Obamacare Has Eliminated 350,000 Jobs, Cut Small-Biz Payrolls $22.6 Billion

New research published by the American Action Forum further corroborates our conclusion that Obamacare is harming U.S. employment. In a new scholarly paper, Ben Gitis and colleagues estimate that:

…Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulations are reducing small business (20 to 99 workers) pay by at least $22.6 billion annually. In addition, ACA regulations and rising premiums have reduced employment by more than 350,000 jobs nationwide, with five states losing more than 20,000 jobs.

We found that, on average, employees who work a full year for a business with 50-99 employees lose $935 annually due to ACA regulations, while employees of businesses with 20-49 employees, on average lose $827.50 annually.

More disturbing: The authors note that these harmful effects have taken place even though some of Obamacare’s expensive regulations, such as the employer mandate to offer government-defined health benefits, have been deferred at least until 2015.

The paper controls for other effects, such as workers’ education and marginal income-tax rates. However, what is especially valuable about this paper is that it also compares the effect on wages and employment of health-insurance premium hikes pre-Obamacare and post-Obamacare. It is generally understood that rising health-insurance premiums have suppressed wage income for many years. Separating the effect of Obamacare’s premium hikes from the historical trend gives important new information about how harmful the new law is.

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