my cousin has worked at the same big retail chain for 3 years. $16.50 an hour. every week his schedule says 29 hours. never 30. never 32. exactly 29. he asked his manager if he could get to 30 so he'd qualify for health insurance and paid time off. the manager said, "corporate sets a hard cap at 29 for most of the floor. i can't change it." so now he works a delivery gig on top of it, another 24 hours a week. that's 53 hours total. still no health insurance. no sick days. no 401(k) match. one hour. that's the gap between a "part-timer" and a person with benefits. yeah... a company that wanted to keep him wouldn't count the hours that carefully