Tuesday, October 22, 2013

OBAMACARE IS NOT THE CAUSE OF PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT IN AMERICA

Two weeks ago I outlined how our local congressman, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), has been appearing in the media to peddle the GOP's "Obamacare is creating a part-time jobs economy" lie. I provided a nice graph to show that Rep. McCarthy's was not telling the truth and, quite frankly, doesn't know what he's talking about.

Well, if you're a McCarthy supporting Republican, be prepared to lose your tinfoil hats (once more) because you're about to find out why the GOP's "Obamacare-Part-Time-Jobs" meme is a lie (again).


The Wall Street Journal just came out with this article today, "Don't Blame Health Care Law for Part-Time Employment."

Specifically the WSJ reports that "a closer look at the data provides little evidence for the notion that the health law is driving a shift to part-time work ...". What's worse for the GOP is how the data shows that "part-time work has actually been falling as a share of employment in recent years."


Here's another development you can see from the graph above. The number of part-time employees actually started going up in March of 2008, when George W. Bush was president, and was already well on its way to 20 percent of the work force (December 2009) when President Obama entered office.

Citing the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics the Los Angeles Times' Michael Hiltzick makes the same point. Specifically, Hiltzick writes that "the number of part-time jobs for economic reasons - slack demand, cutbacks in hours - has remained stable" since Obamacare became the law of the land.

So, yeah, not only was part-time employment in America already surging when President Obama took over, but those numbers have actually dipped, and have not moved in a statistically significant manner because of Obamacare.

- Mark 

No comments: