Follow on ObamaCare™ "fix" bill will likely destroy millions of part time jobs

Continuing with our recent theme of unbridled optimism and joy.

...A press report earlier this week about a possible new wrinkle in ObamaCare demonstrates that the Democratic Party’s alleged interest in job creation is feigned at best and hostile at worst. On Monday, the Associated Press reported that a new iteration of the bill pushed by House Democrats “would require businesses to count part-time workers when calculating penalties for failing to provide health coverage for employees. Smaller businesses would be exempt. The Senate bill would count only full-time workers in applying the penalties, but under the change, described by a Democratic aide, two part-time workers would count as one full-time worker.”

Since the vast majority of companies do not make health coverage available to part-timers, this proposal is best seen as a direct payroll tax on companies who rely heavily on them. In the fantasy world of Washington, this appears to be an attempt to force companies to hire more people to work full-time or to extend coverage to part-timers on their own. If it ever arrives in the real world, what it will really do is raise prices, increase unemployment, impede economic growth, and put thousands of companies out of business. It will also virtually destroy the part-time employment market, shutting the door on students, homemakers, and others who can’t possibly commit to working full-time, and shouldn’t be required to...

When hiring part-timers is heavily penalized, Econ 101 tells us you will get less of them. It won't however be a 1-1 substitution. If some company is hiring say 4 part-timers at 30hr/week, they're NOT going to be replacing them with 4 full-timers. The more likely scenario is they hire 2 or 3 full timers to replace the 4 part-timers. In reality what will likely happen is the most compatible and productive part timers will be offered full time positions, and the remaining part-timers get laid off, resulting in a NET LOSS of already scarce jobs.

These fracking Democrat screwheads in congress see part-time employees as some sort of "dodge" by employers to paying avoid benefits, etc, etc - which may be a valid POV if it was happening during a period of full employment and booming good times. That "dodge" is what's keeping the unemployment rate from spiking into Great Depression ranges TODAY, but these short sighted imbecilic turd rolling^[*] crapweasle economic suicide bombers don't see it that way.

In the past, I was willing to allow the [slight]possibility these out of touch cretins were screwing up the economy out of garden variety ineptness/incompetence, but its getting harder and harder every day to maintain the possibility their intentions were ever good in the first place. Either this is the hand of genuine malice at work, or these people are SO far out of touch with street reality they seriously belong in mental institutions.

Its said recessions are a cyclical part of all economies and they naturally heal themselves, but depressions are only caused as a result of policy failure.

posted by Purp at 01:38 PM

| Access Comments