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) require covered large employers to pay an assessment under the Internal Revenue Code if they fail to offer health coverage to their full-time employees that meets certain standards. Those standards include a requirement that the coverage be affordable for full-time employees. “Affordability” is determined as a percentage of earnings. The IRS recently announced a significant decrease in the percentage for 2023.

The employer mandate applies only to employers with at least 50 full-time employees (or part-time employees, where a part-time employee counts as a fraction of a full-time employee based on hours worked). Covered employers may be gearing up for annual enrollment and determining how much to charge employees for health coverage in 2023, and may wish to take the new affordability percentage into account – particularly if low-wage workers make up a significant portion of the workforce.

For more information on this change, see the full Legal Alert by our Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation colleagues, who regularly consult with clients related to employee health benefit plans.