Enter
There’s a lot more fine print
about what those numbers really mean, and whether the
jobs were ‘lost.’ In fact, CBO
said it’s in large part about the
number of hours people choose
to work, not actual job losses.
But what matters politically is
how the numbers look in attack
ads. And in this election year,
‘2 million lost jobs’ is a Republican ad-maker’s dream.
Ha, well, in the first place, this
isn’t a situation where the CBO hid
its findings in “fine print.” They’re
right there, beginning on page 117,
in print the same size as all the
rest of it. And there’s no need to
put the word “lost” in those questioning scare quotes, as if one
can’t be sure what’s happening, or
there’s some disputed contention.
There isn’t one. Per the CBO: “CBO
estimates that the ACA will reduce
the total number of hours worked,
on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0
percent during the period from
2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor — given the new
taxes and other incentives they
will face and the financial benefits
some will receive.”
But what about those Republi-
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
can attack ads? In truth, there are
downsides to what the CBO had to
say about the law and its economic effects — but any ad that contends that 2 million jobs had been
killed by Obamacare, according to
the CBO, is just telling a lie.
So what is the CBO projecting,
good and bad? Well, as workers,
empowered by these new options,
make the choice to reduce hours
or quit working, it will have effects on the overall economy. Not
all of the effects will be positive. As
Sam Stein and Jeff Young reported
Tuesday, while the CBO projects
the ACA could have virtuous effects on labor productivity (by dint
of more workers having the freedom to “take jobs that better match
their skills”), it could also lead to
employers making less of an investment in their workforce, because
employee turnover makes training
investments less appealing.
And over at Business Insider,
Josh Barro expands on the upsides
and downsides of the CBO report
as well. He notes, for example,
that workers who choose to reduce hours in order to maintain
an income low enough to qualify
for ACA subsidies are clearly following a perverse incentive. At the
same time, Barro lauds the way the
HUFFINGTON
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