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Will Obamacare make us a nation of part-time workers? Critics of the Affordable Care Act say yes. Supporters say no. The sluggish state of the economy and the complexity of the law make it difficult to say who's more right.
Will Obamacare make us a nation of part-time workers? Critics of the Affordable Care Act say yes. Supporters say no. The sluggish state of the economy and the complexity of the law make it difficult to say who's more right.
Access to medical benefits without having to work full time may persuade many people to choose part-time work, according to this Business Insider post by Vivian Gaing, citing a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. "Moving from full-time employment to part-time employment will trigger generous assistance with health premiums and out-of-pocket expenses that can offset much of the income lost due to reduced work hours," says the paper by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan. However, writes Gaing, "it's still too soon to tell how an increase in part-time workers might affect companies and the U.S. economy."
"Is Obamacare affecting full vs. part-time employment?" asks a post at the financial-news site Benzinga. Using a series of graphics to demonstrate its points, the post says, so far, that does not appear to be the case. The charts, largely from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, demonstrate a trend in which full-time employment continues to recover in the wake of the Great Recession. Part-time employment, while still very high since the recession, does not appear to be spiking in response to Obamacare.
Fact-checking sites have sought to determine if workers will be hurt in high-profile moves by companies such as Trader Joe's and Home Depot to send part-time workers to the health exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act. This one, at CNN.com, says the result is a mixed bag for the tens of thousands of workers affected. For example, many workers should be able to pick up better health coverage in the exchanges than they were getting from their employers and see most of the cost covered by tax credits. However, Trader Joe's workers whose spouses were also covered by the company plan could take a hit.
"Some businesses have already begun downsizing their staffs or cutting hours, making full-time employees part-timers, often in an effort to reduce the costs of insuring them," says this Huffingtonpost.com article on "valid concerns" over Obamacare. But the "overall damage" to employment and hiring could be overstated and only time will make it clear, the article says. Questions raised by the article also include worries over: What happens if too few people enroll for coverage under the law? What will happen in the states that aren't expanding Medicaid? How extensive are the technical flaws exposed by the buggy Healthcare.gov website? And how secure is all the personal information people are supposed to upload to enroll in the program?