CBO further clarifies ObamaCare impact on jobs

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday in its most direct way yet clarified its recent report on the impact ObamaCare will have on jobs.

CBO makes clear that it never said 2.5 million people will lose their jobs, in the sense of being laid off, due to the law by 2024, but rather than workers would choose to leave the labor force. 

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf makes clear that CBO is instead estimating that there will be fewer hours worked by then, equivalent to 2.5 million full-time jobs, and those lost hours will be due to workers choosing not to work.

That lost of worked hours will in many cases be due to workers being better off by ObamaCare health insurance subsidies, but there will be a tradeoff due to the effect on economic growth, taxes and the deficit. 

“Q: Will 2.5 Million People Lose Their Jobs in 2024 Because of the ACA? A: No, we would not describe our estimates in that way,” CBO said in a new blog post.

“Ultimately, we project that the number of jobs in the economy will be smaller than it would be in the absence of the ACA because some people will choose not to work at all,” CBO added.

The CBO report garnered attention because it dovetailed with Republican attacks on ObamaCare as being economicly damaging. Some GOP attacks stemming from the report said people would “lose” their jobs.