how can they make smart hiring decisions? brian, i know how you feel. i m curious your friend. is your opinion something that is common amongst your friends or you alone sort of growing disenchantment? are what you finding among others. pretty common. everyone is enthusiastic in 2008. once we had to go into the real world and hold down real jobs. many of the complain promises campaign promises didn t hold out to be true. can he do to change that? that s a hard question. i have to agree with hannah. i think that obamacare has caused a lot of concern about the ability for companies to hire and take on new expenses. part of the problem is actually falls with colleges and not preparing people to gain real world skills and hit the ground running once they finish their education. so, you know, i think by loosening up restrictions on the economy, you know,
how can they make smart hiring decisions? brian, i know how you feel. i m curious your friend. is your opinion something that is common amongst your friends or you alone sort of growing disenchantment? are what you finding among others. pretty common. everyone is enthusiastic in 2008. once we had to go into the real world and hold down real jobs. many of the complain promises campaign promises didn t hold out to be true. can he do to change that? that s a hard question. i have to agree with hannah. i think that obamacare has caused a lot of concern about the ability for companies to hire and take on new expenses. part of the problem is actually falls with colleges and not preparing people to gain real world skills and hit the ground running once they finish their education. so, you know, i think by loosening up restrictions on the economy, you know,
want that if it s going to cost the very people it intends to help? i do think if somebody is the only wage earner in the family i think it would be humane to raise it to a level they can cover their expenses. there was a gallup wells fargo poll where they asked small business owners where they would fire people or stop hiring people and 64 percent said it wouldn t have any impact on their hiring decisions. so i m not sure that this small amount of raising the minimum wage would actually have an effect. but a third said that it would. that s a significant. a minority. each if they were in the minority, it still effects them. panel, thanks so much. that s it for the panel. stay tuned to see a group of children demanding answers from president obama.
what the law mandates is expensive health insurance much more than many people want, need or can afford. so what we re seeing all across the country is full-time workers cut back to part-time workers, part-time cut to less than 30 hours. what do we know about how health care is affecting hiring decisions? well, i would have to say that what he was saying really is not showing up in terms of evidence in the data. now, it is true that down the road, there will be incentives in the health care law where some firms may decide they would rather create part-time jobs than full-time jobs. we ll have to see. but by the way, just in terms of raw job counts, that could actually boost the number of jobs higher because you have more part-time jobs. none of those factors are playing out in these data yet and in fact, the health care sector continues to be and will continue to be a strong area of
part because of regulatory concerns, although it is, i think, a bit overstated, and you don t hear it as much. and because of political dysfunction. but mostly it s because of demand. it s because, okay, things are okay. and they are okay. they re better than they were. they re getting a bit better, but they aren t growing enormously. they re making a lot of money. they re making an enormous amount of money. record profits. there s still growth in the economy, and the second half we re hoping will be even stronger. it s interesting, merger activity is starting to come back. wouldn t you say that, david? we re seeing a couple big deals just in the past couple weeks. we are. that s never been any question. we re seeing a sign of confidence. it may be making more of it because heinz is being taken over, dell and well-known household names. but we are seeing a bit more. there are more decisions being made. but your overall point, sure, productivity has helped u.s. businesse