More Part-Time Jobs in 2014?

The red line in the chart below is the monthly index of the employment-to-population ratio (which is currently at a 30-year low). In the chart, the employment-to-population ratio is normalized to a value of 100 in December 2007 when the Great Recession first began (in the gray area).

By this measure (as it was normalized to a value of 100) there has been no recovery in the labor market as indicated by an index value of 93. Employment per capita still remains 7 percent below what it was before the recession began --- meaning, the real number of people out of work has remained very high, despite the falling unemployment rate. This is because millions of so-called "discouraged workers" are no longer being counted as part of the labor force after a given time (which the Bureau of Labor Statistics determines from a monthly household survey).

In the chart, each employed person (the red line) counts the same, regardless of how many hours somebody works. The average weekly hours (the blue line) of private-sector employees finally returned to a near-prerecession level by 2012, and has dipped and peaked throughout 2013.

Starting a year from now in January 2015, the Affordable Care Act will begin to penalize some employers who do not offer affordable health insurance to their employees.

The annual employer mandate fee (officially called an Employer Shared Responsibility Payment) is a per employee fee for employers with over 50 full-time equivalent employees who don't offer health coverage to full-time employees.

• The employer mandate is based on full-time equivalent employees, not just full-time employees.
• The annual fee is $2,000 per employee if insurance isn't offered (the first 30 full-time employees are exempt).
• Unlike employer contributions to employee premiums [or stock-option grants to CEOs¹], the Employer Shared Responsibility Payment is not tax deductible.

But part-time employees (working less than 30 hours or four days a week) are exempt for the purposes of determining the penalty.

Because of this, some people (economists, politicians, etc.) believe that the ratio of part-time jobs to full-time jobs will increase in 2014 if the healthcare mandate goes ahead as planned, and so they expect average weekly hours (the blue line) to dip further down with an increase of part-time workers in the labor force.

Some libertarian economists look at this scenario and seem to imply that this is an "incentive" for people to only work part-time, because if they aren't earning enough, they'll be better compensated by the lack of a penalty and by obtaining free (or government subsidized) healthcare.

But in the current job market (or any job market, for the matter), most people don't dictate to their employers what hours they want to work --- the boss decides, not the workers.

Although, in some cases, job applicants might indicate a particular shift they might prefer to work on their job applications (e.g. days, nights or graveyard); but in this over-saturated job market, one can usually assume an unemployed person will check "any" on their job applications --- indicating they are available and willing to work any and all hours that the employer requires.

Only then (if they are lucky), and if they are actually offered a job, will a job applicant have the option of either accepting or rejecting a job offer for whatever hours and schedule they are being offered by a potential employer.

And usually a job seeker's only "incentive" when looking for work, isn't to obtain free (or government subsidized) healthcare, it's to get an income to pay for food and rent. (Some of these libertarian economists can be real jerks² by implying that unemployed "slackers" are only looking for more free government goodies.)

It will be the employers (not the job seekers), who after crunching the numbers, will decide what's the most profitable to them and what hours their employees will work. For some, having group healthcare insurance plans covering 50 full-time employees may be more advantageous for them, rather than paying a penalty for 100 part-time employees --- or hiring temp workers with less experience or with no training at all.

As usual, unemployed workers have very little say on the matter of hours worked, rate of pay or fringe benefits offered (especially these days, even if they belong to a labor union). The employers only have to abide by labor laws (which many don't), and the job creators have been lobbying to weaken them for decades.

So if Obamacare does create more part-time jobs in 2014, it's not because unemployed workers have been out shopping around for the best deal they can find; as it's always been, it will be the employers who will be looking for the best deal.

Speaking of which, December 31, 2013 marked the 52nd record-high for stocks on the Dow Jones in 2013 --- so Happy New Year to the Top One Percent and their Trust Fund babies from the financially desperate (but newly insured) unemployed workers and their families.

¹ A CEO's stock-option grants are tax deductible from corporate taxes, and are taxed at a lower rate than marginal tax rates for regular wages, and they are not subjected to any Social Security taxes at all --- and including all their other preferential tax exemptions and deductions --- it's a very sweet deal for the Top One Percent (of whom some, besides having their own hospitals, also have their very own emergency rooms inside their homes).

² Casey B. Mulligan's bio is at the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank that was founded as the Charles Koch Foundation. Casey B. Mulligan has been trying to convince the undecided that ObamaCare has destroyed the American work ethic. But he's really advocating for the Top One Percent, who now have to pay a 3.8% surtax on their investment income (capital gains) earned from their stock-option grants, gold and wine collections --- to fund the expansion of Medicaid for the poor. In my opinion, Casey B. Mulligan is nothing more than a corporate pimp for the rich.