Dean Baker on part time employment

Lifted from comments:

Dean Baker adds a comment on Spencer England’s post on Part time employment statistics being (Spencer writes…”John R. Graham is a beautiful example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. The researchers at the right wing think tanks scour the economic releases for anything that they can spin to sell their point of view. But for the most part they do not really understand what they are writing”), and points to a piece of his own:

You really do have to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary part-time. In fact, voluntary part-time has risen in the last year, most likely because young parents don’t have to work full-time to get health care insurance [The Affordable Care Act: A Family-Friendly Policy ] Back where I took my economics, this was considered a good thing — people have the opportunity to spend time with their kids.

Involuntary part-time employment has been falling throughout the recovery. Anyhow, it is crucial to distinguish between the two. There is no economic reason to be upset about people voluntarily opting to work part-time.