Is ObamaCare Creating a Part-Time Economy?
The president’s Council of Economic Advisers:
“[O]f the increase in employment since the Affordable Care Act became law, more than 9 out of 10 positions have been full-time.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Between Jan. 1 and June 30…the economy added 833,000 part-time jobs and lost 97,000 full-time jobs, for net creation of 736,000 jobs. In reality, the economy overall added no full-time jobs. Rather, it lost them.
Obamacare’s employer mandate is certainly creating a part-time economy. Why would a business owner hire one full time worker at 40 hours a week and pay for their health insurance when they could just hire two 20 hour a week workers and not pay the insurance?
There are major issues there. A misaligned incentive structure… We should be pushing for full time employment, not charging employers for full time employees.
We certainly shouldn’t be incentivizing part-time employment over full-time. We need people to be able to work whichever is best for them, ObamaCare doesn’t do that.
Standard of living will decrease overall.
“Congress and the administration can solve this problem. A good first step would be for the White House to admit that there is a problem.”
Don’t hold your breath for that to happen
Where are those economic advisers getting their information?
Selective sampling?
According to Niall Ferguson’s book The Great Degeneration,
It sounds like Obama is creating a welfare economy.
I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but it’s hard to see any good intentions in all of this. That is, assuming that our leaders have some foresight.
So, they are either dumb or evil? Good options.
Dumb and evil…
A lot of people say that this will help strengthen families because they have more time to spend with each other. Unfortunately I think the opposite is more likely to happen. People work because they need the money. The lucky ones will be able to find multiple part-time jobs, but with travel time and the demands of two different jobs they will almost certainly work more, not less. Not to mention, those jobs are significantly less likely to be personally fulfilling, which has a negative impact at home.
Probably true. There will also be less stability. Does anybody actually think about the consequences of these terrible public policies?