Smell Something, Say Something: Obamacare, O’Reilly, and full-time jobs

Jared Bernstein Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

And Jon sayeth unto the multitudes: “The best defense against bullsh__ is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something.”

This admonition came to mind, if not to nose, when I heard Fox’s Bill O’Reilly claim that the Affordable Care Act “has made it more difficult to create full-time jobs in America,” (around 2:30 in the video). The figure below, which indexes both full-time and part-time jobs to 100 in 2010, belies his claim. As ACA measures have been introduced, most notably the arrival of the subsidized exchanges and the Medicaid expansion in 2014, there’s been no noticeable change and certainly no Obamacare-induced shift to part-time work. Other data show that the number of involuntary part-time workers is down 18 percent—1.4 million fewer workers—since 2013.

Source: BLS, my analysis

No one’s claiming that the ACA is having miraculous effects on job growth, or even that it’s responsible for the full-time job growth you see above. Such outcomes are based on all the usual factors that drive labor demand, most notably the strength of the recovery.

My point is that while Obamacare is having its intended effect of making coverage more affordable and thereby lowering the uninsured rate, I’ve not seen any data that would lead an objective person to conclude it’s having a meaningful impact on the job market one way or the other.

My point is that while Obamacare is having its intended effect of making coverage more affordable and thereby lowering the uninsured rate, I’ve not seen any data that would lead an objective person to conclude it’s having a meaningful impact on the job market one way or the other.

In other words, those who still want to repeal Obamacare need a new rationale besides “it’s not working” or “it’s a job killer.” It is working and it’s not killing jobs. Those who claim otherwise are, in fact, fact-killers.

To be clear, I’m not going to waste a lot of time fact-checking Fox news, but I smelled something…I said something. And now, let the weekend begin!

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This has been reposted from Jared Bernstein's blog.

Jared Bernstein joined the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in May 2011 as a Senior Fellow.  From 2009 to 2011, Bernstein was the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, and a member of President Obama’s economic team. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Bernstein was a senior economist and the director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Between 1995 and 1996, he held the post of deputy chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. He is the author and co-author of numerous books, including “Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?” and nine editions of “The State of Working America.”

Posted In: Allied Approaches, From Jared Bernstein

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