MN Dem Shooting Suspect's Wife Has Been Detained. The Contents of Her Car...
Guess Which Network Became Totally Unglued Yesterday
Politico Report on Dems ‘Reclaiming’ the Stars & Stripes Is Such a Disaster...
Beheading the Snake at Both Ends
A Quick Bible Study Vol. 272: On Father’s Day, What the Bible Says...
A Silver Lining to the Orchestrated LA Riots
You Won't Believe LA Mayor Karen Bass' Father's Day Message
Flashback: Nancy Pelosi Slammed Dems for Not Securing Border in 2005
Iranians Have the 'Perfect Opportunity' to Overthrow Tyrannical Regime
Did You See What Was Featured Prominently As Jamie Raskin Spoke at 'No...
Utah 'No Kings' Protest Erupts in Shooting As Rioters Chant '86 47'
Flashback: This Governor Called in the National Guard to Deal With Illegal Aliens
MSNBC Shocked Army’s 250th Birthday Lacked 'Tense' or 'Dark, Malevolent Energy'
Trump Issues Stark Warning for Iran Amid Overnight Attack
Surprise: The Portland Riots Got Violent
Tipsheet

CBO Report: Obamacare Denting Labor Force

The Congressional Budget Office is out with its long-term budget and economic projections, updated from their April 2014 report. Not a lot has changed in the intermediate months, but a few aspects of the report stick out.
Advertisement

First, the deficit this year is slightly larger. Slower-than-expected economic growth has lowered the CBO's projections for revenue this year. Second, their long-term deficit projections over the 2015-2024 period has been lowered by $69 billion.

What's interesting is the CBO's analysis of the makeup of the labor force. Over the next ten years, the CBO doesn't project a return to the size of the labor force that we saw pre-2007 recession. In fact, the size of the labor force from 1984-2007 now looks to be a historical outlier:

What the CBo does write, though, is that one of the downward pressures on the labor force is Obamacare. As the report finds:

Over the next few years, CBO expects that the rate of labor force participation will decline about 1/2 percentage point further... the most important of those factors is the ongoing movement of the baby-boom generation into retirement, but federal tax and spending policies will also tend to lower the participation rate. In particular, certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act will tend to reduce labor force participation, with the largest effect stemming from the subsidies that reduce the cost of purchasing health insurance through the exchanges. Because the subsidies decline with rising income (and increase with falling income) and make some people financially better off, they reduce the incentive for some people to work as much as they would without the subsidies.

Advertisement

We won't rehash the debate here over whether or not it's a good thing for the welfare state to provide so much that people will choose not to work - but it's pretty undeniable at this point that ACA is disincentivizing work for Americans in an era where we're wondering if the decline in labor force participation is the new normal.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement