Cross-posted from Congress Matters.
The basis for this meme?
The testimony of Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf that the new entitlement of the Affordable Health Care act will reduce employment by about 800,000 workers because ... the law will reduce "the propensity to work," because government subsidies such as people receiving "free" health care won't have as much incentive to search for a job or work full time.
As bleated by the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/...
Not so, says Jonathan Chait in the New Republic:
http://www.tnr.com/...
CBO did not find that the ACA would kill jobs. It found that "the legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount—roughly half a percent—primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply." It won't be the case that there will be fewer jobs available. It's simply that fewer people will choose to work. ...
In other words, people who are only working because they desperately need employer-sponsored health insurance will no longer do so. They're not going on the public dole -- they're just people who have the means not to work full-time and will be free to make employment decisions that aren't premised upon an individual health insurance market that shuts them out. Some workers will choose to retire early because they now have the ability to buy their own health insurance. This is what Republicans call "destroying jobs."
Older workers moving out of the job market would increase work opportunity for younger workers desperately seeking jobs because they need to pay off student loans as well as support their young, hopeful families.
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post expressly calls the Republicans out for jacking around on this meme:
This is the kind of political gamesmanship that gives politics a bad name. The House GOP has taken a a sliver of a phrase and twisted it beyond all meaning. Elmendorf never said 800,000 jobs would be destroyed, and he certainly did not mean to suggest that. Given that Republicans have routinely faulted the CBO for its estimates and assumptions on the health care bill, they should be ashamed of immediately embracing this particular aspect of the CBO's analysis
.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
And, I rather see the Affordable Health Care Act indirectly generating more American jobs. Older American workers, secure and bored, may very well choose to engage in small order entrepreneurship, which may have the potential for growth and the hiring of employees to support the growing business.
Kudos to Ddeele for his comment:
What they mean to say is that it will create 800,000 job openings.