New numbers from the Congressional Budget Office claim that Obamacare will reduce the labor force by about 2 million full-time workers over the next decade. Oregon, Hawaii, and Nevada have now scrapped state exchanges joining 34 states already using the federal site.
The report estimates the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, will make the labor supply shrink by 0.86 percent in 2025. This amounts to a shrinkage equivalent to approximately 2 million full-time workers.
The nonpartisan CBO estimates that the decline will come primarily due to workers responding to changes made by the law to federal programs and tax policy. The agency points to the introduction of health care subsidies tied to income as a key factor — that in turn raises effective tax rates as someone’s earnings rise, therefore reducing the amount of work Americans choose to do.
“Subsidies decline as income increases, reducing the return on earning additional income,” the report says. “That decline is effectively an increase in recipients’ effective marginal tax rate, so it generally reduces their work incentives through the substitution effect.”
Since the subsidies also reduce the burdens attached to unemployment, the CBO predicts that the law will create additional “work disincentives” for those who are unemployed for part of the year. It concludes that the exchange subsidies will contribute to half of the overall reduction of the labor supply.
If you like the efficiency of our Postal System, the Department of Education, the Internal Revenue Service, and – most importantly – the Veterans Administration, you are going to LOVE government-run healthcare. You see now, boys and girls, what you create when you elevate a community organizer to the most powerful position in the world. Mix in a healthy dose of narcissism, and you get a progressive who believes he can say anything, and it will be believed.
That is Obama, and he is squarely on those of you who continue to support him.
H/T: Fox News
What are your thoughts about this debacle? Will anyone step up and fix this problem? What candidate do you think will do what he/she says and repeal this law that is hurting America? Share your comments below.
