RNC, July 15: 8.2 Million: Americans Unable To Find Full-Time Work Partly Due To ObamaCare.
Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–August 5, 2013. The RNC wasn’t the first to suggest the health care law was blocking part-timers from getting full-time jobs. Early in July, House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor made similar claims:
Boehner Press Conference, July 9: Because of ObamaCare, millions of full-time workers can only find part-time work.
Cantor Press Conference, July 23: The problem is, the only thing that [Obama] has done is acted to continue to implement ObamaCare, which as we all know now is creating a part-time worker economy, not a full-time economy that can grow.
The RNC’s 8.2 million figure is the total number of Americans working “part-time for economic reasons,” either because they couldn’t find full-time work or because their hours had been reduced, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ June figures. Certainly, everyone who can’t find a full-time job, in a still recovering economy, isn’t in that predicament “partly due to ObamaCare.”
The 8.2 million is actually less than the 9.1 million part-timers seeking full-time work in March 2010, the month the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. BLS figures show that this category of workers skyrocketed in 2008, from 4.8 million in January of that year to 8 million in December. (The nation was officially in a recession from December 2007 to June 2009.)
In recent years, the number working part-time for economic reasons has fluctuated, but in general, has been on a slow trajectory downward. Here’s a chart of BLS data, showing the pre- and post-health care law figures.
Source: hhs.gov
