Obamacare: Told You So (Continued)

Those of us who support economic liberty warned that Obamacare would result in an increase of part time employment, vs full time employment.  Obamacare supporters shrieked, "racist!" 

Told you so.

Employers around the country, from fast-food franchises to colleges, have told NBC News that they will be cutting workers’ hours below 30 a week because they can’t afford to offer the health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. 

“To tell somebody that you’ve got to decrease their hours because of a law passed in Washington is very frustrating to me,” said Loren Goodridge, who owns 21 Subway franchises, including a restaurant in Kennebunk. “I know the impact I’m having on some of my employees.”  

Goodridge said he’s cutting the hours of 50 workers to no more than 29 a week so he won’t trigger the provision in the new health care law that requires employers to offer coverage to employees who work 30 hours or more per week. The provision takes effect in 16 months.

Hey, now that they mention it, this couldn't possibly have anything to do with the report that 97% of jobs created in 2013 are part time, could it?

“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,” said Keith Hall, a senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.

“That is really remarkable.” 

Hall is no ordinary academic. He ran the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs report, from 2008 to 2012. Over the past six months, he said, the Household Survey shows 963,000 more people reporting that they were employed, and 936,000 of them reported they’re in part-time jobs. 

“That is a really high number for a six-month period,” Hall said. “I’m not sure that has ever happened over six months before.”

“There is something going on if such a large share of the hiring is part time,” Hall said. ... 

Hall speculated that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, shorthanded as Obamacare, might be resulting in employers shifting workers to part-time status to avoid coming health care obligations. 

“There’s been so much talk about the effects of Obamacare on part-time work,” he said. “This is such an unusual thing to see.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/02/198432/most-2013-job-growth-is-in-part.html#.Uf-UcGRAS7g#storylink=cpy

 What?  You mean businesses respond to the economic incentives artificially created by government policies?  No way!  Of course, anyone with any understanding of economics - or common sense - would've seen this coming.  As Chris Conover wrote before the BLS report was published...

Denialism may be too strong a term.[1] But there seem to be a lot of people arguing that Obamacare has little or nothing to do with the rise in part-time employment. Some deny the rise is even happening, while others are content to deny that Obamacare is the culprit. Admittedly, it takes a little detective work, but if we systematically review the available empirical evidence in an even-handed fashion, the conclusion seems inescapable: Obamacare is accelerating a disturbing trend towards “a nation of part-timers.” This is not good news for America.

 So, is this consequence of Obamacare intended, or unintended?

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/02/198432/most-2013-job-growth-is-in-part.html#.Uf-UcGRAS7g#storylink=cpy