The bad news keeps coming for the
anti-Obamacare right. Not only did a Congressional Budget Office report released yesterday detail how the Affordable Care Care would
empower workers to work fewer hours if they chose, but further examination of the report finds even more good news for America's working people.
Talking Points Memo's Dylan Scott is once again on the ball:
TPM spoke with... top economists who agreed with [this] analysis: People choosing to work less because of Obamacare, as CBO projects, would mean higher wages.
"That stands to reason. You get this sorting effect," Dean Baker, co-founder of the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research. "You have a lot of people working now who don't want to work. The only way they can get insurance is through their employer."
Those people retire or cut back their hours or otherwise lower their participation in the labor market -- a possibility that CBO raised itself -- reducing the labor supply. Over the long term, that drives up wages. Baker said that CBO said as much in its analysis: The report projected that total hours worked would drop by as much as 2 percent by 2024 because of Obamacare, but total compensation would fall only 1 percent.
Supply and demand: reality's greatest defender -- at least, in matters economic...[
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