Tuesday, February 04, 2014

You gotta break a couple eggs to make an omelette. Two million eggs.

Like your dash-mounted GPS system, the Congressional Budget Office has recalculated.  Hot Air: "CBO: Actually, Obamacare is kinda’ like a tax, and it’s going to result in 2 million fewer workers by 2017."
The Affordable Care Act is projected to reduce the number of full-time workers by roughly 2.3 million people through 2021 and insure 2 million fewer people this year than previously estimated, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.
The CBO had previously estimated the labor force impact would be around 800,000 people in that time frame.
Unexpectedly!  Except for those of us on the evil side of the aisle who predicted this exact thing would happen, those of us who said that incentives matter:
In the short term, however, businesses will simply hire fewer workers. And why? Because the ACA has increased labor costs. This fact isn’t just a theoretical exercise, it’s a current reality.
It's real enough for fry cook Darnell Summers who has seen his hours cut back due to Obamacare.  Not to worry, Mr. Summers: President Obama has a pen and a phone and - most importantly - someone to blame.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, this doesn't carry the weight of Hot Air analysis, because it's only from the CBO report:

"The ACA's subsidies for health insurance will both stimulate demand for health care services and allow low-income households to redirect some of the funds that they would have spent on that care toward the purchase of other goods and services—thereby increasing overall demand. That increase in overall demand while the economy remains somewhat weak will induce some employers to hire more workers or to increase the hours of current employees during that period."

and

"The estimated reduction [in CBO's projections of hours worked] stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply rather than a net drop in businesses demand for labor."

That Obama, always with the automatic blaming.

Eric said...

Yep, big win for low-income households. For everybody else: spreadin' the wealth around.

"A new study finds that Obamacare's redistribution will be stunningly lopsided. Scholars at the liberal Brookings Institution have discovered that Obamacare will increase the income of Americans in the lowest 20 percent of the income scale, and especially in the lowest ten percent. But all other income groups -- even people who make very modest incomes in the $25,000 to $30,000 range, as well as all income brackets above that -- will experience a decline in income because of Obamacare."

Remember when Obama said people would stop calling it "Obamacare" when it started being awesome? Good times.

Also: because of Fox News.

Anonymous said...

Poor rough, tough Fox News, the bad man said bad words to them. Bad times.

More CBO estimates:

*The number of insured Americans will "markedly increase";
*The risk-adjustment provisions opposed by Republicans will turn an $8 billion profit for the Treasury (LA Times: "The CBO report cuts the legs out from the GOP's attack");
*The ACA is cheaper than originally projected;
*Today: CBO - “There is no compelling evidence that part-time employment has increased as a result of the ACA";
*Tomorrow: CBO - "The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses' demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment or underemployment."

Dean Baker, one of the earliest economists to warn of a housing bubble (2002), who predicted the start of the recession almost perfectly, and who argued against the bank bailouts explains why the workforce realignment "is, in fact, a beneficial effect of the law." Among those it helps:

"Older workers with serious health conditions who are working now because this is the only way to get health insurance. And (one for the family values crowd) many young mothers who return to work earlier than they would like because they need health insurance. This is a huge plus."

Eric said...

Thank you Michael Hiltzik. To quote my cousin Vinny: "Everything that guy said is bullshit."

Incentivizing people to leave the work force seems to be the Obama Administration's only lever to decrease the unemployment rate.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/02/cbo-obamacare-will-reduce-total-number-of-american-work-hours-by-1-5-2-0/

Anonymous said...

Coincidentally, Fact Checker and FactCheck.org both say the "2 million jobs" attack is new bullshit based on old, debunked GOP bullshit.

You cited both sources approvingly two weeks ago. You must have missed 'em this time.

Eric said...

Was that when I was noting approvingly their choice for "Lie of the Year"?

What was that again?

Anonymous said...

Incentivizing people to leave the work force seems to be the Obama Administration's only lever to decrease the unemployment rate.

Bingo. A+ for you. While everyone else has been distracted by the backdoor socialism and death panels and government takeovers, you’ve successfully figured out the terrible truth: that Obamacare's true goal has always been to insidiously juice the unemployment numbers.

As all good political analysts know, no president since World War Two has ever been reelected with an unemployment rate above 7.2%. And, we were assured, "Obama is no FDR." That was the mantra while making fun of Nate Silver.

Or maybe Obama is an FDR. And the reason he needs to Obamacare the unemployment stats is because he's running for a third term.

Eric said...

Yep, Happy Days are Here Again!

WASHINGTON — In a first, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps - a switch from a few years ago, when children and the elderly were the main recipients.
Some of the change is due to demographics, such as the trend toward having fewer children. But a slow economic recovery with high unemployment, stagnant wages and an increasing gulf between low-wage and high-skill jobs also plays a big role. It suggests that government spending on the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program — twice what it cost five years ago — may not subside significantly anytime soon.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/food-stamps-102621.html#ixzz2sZ0mfPzw