The Affordable Care Act and the Growth of Involuntary Part-Time Employment

Abstract

This study tests whether the employer mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased involuntary part-time (IPT) employment. Using data from the Current Population Survey between 1994 and 2015, the authors find that IPT employment in 2015 exceeded predictions based on economic conditions and the structure of the labor market. Of greater importance, using difference-in-difference methods, they find that the increase in the probability of IPT employment since passage of the ACA was greater in occupations with a larger share of workers affected by the mandate. The authors’ estimates suggest that approximately 700,000 additional workers without a college degree are in IPT employment as a result of the ACA employer mandate.

Involuntary Part-Time Employment: A Slow and Uneven Economic Recovery

“…8 Recent research suggests that the increase has been greatest in industries and occupations most affected by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), namely, in sectors with many previously uninsured workers. 9 Other studies paint a more complicated picture by exploring movement into involuntary part-time positions from above and below-from full time down to involuntary part time, and from unemployment up to involuntary part time. During the recession, a significant share of involuntary part-time employment was attributable to the loss of work hours (that is, workers moving from a full-time schedule to a part-time schedule).…”

The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage and Labor Market Outcomes

“…In addition to these studies, several descriptive analyses have used a variety of novel data sources to document the ACA's impact on coverage(Long et al 2014; Smith and Medalia 2014;Carman et al 2015;Black and Cohen 2015;Courtemanche et al 2016) and some authors have modeled the impact of the ACA on labor supply(Heim, Hunter, Lurie, and Ramnath 2014;Mulligan 2014Mulligan , 2015aMulligan , 2015bFang and Shephard 2015). Also, note that some studies have found evidence of changes in labor demand in occupations and industries most affected by the employer shared responsibility requirement, resulting in an increase in involuntary part-time work(Even and Macpherson 2016;Dillender et al 2016).…”

Who pays for the medical costs of obesity? New evidence from the employer mandate

“…A forward‐looking approach is appropriate because employment is an ongoing relationship and employers had several years to prepare. Indeed, this paper is not the first to examine the anticipatory effects of the mandate: Garrett and Kaestner (); Mathur, Slavov, and Strain (), and Even and MacPherson () consider how its announcement affected part‐time employment. They focus on part‐time employment because the mandate applied only to workers who work more than 30 hours per week.…”