Morning Must-Read: Helene Jorgensen and Dean Baker: The Affordable Care Act: A Family Friendly Policy

Helene Jorgenson and Dean Baker think that ongoing labor-force and work-hour reductions are good things–people being freed from job lock by the availability of health insurance via ObamaCare:

Helene Jorgensen and Dean Baker: The Affordable Care Act: A Family Friendly Policy: “Table 3 gives a breakdown of the distribution of part-time employment by age, gender, and whether or not the household has children. As can be seen, women accounted for the entire rise in voluntary part-time employment, with an increase of 3.2 percent in 2014 compared with 2013. By contrast, voluntary part-time employment for men actually fell slightly.
Furthermore, it is younger workers, ages 16-35, who account for the bulk of the increase. The number of people in this age group voluntarily working part-time rose by 5.0 percent. By comparison it dropped by 5.2 percent for workers between the ages of 45-55. There were small rises of less than 1.0 percent for the other two age groups. The biggest increase in voluntary part-time is for young people with children. The percentage of employed young people with children working part-time increased 11.3 percent from 2013 to 2014. For young people with three or more children the percentage working part-time increased by 15.4 percent.”