CBO SAYS: REALLY, GOP, WE DIDN’T SAY OBAMACARE WOULD KILL 2.5M JOBS

In a reflection of just how committed Republicans are to lying about that Congressional Budget Office report on how many people might end up leaving their jobs as a result of the Affordable Care Act, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf felt compelled to put out another memo, this one reiterating what was clearly stated in the actual report: As many as 2.5 mln people may choose to leave full-time work when they have the option of getting affordable health insurance somewhere, Joan McCarter noted at DailyKos.com.

One of the “Frequently Asked Questions” in the memo is “Will 2.5 Million People Lose Their Jobs in 2024 Because of the ACA?”

Elmendorf answers, “No, we would not describe our estimates in that way.

“We wrote in the report: ‘CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5% to 2.0% during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor.” The reason for the reduction in the supply of labor is that the provisions of the ACA reduce the incentive to work for certain subsets of the population. ...

“Because the longer-term reduction in work is expected to come almost entirely from a decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply in response to the changes in their incentives, we do not think it is accurate to say that the reduction stems from people ‘losing’ their jobs.”

Dean Baker wrote at HuffingtonPost.com (2/12) that the withdrawal of people from the labor market would likely have a positive effect on those who want to work. “At a time where we still have millions of people unemployed or underemployed, the people who retire or cut back hours to be with kids will be opening up jobs for younger workers unable to find work or full-time jobs. Since we have a Congress that is unwilling to take the steps to increase demand in the labor market, the best way we may have of increasing job openings is by reducing supply.

“The reduction in labor supply is also likely to have a positive impact on wages. In fact, the CBO numbers implied that wages would on average increase as a result of the ACA. While it projected hours worked would fall by between 1.5-2 percent, it expects that compensation will only fall by 1%. This implies an increase of 0.5-1 percent in average hourly compensation.”