Obama-care and part time employment –Part 2
I’m seeing all types of comments on the 2013 rise in part time employment that blame it on Obama-care and that is just plain wrong.
Based on unpublished BLS data so far this year federal employes forced to work part time because of the sequester account for over 100% of the increase in part time employment.
So far this year private part time employment is actually some one million jobs lower than in the same 8 months of last year. Because the data is not seasonally adjusted ( NSA ) the correct comparison to make is the year over year change because frequently the month-to-month changes can be misleading.
Time after time I’m seeing people observe the jump in part time workers and just jumping to the conclusion that it is Obama-care. That is what they want to believe, so they do not bother to check if their is another explanation. Economist generally call this the omitted variable problem. But I suspect it is just more Republican disinformation. All it takes to get the data showing that the jump in part time employment is all federal employes is just one simple phone call or email to the BLS . But it appears that people do not want to be confused by the facts.
(See table after the read more)
Disinformation was the old Cold War practice of both the CIA and KGB of planting false information in the press for propaganda purposes or to fool each other.The KGB actually had an entire Disinformation Division.Now it just seems to be the conservatives-liberaterians trying to fool themselves.
Actually I think Fox News is the official disinformation department of the GOP with CNBC not far behind and they clearly want to fool the low information non conservatives/libertarians
Spencer
I agree with you right up to the point where you seem to think disinformation is solely the practice of conservatives/libertarians.
I am old enough to remember the “credibility gap” which was I think a product of the Johnson administration.
You would be right, I think, in supposing the Right is spending more money on disinformation today. But you would be fooling yourself to suppose the Left isnt pedaling as hard as it can to keep up.
Meanwhile, I think Libertarians just fool themselves.
Spencer & Coberly
Spencer–
You write: “Time after time I’m seeing people observe the jump in part time workers and just jumping to the conclusion that it is Obama-care.” That is what they want to believe, so they do not bother to check if their is another explanation . . All it takes to get the data showing that the jump in part time employment is all federal employees is just one simple phone call or email to the BLS.”
Yes, Exactly. .
As you say, “Sequester” accounts for a huge amount of the rise in part-time employment.
When compared to the Federal govt’t the Olive Garden and even WalMart (who have threatened to turn full-time employees into part-timers) account for a small percentage of hiring in the U.S. Moreover, very few of discount stores and fast-food restaurants have replaced full-timers with part-timers. It’s a bad business decision–huge costs in re-training and losing some of your best full-time employees who don’t want to be next.
Cobelry–
I , too, remember the Johnson administration–and the lies about Vietnam. But most of those lies came from JFK’s “best and brightest” advisers. LBJ believed them–until he didn’t. LBJ actually resigned because he realized that he had been wrong. I will always remember his face when he resigned . . .
Meanwhile, when it came to civil rights, LBJ spoke truth to power (Southern Democrats). When it came to domestic issues–not just civil rights, but the War on Poverty (which was very successful) and Medicare, LBJ was actually a v. good president.
That, of course, does not make up for Vietnam. So many people were killed and crippled. The fact that we replayed Vietnam by going into Iraq is mind-blowing. But of course George W. Bush felt no guilt–and did not resign. That is the difference between today’s Republicans and many flawed Democrats of LBJ’s era. (I also can remember when there were Republicans who told the truth: Lowell Weicker, and others in the late 1980s and early 1990s– until they were drummed out of the Republican party later in the 1990s
Spencer,
You should dispense with these posts about Obamacare related part time effects until Obamacare actually goes into effect.
Then we will know relatively for sure.
Not wanting to speak for Spencer, sammy, but good grief…tell that to other writers who about Aug 1 began a vociferous campaign on the issue claiming part time jobs were directly the result of the programs..
Spencer, a favor? Go to your local grocery store, buy some stuff and when you check out ask the person who rings you up how many hours they work. If they answer “29” ask them why.
I did:
http://brucekrasting.com/correlation/
When I realized that the furlough would drop me down to 32 hours a week, I was wondering how that would effect the “part time for economic reasons,” numbers.
Bkrastink– the average work week in retail is 30.2 hours and it has been between 30.0 and 31.0 every year since 1988 except for 2009 when it averaged 29.8.
Nothing new here.
they won’t let facts get in the way of a good disinformation campaign. as you know plenty will believe it because they want to. GOP is great at poisoning the well.
Maggie
thanks. I am disposed to agree with you about LBJ, but still… “credibility gap” came into the language with his admin. i don’t think that he invented the idea of government lying to the people. or the press being a lie machine.
i will probably have to say this a number of times… and it won’t do me any good… but I do not have anything against “liberals” as to what i think their real goals are. and i certainly do not have any love for the people who call themselves conservatives these days. but i think the left shoots itself in the foot by setting up this “we good, they bad” rhetoric. it hurts especially because their foot is usually in their mouth at the time.
Krasting
there was a time in my part of the country where if you went up to a logger or mill worker and asked him why he was out of work, he would have told you “spotted owl”. this in spite of the fact that he was laid off when the mills were automated… long before anyone ever heard of the spotted owl.
sadly, the workers are just as easily lied to as “the public.”
grocery checkers had good jobs (well paid) a few years ago (quite a few… i am getting old). then the unions were broken, and they ended up working for minimum wage. then the “automatic checkout” was invented, and they ended up working fewer hours. this was long before obamacare was heard of.
i am no fan of obamacare, but if the grocery chains can find a way to cut their “labor costs” they will. even if it means dropping service levels to the point where even I am willing to drive a few miles to find a better store.
dan
🙂
A couple of things from the comments. LBJ was generally despised by the time he decided not to seek another term in March of 1968. I would like to think that Eugene McCarthy had something to do with that, but it was not due to deception it was due to escalating a very unpopular war for dubious reasons. To this day, I do not think he or his advisers were just making stuff up. They were wrong but hindsight had a lot to do with that determination. By the way I am sure it will come as a shock to those who blame Vietnam on the Democrats, but as many American died on Nixon’s watch as on Kennedy’s and Johnson’s combined. But of course he won a closely contested 3 way election with a secret peace plan. That is not to say that liberals/progessives/democrats do not make stuff up to fit their narratives, but when it comes to economic policy, I think the right does a lot more fabricating than the left. As to employers who avoid paying for their employees health insurance by cutting hours, they are exhibit number one on why the ACA is a flawed piece of legislation and we should have gone with the single payer paid for by a tax on employers based on hours worked and a graduated surcharge on all individual income. There are always going to be some people who want to repeal the 13th amendment.
I agree with Terry that we should have had something like “Medicare for all”, but that’s water over the dam. I can still dream.
Re: disinformation, Coberly sez Libertarians are just fooling themselves. Unfortunately, from where I sit (the white, rural, religious South), they are fooling a fair number of other people, and spending tons to do it. It’s easy to pick someone’s pocket when you shout out a warning, “Look out, those people are out to take your goodies”, and take their focus off you for just long enough for you to clean them out.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/behind-the-curtain-exclusive-the-koch-brothers-secret-bank-96669.html
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned here, but was on the Diane Rehm show today, is the degree to which both parties have been captured by Big Money. Add to this, the continued self-segregation (mostly by the “haves”) between the “haves” and “have-nots”, and it’s not a pretty picture going forward.