Flashback to what I said on on Saturday, December 01, 2012 in regards to Obamacare forcing businesses to cut workers' hours:
Here is what is going to happen, in a nutshell.
More people are going to be working, unemployment may even start going down, but those workers will not have enough hours at their jobs to support themselves and/or their families, which means food stamp usage which is already at historic highs, will surge even higher, poverty levels will also surge and median income which has just hit 43 year lows, is going to plunge even more.
Last but not least, families will have less money to live on, therefore less money to pump into the economy, and GDP growth which is already at sustained lows, will stay low and possibly slow down even more.
Welcome to Obama's Economy.
Now let's take a look at what is happening today:
As reported earlier unemployment dropped to 7.5 percent according to the latest BLS report, and the optimistic news was that the drop finally came from a gain in employment, rather than a drop in the labor force, although labor force participation is still down at 1979 levels.
AEIdeas notices a very concerning trend in that "gain" in employment, being the increase of "involuntary part-time workers."
While the American economy added 293,000 jobs last month, according to the separate household survey, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons — “involuntary part-time workers” as the Labor Department calls them – increased by almost as much, by 278,000 to 7.9 million. These folks were working part time because a) their hours had been cut back or b) they were unable to find a full-time job. At the same time, the U-6 unemployment rate — a broader measure of joblessness that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig – rose from 13.8% to 13.9%.
What’s more, there wasa 0.2 hour decline in the length of the average workweek. This led to 0.4 percentage point drop in the index of average weekly hours, “equaling the largest declines since the recovery began,” notes economist Dean Baker of Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Let’s see, more part timers and fewer hours worked. Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin says what we’re all thinking: “This is not good news as it reflects the reliance on part-time work. … the decline in hours and rise of part-time work is troubling in light of anecdotal reports of the impact of the Affordable Care Act.”
AEIdeas headlined the article quoted above with "Part-time Nation: Was the April jobs report really the Obamacare jobs report?"
Why yes, it is and many of us, like my own flashback from December 2012 shows , knew it would happen.
Related:
Estimated 2.3 Million Workers At Risk To Lose Hours Due To Obamacare