ObamaCare's Parent Trap Slays The New Part-Time Myth

BY JED GRAHAM

08:02 AM ET

 

 View Enlarged Image

The ranks of workers choosing part-time employment have been growing, and there's reason to think that ObamaCare may be part of the reason. But some on the left have gone overboard with a new ObamaCare part-time myth.

The roughly 1 million rise in those working part-time by choice (for non-economic reasons) between 2013 and 2015 is "overwhelmingly a story of young parents working part-time" thanks to ObamaCare, Dean Baker of the liberal Center For Economic and Policy Research asserted in a piece for Mother Jones.

"Back in the old days we might have thought this was an outcome that family-values conservatives would have welcomed," he added.

The contention is surprising and the criticism seems misplaced because one of the many serious complaints about ObamaCare is that it discriminates against families. Due to what might be called ObamaCare's parent trap, but is usually labeled the family penalty or family glitch, when one spouse is offered health insurance through the workplace, the other spouse and children are ineligible for subsidies to buy coverage through the ObamaCare exchanges.

If ObamaCare rules have encouraged any parents in such families to work part-time, it is only so that the offer of employer coverage will be rescinded and exchange subsidies will become available. That doesn't exactly qualify as promoting family values.

Yet Baker and colleagues at the Center for Economic and Policy Research recently crunched the data and found an 8.2% jump last year in the number of parents age 16 to 35 opting for part-time work. That was a big step down from the 11.3% jump for the first half of the year that the authors had reported earlier. Still, they concluded that the evidence supported their view that the Affordable Care Act "is very much a family-friendly policy."

But if family-friendly ObamaCare sparked a surge in parents with young children working part-time by choice in the first half of 2014, what family-unfriendly policy led to double-digit declines in voluntary part-time among the same group early in 2013?

For example, the Current Population Survey data show that the number of parents age 16 to 35 opting for part-time work jumped 22.6% in January 2014 vs. January 2013. But that followed a 17.9% dive in January 2013. Similarly, the 15.1% jump in voluntary part-time among young parents in March 2014 followed an 11% drop in March 2013.

A longer view that eliminates such volatility shows that the ranks of non-parents age 16 to 35 working part-time by choice is up 9.2% since the start of 2012, while the number of parents opting to work part-time is up 2.5%.

When one adjusts for changes in population (the number of parents in this age group is down, while the number of non-parents is up), the rise in voluntary part-time since the start of 2012 is virtually the same among parents (4.9%) and non-parents (4.5%) age 25 to 34.

If ObamaCare is encouraging more voluntary part-time among parents, it appears to be the case only among those under age 25. This group is less likely to have an offer of employer coverage and more likely to be in school. Yet, the more one slices and dices the CPS data, the more likely it is that it will send false signals. CEPR's focus (young parents opting for part-time work) represents less than 1% of the overall survey group, so the data carry a high margin of error.

Upon closer inspection, this new ObamaCare part-time myth looks quite a bit like the old part-time myth. In the first half of 2013, conservatives pointed to volatile Bureau of Labor Statistics household data (which are derived from the Current Population Survey) that appeared to show virtually all jobs being created were part-time.

ObamaCare has led some employers to hold workers below the law's 30-hour-per-week full-time threshold at which they may be fined for failing to offer coverage. Yet the impact is focused on low-wage workers and the effect isn't large enough to make an imprint on economy-wide data.

Likewise, there are surely some parents (either single parents or spouses where neither parent works full-time for a company subject to the employer mandate) who have chosen to work less to take advantage of ObamaCare subsidies that fall as income rises. Yet, there's no evidence of a broad or large increase due to ObamaCare.

Voluntary part-time is also likely on the rise even among parents when one spouse does have an offer of employer coverage, though not because of ObamaCare. Rather, it is the logical effect of a cyclical recovery, with employment as a share of the population rising among this age group and income growth affording some couples the latitude to allow one spouse to work part-time.

Urban Institute scholars Linda Blumberg and John Holahan recently proposed a fix for ObamaCare's family glitch at a cost of $117 billion over 10 years, noting that "this barrier to assistance creates significant financial problems for some modest income families."

Volatile data shouldn't be used to obscure the reality that far too many families with young children are getting a relatively bad deal from ObamaCare.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/091015-770343-obamacare-is-not-a-boon-to-young-parents-working-part-time.htm#ixzz3lLGzYo34
Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook