CBO has good Obamacare news: media doesnt care

[Upgrade Dave]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cbo-offers-welcome-news-obamacare-backers


If Republican press releases and reports from conservative and major media outlets are any indication, the Congressional Budget Office’s findings on the Affordable Care Act are simply brutal. National Review, which probably published its report before actually looking at the CBO’s findings, ran this headline: “The CBO Just Nuked Obamacare.”



As we discussed earlier, the coverage has been profoundly misleading. Despite what Americans are being told, the CBO did not find that the health care reform law would cost the nation over 2 million jobs. What it actually said is that the law will empower more than 2 million Americans to leave the workforce if they want to, no longer feeling forced to stay at a job in order to have benefits for them and their family.



Why “Obamacare” critics consider this a bad thing remains unclear.



But Michael Hiltzik, to his credit, took the reporting one step further.


The Congressional Budget Office is out with its latest report on the Affordable Care Act, and here are a few bottom lines:



— The ACA is cheaper than it expected.



— It will “markedly increase” the number of Americans with health insurance.



— The risk-adjustment provisions, which Congressional Republicans want to overturn as a “bailout” of the insurance industry, will actually turn a profit to the U.S. Treasury.



Given all this, why are the first news headlines on the CBO report depicting it as calling Obamacare a job killer?

Because a whole lot of congressional offices issued press statements before getting their facts straight? Because a few too many reporters don’t understand CBO reports as well as they should?





This is one of those strange days in which most of the political world seems to have gotten an important story backwards. The Affordable Care Act’s critics have spent the day eagerly touting a CBO report that offers a whole lot of good news for the Affordable Care Act’s supporters – and much of the media has played along in a depressing display.



Indeed, the CBO’s findings – which, again, are readily available online for all to see – actually add fresh evidence that discredits talking points pushed by the law’s detractors.



For Obamacare critics, the law has increased part-time employment over full-time employment. The CBO found “there is no compelling evidence” to support the argument.



For Obamacare critics, the law will worsen the nation’s finances. The CBO found that the Affordable Care Act will actually reduce the deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next 20 years.



For Obamacare critics, the law will force consumers to pay more for health care. The CBO found that the Affordable Care Act’s premiums are even better than originally projected.



For Obamacare critics, the law will cause the ranks of the uninsured to swell. The CBO found that the Affordable Care Act will bring coverage to 13 million Americans this year and 25 million Americans over the next two decades.



Conservatives who’ve spent the day urging Americans to look at the CBO report have inadvertently encouraged the public to review a document that supports the White House’s arguments.

 

[Greed]

CBO Director: Obamacare 'Creates Disincentive For People To Work'

CBO Director: Obamacare 'Creates Disincentive For People To Work'

REP. PAUL RYAN: Just to understand this, it is not that employers are laying people off, but that people aren't working in the work force, aren't supply labor to the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs in 2024, and as a result work force participation rate, less labor supply lowers economic growth.

DOUG ELMENDORF, CBO: That is right, Mr. Chairman.

RYAN: So, who are these workers? Who are the people typically in this category? What kind of worker from an income scale side are being affected by this?

ELMENDORF: The effect is principally on the labor supply of lower wage workers. The reason is what the Affordable Care Act does is provide subsidies focused on lower and more middle income people to buy health insurance, and in order to encourage sufficient number of people to buy an insurance like health insurance the subsidies are fairly large in dollar terms. Those subsidies are then withdrawn over time for people as their income rises.

By providing heavily subsidized health-insurance to people with very low income and withdrawing those subsidies as income rises, creates a disincentive for people to work, relative to what would have been the case in the absence of that act. The subsidies are, of course, make those lower income people better off. This is an implicit tax, not the sort of tax we normally think about, where if the government raises taxes we are worse off and face a disincentive to work more, but providing a subsidy people are better off, but they have less incentive to work.

http://www.realclear.com/politics/2...s_a_disincentive_for_people_to_work_5588.html

 

[thoughtone]

Re: CBO Director: Obamacare 'Creates Disincentive For People To Work'

CBO Director: Obamacare 'Creates Disincentive For People To Work'

REP. PAUL RYAN: Just to understand this, it is not that employers are laying people off, but that people aren't working in the work force, aren't supply labor to the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs in 2024, and as a result work force participation rate, less labor supply lowers economic growth.

DOUG ELMENDORF, CBO: That is right, Mr. Chairman.

RYAN: So, who are these workers? Who are the people typically in this category? What kind of worker from an income scale side are being affected by this?

ELMENDORF: The effect is principally on the labor supply of lower wage workers. The reason is what the Affordable Care Act does is provide subsidies focused on lower and more middle income people to buy health insurance, and in order to encourage sufficient number of people to buy an insurance like health insurance the subsidies are fairly large in dollar terms. Those subsidies are then withdrawn over time for people as their income rises.

By providing heavily subsidized health-insurance to people with very low income and withdrawing those subsidies as income rises, creates a disincentive for people to work, relative to what would have been the case in the absence of that act. The subsidies are, of course, make those lower income people better off. This is an implicit tax, not the sort of tax we normally think about, where if the government raises taxes we are worse off and face a disincentive to work more, but providing a subsidy people are better off, but they have less incentive to work.

http://www.realclear.com/politics/2...s_a_disincentive_for_people_to_work_5588.html

Obamacare 'Creates Disincentive For People To Work'

How are they going to get money for food and shelter?

 

[thoughtone]

 

[Upgrade Dave]

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/09/3-true-lies-about-obamacare-from-the-latest-cbo-re.aspx


3 "True Lies" About Obamacare From the Latest CBO Report


Mark Twain famously said that there are three kinds of lies: "lies, damned lies, and statistics."A report from the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, released this week provided plenty of statistics, many of which related to the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

But could some inaccurate conclusions be drawn from the CBO report? It depends on how you read the data. Here are three "true lies" about Obamacare from the report -- statements that are technically correct yet fail to tell the full story

1. Obamacare will increase unemployment.
According to the CBO, Obamacare will reduce incentives to work for many Americans, resulting in a lower labor force participation rate than would have otherwise occurred. Although total employment will rise over the next 10 years, the CBO says "that increase will be smaller than it would have been in the absence of" Obamacare.

Does this mean Obamacare will cause the unemployment rate to go up in the coming years? Actually, no. The CBO says that more people will simply choose to drop out of the work force because of the impact of the health-reform legislation. That increases the ranks of the unemployed -- but not the unemployment rate.

There are considerable differences of opinion as to whether this effect is good or bad. The White House said that the drop in labor force participation "reflects the fact that workers have a new set of options and are making the best choices that they can choose to make for themselves given those options." Others, however, point out the CBO's assertion that higher taxes are a key contributing factor in "discouraging work" at the same time that businesses will still be in demand for workers.

2. Obamacare will result in an $8 billion payoff to insurance companies.
Insurance companies stand to receive a whopping $8 billion from the risk corridors contained in Obamacare, according to the CBO's latest projections. These risk corridors were designed to protect insurers against substantial losses in the first three years of implementation of the health reform law.

Does this mean that health insurers are being "bailed out"? Not when you look at the bigger picture. Yes, the CBO thinks that the federal government will pay insurance companies $8 billion over the next decade. However, insurers will also fork over $16 billion to the government. That doesn't sound like much of a bailout.

There is at least one aspect of the CBO's analysis that involves a great degree of uncertainty, though. Those rosy estimates are based on a review of Medicare Part D risk corridor payments rather than a review of actual Obamacare enrollment data.

How is that enrollment data looking so far? Humana (NYSE: HUM ) just announced that it expects to receive between $250 million and $450 million from the government to offset underwriting losses from Obamacare -- a little less than half of which will come from risk corridors. These anticipated underwriting losses will come in large part from lower enrollment of younger (and presumably healthier) individuals.

3. Obamacare won't make a dent in the number of Americans without health insurance.
The CBO predicts that around 31 million non-elderly individuals in the U.S. won't have health insurance 10 years from now. Back in 2009, President Obama referenced "the more than 30 million Americans who cannot get coverage" in defending Obamacare. So will health reform not even make a dent in reducing the number of uninsured citizens?

It's true that the CBO's figure sounds awfully similar to the number the president cited four years ago. However, there's more to the story.

Obamacare "will markedly increase the number of non-elderly people who have health insurance," according to the CBO, to the tune of 25 million Americans by 2016. On the other hand, as many as 7 million fewer individuals will have employment-based insurance starting in 2016. Obamacare certainly makes a dent in the number of uninsured, multiple dents, in fact -- both good and bad.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/millions-trapped-health-law-coverage-034100534.html?vp=1

Millions Trapped in Health-Law Coverage GapEarning Too Little for Health-Law Subsidies but Ineligible for Benefits Under Existing Medicaid Programs



BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Ernest Maiden was dumbfounded to learn that he falls through the cracks of the health-care law because in a typical week he earns about $200 from the Happiness and Hair Beauty and Barber Salon.

Like millions of other Americans caught in a mismatch of state and federal rules, the 57-year-old hair stylist doesn't make enough money to qualify for federal subsidies to buy health insurance. If he earned another $1,300 a year, the government would pay the full cost. Instead, coverage would cost about what he earns.

"It's a Catch-22," said Mr. Maiden, an uninsured diabetic. Without help, he said, he must "choose between paying the bills and buying medicine."

The 2010 health law was meant to cover people in Mr. Maiden's income bracket by expanding Medicaid to workers earning up to the federal poverty line—about $11,670 for a single person; more for families. People earning as much as four times the poverty line—$46,680 for a single person—can receive federal subsidies.

But the Supreme Court in 2012 struck down the law's requirement that states expand their Medicaid coverage. Republican elected officials in 24 states, including Alabama, declined the expansion, triggering a coverage gap. Officials said an expansion would add burdensome costs and, in some cases, leave more people dependent on government

The decision created a gap for Mr. Maiden and others at the lowest income levels who don't qualify for Medicaid coverage under varying state rules. The upshot is that lower-income people in half the states get no help, while better-off workers elsewhere can buy insurance with taxpayer-funded subsidies.

The federal government offered to pay the full cost of the expansion for three years, and then states would pay 10% of the annual expansion costs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the current expansion will cost the federal government nearly $800 billion over the next 10 years.

Some GOP-led states are revisiting their decision as complaints pile up over the coverage gap—and its consequences for businesses—in such states as Utah and Florida. The state senate in New Hampshire last week reached a tentative deal to expand Medicaid. In Virginia, newly elected Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe hopes to get legislators to reverse his Republican predecessor's stance against expansion.

Lawmakers are also getting a push to boost Medicaid rolls from hospitals that expected a vast new pool of paying customers under the health-care law. Instead, the failure to expand Medicaid coverage by some states not only adds fewer insured patients, it also eliminates the payments hospitals had long received to cover the cost of uninsured people they treat free.

Obama administration officials are touring some states that resisted the expansion, including Texas. "Expanding Medicaid will significantly increase the number of patients with insurance," said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency overseeing the law's implementation. "This is a critical opportunity to help millions more Americans gain access to quality, reliable health coverage."

For now, nearly five million people ages 18 to 64 get no financial help to buy coverage because of the gap, according to estimates by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many of those people are clustered in the South, living in states where income limits for Medicaid coverage have historically been among the lowest in the U.S.

Eugene Steuerle, an Urban Institute economist and former Treasury Department official who served under presidents in both parties, said he couldn't recall a social program that excluded beneficiaries because they earn too little.

In Alabama, Gov. Robert Bentley, a physician, said in his annual address last month that Medicaid expansion carried costs he doubted the federal government or his state could afford. Medicaid accounts for more than one-third of Alabama's budget, the state's costliest service after education, and it would have to grow larger to comply with the health-care law.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Bentley said his position was clear in public statements.

One of Mr. Bentley's constituents, 27-year-old Tanisha Fields, who is uninsured, arrived at University of Alabama at Birmingham's flagship hospital on a recent evening for treatment after a miscarriage. Hospitals are obligated to treat emergency room patients, regardless of their ability to pay.

Ms. Fields, who has a 4-year-old son, earned about $7,000 last year working at a cleaning service. That is too little to qualify for federal help buying coverage in new health-law marketplaces, and too much for coverage in Alabama's Medicaid program, which has an income ceiling of $2,832 for a family of two, after deductions. If Ms. Fields could buy insurance for $50 a month, she said, "I definitely would."

Governors in some states that refused to expand Medicaid now say the coverage gap is hard to ignore. "I am not a fan of the Affordable Care Act," Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said in an interview. But, he said, he is working with state legislators on a plan to expand Medicaid after advisers calculated that about 60,000 of his constituents would fall through the gap.

"That is not fair," Mr. Herbert said. "When I say doing nothing is not an option, I'm talking about the 60,000 people in Utah who live below the poverty line and don't have access to health care."

Mr. Maiden, the hair stylist, learned in a Dec. 23 letter from the federal government that he wasn't eligible for help. The cheapest "bronze"-level insurance plan available to Mr. Maiden, who is single and a smoker, costs $437 a month. That plan, from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Alabama, has a $6,350 annual deductible.

Mr. Maiden would have to spend about $11,600 a year—more than his entire annual income—on premiums and the deductible before Blue Cross would begin paying for most services. If he earned an extra $1,300 a year, he would qualify for about $470 a month in federal subsidies under the health-care law to pay premiums, and additional subsidies that would reduce the deductible for certain plans to as little as $100 a year.

Earning more, he said, is a challenge. Demand in Birmingham for his styling services is low, he said: "These are difficult times."

A Blue Cross spokeswoman said the insurer offered "some of the most cost-effective health insurance premiums in the country" and noted that Alabama has among the lowest average rates of states using HealthCare.gov, the federal insurance exchange.

But higher-wage families in some cases pay less for coverage in Alabama. Cal Morris, 37 years old, opened Church Street Coffee & Books with his wife, Heather, in a wealthy Birmingham suburb nearly three years ago.

The coffee shop and Mr. Morris's second job as a church janitor yields about $35,000 a year for the couple, who have three children.

Under the law, the family qualifies for a subsidy of as much as $439 a month. They could pay as little as $83 a month for a midlevel—or so-called silver—Blue Cross plan that lists at $522.43 a month, according to HealthCare.gov. The couple's children are covered by the state's Medicaid program.

Mr. Morris, who has severe and untreated psoriasis, said he looked forward to seeing a doctor, now that he has coverage.

Federal census data show about two-thirds of nearly 30,000 uninsured people living in Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham, would qualify for Medicaid if the program was expanded to fit with the health-care law.

While Birmingham's unemployment rate is low, many of its workers are poor. The bottom 10% of local workers employed full-time in 32 professions—including health-care aide and hairdresser—earn less than $16,000 a year, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Many of these people are only now learning of the health-care gap. Shunteria Taylor, 28 years old, lost a job as a personal-care aide in 2012. She lives on about $10,500 a year in child support and disability benefits for her 9-year-old son, Brandon. She said she was looking for work.

Based on her income, the cheapest insurance coverage would cost Ms. Taylor $146 a month, with a $6,350 deductible. "I have a lot of health problems," she said, "but I just can't afford" insurance.

Hospitals, including UAB Health System, see the coverage gap as a threat.

"All we see is our revenues going down," said Will Ferniany, UAB's chief executive. Like other hospitals, it faces deep cuts in federal reimbursement for treating uninsured patients under the health-care law, he said, but won't see many new paying patients without the Medicaid expansion.

On a recent evening, as a rare blizzard struck Birmingham, dozens of uninsured patients filed through the emergency room at UAB's main campus. Complaints ranged from headaches and swollen feet to broken bones. Such visits contribute to more than $100 million in uncompensated care costs at the hospital, according to 2012 Medicare data.

Seneca Womack, age 38, arrived that evening seeking treatment for an epileptic seizure. A couple of hours later, he was discharged but then slipped on a patch of ice on his way home, breaking his leg.

Since losing his last two jobs—as a ride operator at an amusement park and restaurant cook—Mr. Womack has had no regular income, leaving him below the threshold for health insurance subsidies.

Before his latest mishap, Mr. Womack had piled up more than $50,000 in hospital bills for treatment of seizures and related injuries. He said he borrows $130 a month from his sister to buy drugs for high blood pressure, depression and epilepsy.

"I need insurance," he said.

Write to Christopher Weaver at christopher.weaver@wsj.com

 

[Greed]

The Economist Who Exposed ObamaCare

The Economist Who Exposed ObamaCare
The Chicago professor examined the law's incentives for the poor not to get a job or work harder, and this week Beltway budgeteers agreed.
By JOSEPH RAGO
Feb. 7, 2014 6:30 p.m. ET

In September, two weeks before the Affordable Care Act was due to launch, President Obama declared that "there's no serious evidence that the law . . . is holding back economic growth." As for repealing ObamaCare, he added, "That's not an agenda for economic growth. You're not going to meet an economist who says that that's a number-one priority in terms of boosting growth and jobs in this country—at least not a serious economist."

In a way, Mr. Obama had a point: "Never met him," says economist Casey Mulligan. If the unfamiliarity is mutual, the confusion is all presidential. Mr. Mulligan studies how government choices influence the incentives and rewards for work—and many more people may recognize the University of Chicago professor as a serious economist after this week. That's because, more than anyone, Mr. Mulligan is responsible for the still-raging furor over the Congressional Budget Office's conclusion that ObamaCare will, in fact, harm growth and jobs.

Rarely are political tempers so raw over an 11-page appendix to a dense budget projection for the next decade. But then the CBO—Congress's official fiscal scorekeeper, widely revered by Democrats and Republicans alike as the gold standard of economic analysis—reported that by 2024 the equivalent of 2.5 million Americans who were otherwise willing and able to work before ObamaCare will work less or not at all as a result of ObamaCare.

As the CBO admits, that's a "substantially larger" and "considerably higher" subtraction to the labor force than the mere 800,000 the budget office estimated in 2010. The overall level of labor will fall by 1.5% to 2% over the decade, the CBO figures.

Mr. Mulligan's empirical research puts the best estimate of the contraction at 3%. The CBO still has some of the economics wrong, he said in a phone interview Thursday, "but, boy, it's a lot better to be off by a factor of two than a factor of six."

The CBO's intellectual conversion is all the more notable for accepting Mr. Mulligan's premise, which is that what economists call "implicit marginal tax rates" in ObamaCare make work less financially valuable for lower-income Americans. Because the insurance subsidies are tied to income and phase out as cash wages rise, some people will have the incentive to remain poorer in order to continue capturing higher benefits. Another way of putting it is that taking away benefits has the same effect as a direct tax, so lower-income workers are discouraged from climbing the income ladder by working harder, logging extra hours, taking a promotion or investing in their future earnings through job training or education.

The CBO works in mysterious ways, but its commentary and a footnote suggest that two National Bureau of Economic Research papers Mr. Mulligan published last August were "roughly" the most important drivers of this revision to its model. In short, the CBO has pulled this economist's arguments and analysis from the fringes to center of the health-care debate.

For his part, Mr. Mulligan declines to take too much credit. "I'm not an expert in that town, Washington," he says, "but I showed them my work and I know they listened, carefully."

At a February 2013 hearing he pointed out several discrepancies between the CBO's marginal-tax-rate work and its health-care work, and, he says, "That couldn't persist forever. There would have to be a time where they would reconcile those two approaches somehow." More to the point, "I knew eventually it would be acknowledged that when you pay people for being low income you are going to have more low-income people."

Mr. Mulligan thinks the CBO deserves particular credit for learning and then revising the old 800,000 number, not least because so many liberals cited it to dispute the claims of ObamaCare's critics. The new finding might have prompted a debate about the marginal tax rates confronting the poor, but—well, it didn't.

Instead, liberals have turned to claiming that ObamaCare's missing workers will be a gift to society. Since employers aren't cutting jobs per se through layoffs or hourly take-backs, people are merely choosing rationally to supply less labor. Thanks to ObamaCare, we're told, Americans can finally quit the salt mines and blacking factories and retire early, or spend more time with the children, or become artists.

Mr. Mulligan reserves particular scorn for the economists making this "eliminated from the drudgery of labor market" argument, which he views as a form of trahison des clercs. "I don't know what their intentions are," he says, choosing his words carefully, "but it looks like they're trying to leverage the lack of economic education in their audience by making these sorts of points."

A job, Mr. Mulligan explains, "is a transaction between buyers and sellers. When a transaction doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. We know that it doesn't matter on which side of the market you put the disincentives, the results are the same. . . . In this case you're putting an implicit tax on work for households, and employers aren't willing to compensate the households enough so they'll still work." Jobs can be destroyed by sellers (workers) as much as buyers (businesses).

He adds: "I can understand something like cigarettes and people believe that there's too much smoking, so we put a tax on cigarettes, so people smoke less, and we say that's a good thing. OK. But are we saying we were working too much before? Is that the new argument? I mean make up your mind. We've been complaining for six years now that there's not enough work being done. . . . Even before the recession there was too little work in the economy. Now all of a sudden we wake up and say we're glad that people are working less? We're pursuing our dreams?"

The larger betrayal, Mr. Mulligan argues, is that the same economists now praising the great shrinking workforce used to claim that ObamaCare would expand the labor market.

He points to a 2011 letter organized by Harvard's David Cutler and the University of Chicago's Harold Pollack, signed by dozens of left-leaning economists including Nobel laureates, stating "our strong conclusion" that ObamaCare will strengthen the economy and create 250,000 to 400,000 jobs annually. (Mr. Cutler has since qualified and walked back some of his claims.)

"Why didn't they say, no, we didn't mean the labor market's going to get bigger. We mean it's going to get smaller in a good way," Mr. Mulligan wonders. "I'm unhappy with that, to be honest, as an American, as an economist. Those kind of conclusions are tarnishing the field of economics, which is a great, maybe the greatest, field. They're sure not making it look good by doing stuff like that."

Mr. Mulligan's investigation into the Affordable Care Act builds on his earlier work studying the 2009 Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the stimulus.

The Keynesian economists who dominate Mr. Obama's Washington are preoccupied by demand, and their explanation for persistently high post-recession unemployment is weak demand for goods and thus demand for labor. Mr. Mulligan, by contrast, studies the supply of labor and attributes the state of the economy in large part to the expansion of the entitlement and welfare state, such as the surge in food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and other safety-net programs. As these benefits were enriched and extended to more people by the stimulus, he argues in his 2012 book "The Redistribution Recession," they were responsible for about half the drop in work hours since 2007, and possibly more.

The nearby chart tracks marginal tax rates over time for nonelderly household heads and spouses with median earnings. This index is a population-weighted average over various ages, jobs, employment decisions like full-time versus part-time. Basically, the chart shows the extra taxes paid and government benefits foregone as a result of earning an extra dollar of income.

The stimulus caused a spike in marginal rates, but at least it was temporary. ObamaCare will bring them permanently into the 47% range, or seven percentage points higher than in early 2007. Mr. Mulligan says the main response to his calculations is that people "didn't realize the cumulative effect of these things together as a package to discourage work."

Mr. Mulligan is uncomfortable speculating about whether the benefits of this shift outweigh the costs. Perhaps the public was willing to trade market efficiency for more income security after the 2008 crisis. "As an economist I can't argue with that," he says. "The thing that I argue with is the denial that there is a trade-off. I argue with the denial that if you pay unemployed people you're going to get more unemployed people. There are consequences of that. That doesn't mean the consequences aren't worth paying. But you can't deny the consequences for the labor market."

One major risk is slower economic growth over time as people leave the workforce and contribute less to national prosperity. Another is that social programs with high marginal rates end up perpetuating the problems they're supposed to be alleviating.

So amid the current wave of liberal ObamaCare denial about these realities, how did Mr. Mulligan end up conducting such "unconventional" research?

"Unconventional?" he asks with more than a little disbelief. "It's not unconventional at all. The critique I get is that it's not complicated enough."

Well, then how come the CBO's adoption of his insights is causing such a ruckus?

"I would phrase the question a little differently," Mr. Mulligan responds, "which is: Why didn't conventional economic analysis make its way to Washington? Why was I the only delivery boy? Why wasn't there a laundry list?" The charitable explanation, he says, is that there was "a general lack of awareness" and economists simply didn't realize everything that government was doing to undermine incentives for work. "You have to dig into it and see it," he explains. "The Affordable Care Act's not going to come and shake you out of your bed and say, 'Look what's in me.' "

Judging by their reaction to the CBO report, the less charitable explanation is that liberals would have preferred that the public never found out.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304680904579367143880532248

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Two points stood out to me

The Keynesian economists who dominate Mr. Obama's Washington are preoccupied by demand, and their explanation for persistently high post-recession unemployment is weak demand for goods and thus demand for labor. Mr. Mulligan, by contrast, studies the supply of labor and attributes the state of the economy in large part to the expansion of the entitlement and welfare state, such as the surge in food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and other safety-net programs. As these benefits were enriched and extended to more people by the stimulus, he argues in his 2012 book "The Redistribution Recession," they were responsible for about half the drop in work hours since 2007, and possibly more.

Mr Mulligan takes that logically ridiculous position that expanding entitlements keeps people out of work.
So, in his opinion, people have just decided to stop working so they can get some of those food stamps and unemployment benefits (which you don't get if you quit your job and are not guaranteed even if you get fired).
Completely disconnected from reality.

Mr. Mulligan is uncomfortable speculating about whether the benefits of this shift outweigh the costs. Perhaps the public was willing to trade market efficiency for more income security after the 2008 crisis. "As an economist I can't argue with that," he says. "The thing that I argue with is the denial that there is a trade-off. I argue with the denial that if you pay unemployed people you're going to get more unemployed people. There are consequences of that. That doesn't mean the consequences aren't worth paying. But you can't deny the consequences for the labor market."

Even coming from his position, he can't say it's a bad thing for people to not work every hour they can for as many employers as they can just to afford a semblance of health care.

 

[thoughtone]

Two points stood out to me




Mr Mulligan takes that logically ridiculous position that expanding entitlements keeps people out of work.
So, in his opinion, people have just decided to stop working so they can get some of those food stamps and unemployment benefits (which you don't get if you quit your job and are not guaranteed even if you get fired).
Completely disconnected from reality.




Even coming from his position, he can't say it's a bad thing for people to not work every hour they can for as many employers as they can just to afford a semblance of health care.

UD, I don't know why you continue to respond to these ridiculous, wing nut commentaries.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

UD, I don't know why you continue to respond to these ridiculous, wing nut commentaries.

I started this thread so not responding (and not pointing out the contradictions) would be rude.

 

[Greed]

Two points stood out to me




Mr Mulligan takes that logically ridiculous position that expanding entitlements keeps people out of work.
So, in his opinion, people have just decided to stop working so they can get some of those food stamps and unemployment benefits (which you don't get if you quit your job and are not guaranteed even if you get fired).
Completely disconnected from reality.




Even coming from his position, he can't say it's a bad thing for people to not work every hour they can for as many employers as they can just to afford a semblance of health care.

UD, I don't know why you continue to respond to these ridiculous, wing nut commentaries.

I started this thread so not responding (and not pointing out the contradictions) would be rude.

Mulligan put out 2-3 peer reviewed papers over the last three years that were so convincing that the, Obama-appointee led, CBO adopted his findings.

Because none of you understand the difference between politics and economics, you think he just put an opinion out there. He put data out that was checked by people, not receptive to his conclusion, and was determined to be reasonable.

“Certainly a high enough minimum wage would have damaging effects, but it seems to me unlikely that $10.10 is high enough to have widespread bad effects,” Sims said in an e-mail.

In contrast, you have letters signed by a bunch of liberal economist, quoting their beliefs, being taken as truth by you people.

Even coming from his position, he can't say it's a bad thing for people to not work every hour they can for as many employers as they can just to afford a semblance of health care.

By the way, Mulligan not making a value judgment regarding the conclusion is consistent with what professionalism is supposed to be. His job as an economist is to understand the phenomenon he's studying, not declaring it good or bad. Now compare that with everyone you agree with.

 

[QueEx]

Two points stood out to me:

The Keynesian economists who dominate Mr. Obama's Washington are preoccupied by demand, and their explanation for persistently high post-recession unemployment is weak demand for goods and thus demand for labor. Mr. Mulligan, by contrast, studies the supply of labor and attributes the state of the economy in large part to the expansion of the entitlement and welfare state, such as the surge in food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and other safety-net programs. As these benefits were enriched and extended to more people by the stimulus, he argues in his 2012 book "The Redistribution Recession," they were responsible for about half the drop in work hours since 2007, and possibly more.

Mr Mulligan takes that logically ridiculous position that expanding entitlements keeps people out of work.

So, in his opinion, people have just decided to stop working so they can get some of those food stamps and unemployment benefits (which you don't get if you quit your job and are not guaranteed even if you get fired).

Completely disconnected from reality.

Mr. Mulligan is uncomfortable speculating about whether the benefits of this shift outweigh the costs. Perhaps the public was willing to trade market efficiency for more income security after the 2008 crisis. "As an economist I can't argue with that," he says. "The thing that I argue with is the denial that there is a trade-off. I argue with the denial that if you pay unemployed people you're going to get more unemployed people. There are consequences of that. That doesn't mean the consequences aren't worth paying. But you can't deny the consequences for the labor market."

Even coming from his position, he can't say it's a bad thing for people to not work every hour they can for as many employers as they can just to afford a semblance of health care.

And, where is the empirical data that supports the theory that people with house & car notes, families and the attendant expenses to maintain those things are simply opting not to work and subsist on safety-net benefits when those benefits can't maintain those things ??? Where is it ???

Where are those people ??? I keep missing them; and I don't see the proponents of the theory parading those "Joe the Subsisters" on national TV confessing that they'd much rather draw safety-net benefits while their mortgages are going further into default, children need new coats, etc., and their lifestyles are sliding into the toilet.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

And, where is the empirical data that supports the theory that people with house & car notes, families and the attendant expenses to maintain those things are simply opting not to work and subsist on safety-net benefits when those benefits can't maintain those things ??? Where is it ???

Where are those people ??? I keep missing them; and I don't see the proponents of the theory parading those "Joe the Subsisters" on national TV confessing that they'd much rather draw safety-net benefits while their mortgages are going further into default, children need new coats, etc., and their lifestyles are sliding into the toilet.

Good question.


This part, and this isn't credited to Mulligan so I won't put it on him, was also interesting to me. The words are not Mulligan's but the position is the same.

Because the insurance subsidies are tied to income and phase out as cash wages rise, some people will have the incentive to remain poorer in order to continue capturing higher benefits. Another way of putting it is that taking away benefits has the same effect as a direct tax, so lower-income workers are discouraged from climbing the income ladder by working harder, logging extra hours, taking a promotion or investing in their future earnings through job training or education.

I would think, and maybe it's the liberal in me, the answer to that would be employers, if they need the help, will make their jobs more enticing, through better wages and/or better benefits because now they have fewer people willing to work for whatever they can get.

 

[Greed]

And, where is the empirical data that supports the theory that people with house & car notes, families and the attendant expenses to maintain those things are simply opting not to work and subsist on safety-net benefits when those benefits can't maintain those things ??? Where is it ???

Where are those people ??? I keep missing them; and I don't see the proponents of the theory parading those "Joe the Subsisters" on national TV confessing that they'd much rather draw safety-net benefits while their mortgages are going further into default, children need new coats, etc., and their lifestyles are sliding into the toilet.

Here's the problem with you politics-is-everything kind of people, who's saying people "are simply opting not to work and subsist on safety-net benefits when those benefits can't maintain those things ???"

Who are you appealing to for proof? How are you appealing to people, that prioritize having empirical data, by asking them to prove something so stupid which they didn't say?

Compared to people who don't need proof to act. Instead they pass the bill to see what's in it.

People who's job it is to worry about having data to back up their conclusions, know that life and actions happen at the margin. It's not about the $1000 they get as a subsidy, it's about the $1001 they get as a subsidy. There behavior starts to change at the one extra dollar and the change in behavior is proportional to that. There is a minimum number that doesn't change people and everything after that does, but only the additional amount.

That's why despite all the money and subsidies Obamacare is throwing around, the CBO and Mulligan is still on talking about 1%-3% of workers.

That's why government, in general, throws so much money around. Politicians ALREADY knows that, in a rich country, it takes a high initial amount to get to that first marginal dollar where behavior will be affected.

Stop trying to protect Obama and think like you did before 2008.

 

[QueEx]

Because the insurance subsidies are tied to income and phase out as cash wages rise, some people will have the incentive to remain poorer in order to continue capturing higher benefits. Another way of putting it is that taking away benefits has the same effect as a direct tax, so lower-income workers are discouraged from climbing the income ladder by working harder, logging extra hours, taking a promotion or investing in their future earnings through job training or education.

Those lazy bastards, the lower income workers, they are. They don't want a little more. They don't desire or aspire to live above hand-out - level. They enjoy subsisting at/nearest the bottom. No dreams, no ambition - for themselves or their posterity.

Those who hold that view, don't believe in a hand-up -

 

[Greed]

Good question.


This part, and this isn't credited to Mulligan so I won't put it on him, was also interesting to me. The words are not Mulligan's but the position is the same.



I would think, and maybe it's the liberal in me, the answer to that would be employers, if they need the help, will make their jobs more enticing, through better wages and/or better benefits because now they have fewer people willing to work for whatever they can get.

Now you're intuitively getting how the supply side of labor can also destroy a job. No matter if the demand side or the supply side rejects the offered wage, the job isn't getting done. If the employer can't find anyone at a wage he wants to pay, then he might automate a low-skill job and no one gets that job again.

And the government is at the center of this, distorting the labor market in ways they ultimately can't control, with the minimum wage and income subsidies.

I wish the liberal in you would see that.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Now you're intuitively getting how the supply side of labor can also destroy a job. No matter if the demand side or the supply side rejects the offered wage, the job isn't getting done. If the employer can't find anyone at a wage he wants to pay, then he might automate a low-skill job and no one gets that job again.
And the government is at the center of this, distorting the labor market in ways they ultimately can't control, with the minimum wage and income subsidies.

I wish the liberal in you would see that.

Being a reality based man I'll remind you that employers don't wait until they can't find employees to automate. They do the math and if it's cheaper to automate, they displace workers and do so.
What you just described is completely fictitious.

I forgot. I freakin' forgot, you're anti-worker. Your minimum wage line reminded me. I know you don't think you are but, once again based solely on reality and history in this country, being against minimum wages is anti-worker.

Here's the problem with you politics-is-everything kind of people, who's saying people "are simply opting not to work and subsist on safety-net benefits when those benefits can't maintain those things ???"

Who are you appealing to for proof? How are you appealing to people, that prioritize having empirical data, by asking them to prove something so stupid which they didn't say?

.

I quoted it earlier so here it is again

The Keynesian economists who dominate Mr. Obama's Washington are preoccupied by demand, and their explanation for persistently high post-recession unemployment is weak demand for goods and thus demand for labor. Mr. Mulligan, by contrast, studies the supply of labor and attributes the state of the economy in large part to the expansion of the entitlement and welfare state, such as the surge in food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and other safety-net programs. As these benefits were enriched and extended to more people by the stimulus, he argues in his 2012 book "The Redistribution Recession," they were responsible for about half the drop in work hours since 2007, and possibly more

.

What else is he saying there? I'm truly interested in your interpretation.

 

[Greed]

Being a reality based man I'll remind you that employers don't wait until they can't find employees to automate. They do the math and if it's cheaper to automate, they displace workers and do so.
What you just described is completely fictitious.

Because you're so angry you don't realize we said the same thing.

Why doesn't your "reality-based" mind worry about what I said rather than what side I'm on.

I forgot. I freakin' forgot, you're anti-worker. Your minimum wage line reminded me. I know you don't think you are but, once again based solely on reality and history in this country, being against minimum wages is anti-worker.

I'll keep that in mind the next time I speak with a perpetually unemployed and low-skilled person that just wants to work. Especially the teenage black boys in my deeply blue Chicago. I'll tell them how ungrateful they are for not qualifying for a minimum wage job.

I quoted it earlier so here it is again

What else is he saying there? I'm truly interested in your interpretation.

My interpretation of what? To your "reality-based" mind, QueEx's stating that people are quitting and living off benefits that doesn't pay for their lifestyle equals what you quoted, and this thread, about reduced work hours.

Once again, who said people are living off the new Obamacare welfare? I didn't say it, Mulligan didn't say it, and the Obama appointee-led CBO didn't say it.

To put it mildly, Obamacare is distorting the work participation decisions of low-skilled workers. To you they are being freed, because working for a low wage is slavery. To me, it's another destructive layer of your beloved social engineering.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Because you're so angry you don't realize we said the same thing.

Why doesn't your "reality-based" mind worry about what I said rather than what side I'm on.

I'm "angry"? We did not say the same thing. You made a completely fantastic statement and I showed the fallacy of it.

I'll keep that in mind the next time I speak with a perpetually unemployed and low-skilled person that just wants to work. Especially the teenage black boys in my deeply blue Chicago. I'll tell them how ungrateful they are for not qualifying for a minimum wage job.

Okay. You should also tell him to keep going to school and learn a skill that would help him since that teenage boy is now competing with full grown, better educated, more experienced adults for the same job and not other teenagers.

My interpretation of what?

Mr. Mulligan, by contrast, studies the supply of labor and attributes the state of the economy in large part to the expansion of the entitlement and welfare state, such as the surge in food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and other safety-net programs. As these benefits were enriched and extended to more people by the stimulus, he argues in his 2012 book "The Redistribution Recession," they were responsible for about half the drop in work hours since 2007, and possibly more

What do you see Mulligan saying here that Que and I are misinterpreting, from your point of view?

To your "reality-based" mind, QueEx's stating that people are quitting and living off benefits that doesn't pay for their lifestyle equals what you quoted, and this thread, about reduced work hours.

Once again, who said people are living off the new Obamacare welfare? I didn't say it, Mulligan didn't say it, and the Obama appointee-led CBO didn't say it.

To put it mildly, Obamacare is distorting the work participation decisions of low-skilled workers. To you they are being freed, because working for a low wage is slavery. To me, it's another destructive layer of your beloved social engineering.

That's not what I said at all. I wouldn't ever equate working for a low wage to slavery because slaves didn't get wages.
But, to make myself clear so you don't have to distort my words anymore (not that that will stop you), I would say workers become more empowered to decide if they want to work at certain jobs or additional jobs instead of having to just to get healthcare.
We are both for worker empowerment, right?

 

[Greed]

I'm "angry"? We did not say the same thing. You made a completely fantastic statement and I showed the fallacy of it.

Yes, you're angry. Not only that. But you're so far gone you can't admit we said the same thing. Whether you did it on purpose of not, you even structured the sentence the same.

It's because you know I don't support President Jesus that you ignore we said the same thing but from different perspectives. I spoke for the perspective of an employer, and you spoke from the perspective of a worker who's always the victim, no matter what the circumstance. Either way we said the same thing.

Interesting to see what a nightmare chore it is to find common ground.

Okay. You should also tell him to keep going to school and learn a skill that would help him since that teenage boy is now competing with full grown, better educated, more experienced adults for the same job and not other teenagers.

This is the social engineering propaganda that makes it painful to post on this board.

He shouldn't have to meet your arbitrary schooling standards to get a job. Young black men are trying their best to solve the detriment you've place on their life when you promote they should rely on the schooling of a system that has already failed them. Maybe you think the 50% black-male dropout rate in large urban areas is a little thing.

Don't tell someone that, correctly, feels no connection to this school system that they should invest further in school, just so they could have a chance to compete for a minimum wage job like all these college graduates currently working at Starbucks.

Just let a person work as he and his family see fit. Even if its below your completely politically calculated number of $7.25/hour. That's the solution. The entire problem can be solved if you and Obama would just shut up telling other people what they need to do to get past the obstacles you put in place.

What do you see Mulligan saying here that Que and I are misinterpreting, from your point of view?

Once again, who said people are living off the new Obamacare welfare? I didn't say it, Mulligan didn't say it, and the Obama appointee-led CBO didn't say it.

That's not what I said at all. I wouldn't ever equate working for a low wage to slavery because slaves didn't get wages.
But, to make myself clear so you don't have to distort my words anymore (not that that will stop you), I would say workers become more empowered to decide if they want to work at certain jobs or additional jobs instead of having to just to get healthcare.
We are both for worker empowerment, right?

No, we are not both for worker empowerment. I am for the totality of a worker's decision-making to be made by the worker, and his choices should be given the benefit of the doubt regarding its correctness as long as his decision doesn't hurt someone else.

You are just pro-government.

 

[thoughtone]

And, where is the empirical data that supports the theory that people with house & car notes, families and the attendant expenses to maintain those things are simply opting not to work and subsist on safety-net benefits when those benefits can't maintain those things ??? Where is it ???

Where are those people ??? I keep missing them; and I don't see the proponents of the theory parading those "Joe the Subsisters" on national TV confessing that they'd much rather draw safety-net benefits while their mortgages are going further into default, children need new coats, etc., and their lifestyles are sliding into the toilet.

You are just pro-government.

UD, I don't know why you continue to respond to these ridiculous, wing nut commentaries.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

He shouldn't have to meet your arbitrary schooling standards to get a job. Young black men are trying their best to solve the detriment you've place on their life when you promote they should rely on the schooling of a system that has already failed them. Maybe you think the 50% black-male dropout rate in large urban areas is a little thing.

So you're suggestion is those same young Black men should try to compete, not with more education and/or training, but by working the same job for less?


Who's President Jesus? What religion is that?

Don't tell someone that, correctly, feels no connection to this school system that they should invest further in school, just so they could have a chance to compete for a minimum wage job like all these college graduates currently working at Starbucks

.

So your alternative is they not even be able to compete for those jobs?
They already are, I'm telling them how to make themselves more competitive while you make excuses.

 

[Greed]

So you're suggestion is those same young Black men should try to compete, not with more education and/or training, but by working the same job for less?

Who's President Jesus? What religion is that?

Dave, what exactly is the rocket science aspects that keep tripping up you people.

Stay out of other people's job decision-making. I didn't say what they should do. I said they shouldn't have to put up with you and your ideas.

If a high school drop-out or graduate can be an adequate substitute for a psychology graduate at Starbucks for a lower cost and Starbucks agree, then why is Dave or QueEx or thoughtone involved.

Any job that someone wants to take, and an employer wants to give, doesn't need your involvement if you aren't the particular job-seeker or employer.

Upgrade Dave, if you DO feel you should be involved in that process, can you answer a question for me? Who the fuck are you?

So your alternative is they not even be able to compete for those jobs?
They already are, I'm telling them how to make themselves more competitive while you make excuses.

Those jobs are considered competitive for both high school graduates and college graduates purely because of political machinations you support. Without the political process, there would hardly ever be a situation where those two groups are competing for the same job. Get rid of the minimum wage and those two groups of people would be competing for two different groups of jobs.

And where is your definition of worker empowerment? Tell me how pro-worker you are.

I am for the totality of a worker's decision-making to be made by the worker, and his choices should be given the benefit of the doubt regarding its correctness as long as his decision doesn't hurt someone else.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Dave, what exactly is the rocket science aspects that keep tripping up you people.

Stay out of other people's job decision-making. I didn't say what they should do. I said they shouldn't have to put up with you and your ideas.

If a high school drop-out or graduate can be an adequate substitute for a psychology graduate at Starbucks for a lower cost and Starbucks agree, then why is Dave or QueEx or thoughtone involved.

Any job that someone wants to take, and an employer wants to give, doesn't need your involvement if you aren't the particular job-seeker or employer.

Upgrade Dave, if you DO feel you should be involved in that process, can you answer a question for me? Who the fuck are you?


Those jobs are considered competitive for both high school graduates and college graduates purely because of political machinations you support. Without the political process, there would hardly ever be a situation where those two groups are competing for the same job. Get rid of the minimum wage and those two groups of people would be competing for two different groups of jobs.

And where is your definition of worker empowerment? Tell me how pro-worker you are.

There's no rocket science here or misunderstanding.
You're too smart to not know why a minimum wage was created in the first place so you're willfully ignorant or blinded by ideology that you would dismiss and ignore history to validate your morally and economically bankrupt philosophy.

 

[Greed]

There's no rocket science here or misunderstanding.
You're too smart to not know why a minimum wage was created in the first place so you're willfully ignorant or blinded by ideology that you would dismiss and ignore history to validate your morally and economically bankrupt philosophy.

The birth of minimum wage is well documented from the left and the right.

Here's one for you.

No one, but people who've never looked into it thinks it was about economics.

But you keep believing in the power of government to dictate wages and compensation. The President appreciates your support for Obamacare.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Just when I lost interest in this merry go round...



http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/minimum-wage-hike-could-kill-500000-jobs-but-help-alleviate-poverty-cbo-reports/2014/02/18/d171c130-98de-11e3-80ac-63a8ba7f7942_story.html

President Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would increase earnings for 16.5 million low-wage Americans but cost the nation about 500,000 jobs, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday.

About 15 percent of the nation’s workforce would see wages rise under the proposal, according to the report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In addition to the 16.5 million people who earn less than $10.10 an hour, as many as 8 million workers whose earnings hover above that level could also benefit, the report said.

The higher wages would lift about 900,000 people out of poverty, the report said.

But the CBO warned that raising the minimum wage could also cause employers to lay off low-wage workers or hire fewer of them, reducing overall employment by about 500,000 jobs, or about 0.3 percent of the labor force. The CBO acknowledged that its calculation is an estimate and said actual job losses could range from “very slight” to as many as 1 million positions.

“The increase in the minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers,” the CBO said in the report. “The large majority would have higher wages and family income, but a much smaller group would be jobless and have much lower family income.”

Coming less than nine months before the November midterm elections, the report highlights the vast divide between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to addressing economic problems.

Obama and congressional Democrats have made a higher minimum wage the linchpin of their midterm strategy. Their plan calls for raising the federally mandated salary from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour by 2016, with automatic increases thereafter to account for inflation. Democrats say such a move would deliver broad economic benefits, giving employers a more stable, productive and satisfied workforce.

“Today’s CBO report confirms that raising the minimum wage is in the best interest of our country,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a written statement.
Republicans, however, accuse the White House of pandering to low-income workers without fully understanding the impact of their policies.

“Today’s CBO report shows that raising the minimum wage could destroy as many as one million jobs, a devastating blow to the very people that need help most,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement.

Although the CBO report confirmed the arguments of both sides, the report appeared to put the White House on the defensive. Obama and his senior aides have argued that boosting the minimum wage would not cause employers to cut jobs.

In a conference call with reporters, White House chief economist Jason Furman pushed back hard against the CBO’s conclusions, saying its “estimates do not reflect the overall consensus view of economists, who have said the minimum wage would have little or no impact on employment.”

If anything, the CBO report underscored the inherent tradeoffs in many economic prescriptions. While raising the minimum wage would boost the income of most families earning less than six times the federal poverty level — the equivalent of $150,000 a year for a family of four — families earning more than that would see incomes go down, the report said.

Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, said that the CBO analysis overstates the negative effects of a higher minimum wage. “But even if they’re right,” he said, “we’re still talking about a policy that benefits about 98 percent of affected workers.”

Polls show that raising the minimum wage is broadly popular. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in December found that two-thirds of Americans support a higher minimum wage, siding more with the argument that a hike would help low-income workers than with charges that the policy would lead businesses to job cuts.

The poll found that the public’s preferred minimum wage falls well short of Democratic proposals, with $9.47 emerging as the average suggestion across 897 responses. Self-identified Democrats wanted to set the wage at an average of $10.06 an hour, Republicans at $8.57, and independents at $9.52.

Still, when other surveys asked directly about increasing the wage to $10.10 an hour, at least seven in 10 supported the idea.

That could change, however, with polls showing that anxiety about unemployment is on the rise. Nearly one in four Americans mentioned jobs and unemployment in a February Gallup poll as the most important problem facing the country — a marked increase from the 16 percent who said they were most worried about jobs one month ago.

“Whether it’s Obamacare, a minimum-wage hike or a trillion-dollar stimulus bill charged to the nation’s credit card, the bottom line is the president’s big-
government experiment kills jobs,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.).

I find it fascinating that the CBO said it would lift people out of poverty but on the other hand could hurt employment. Interesting. Something of a dilemma.
Now if someone could recommend something that saves every single person, I'd be willing to listen.

No, doing away with the minimum wage isn't viable or rational.
What you would do is have an even greater economic divide, more people having to work every day of their lives, and more people needing that same government to feed them and their children and provide them healthcare.

 

[Greed]

Just when I lost interest in this merry go round...



http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/minimum-wage-hike-could-kill-500000-jobs-but-help-alleviate-poverty-cbo-reports/2014/02/18/d171c130-98de-11e3-80ac-63a8ba7f7942_story.html

President Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would increase earnings for 16.5 million low-wage Americans but cost the nation about 500,000 jobs, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday.

About 15 percent of the nation’s workforce would see wages rise under the proposal, according to the report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In addition to the 16.5 million people who earn less than $10.10 an hour, as many as 8 million workers whose earnings hover above that level could also benefit, the report said.

The higher wages would lift about 900,000 people out of poverty, the report said.

But the CBO warned that raising the minimum wage could also cause employers to lay off low-wage workers or hire fewer of them, reducing overall employment by about 500,000 jobs, or about 0.3 percent of the labor force. The CBO acknowledged that its calculation is an estimate and said actual job losses could range from “very slight” to as many as 1 million positions.

“The increase in the minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers,” the CBO said in the report. “The large majority would have higher wages and family income, but a much smaller group would be jobless and have much lower family income.”

Coming less than nine months before the November midterm elections, the report highlights the vast divide between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to addressing economic problems.

Obama and congressional Democrats have made a higher minimum wage the linchpin of their midterm strategy. Their plan calls for raising the federally mandated salary from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour by 2016, with automatic increases thereafter to account for inflation. Democrats say such a move would deliver broad economic benefits, giving employers a more stable, productive and satisfied workforce.

“Today’s CBO report confirms that raising the minimum wage is in the best interest of our country,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a written statement.
Republicans, however, accuse the White House of pandering to low-income workers without fully understanding the impact of their policies.

“Today’s CBO report shows that raising the minimum wage could destroy as many as one million jobs, a devastating blow to the very people that need help most,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement.

Although the CBO report confirmed the arguments of both sides, the report appeared to put the White House on the defensive. Obama and his senior aides have argued that boosting the minimum wage would not cause employers to cut jobs.

In a conference call with reporters, White House chief economist Jason Furman pushed back hard against the CBO’s conclusions, saying its “estimates do not reflect the overall consensus view of economists, who have said the minimum wage would have little or no impact on employment.”

If anything, the CBO report underscored the inherent tradeoffs in many economic prescriptions. While raising the minimum wage would boost the income of most families earning less than six times the federal poverty level — the equivalent of $150,000 a year for a family of four — families earning more than that would see incomes go down, the report said.

Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, said that the CBO analysis overstates the negative effects of a higher minimum wage. “But even if they’re right,” he said, “we’re still talking about a policy that benefits about 98 percent of affected workers.”

Polls show that raising the minimum wage is broadly popular. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in December found that two-thirds of Americans support a higher minimum wage, siding more with the argument that a hike would help low-income workers than with charges that the policy would lead businesses to job cuts.

The poll found that the public’s preferred minimum wage falls well short of Democratic proposals, with $9.47 emerging as the average suggestion across 897 responses. Self-identified Democrats wanted to set the wage at an average of $10.06 an hour, Republicans at $8.57, and independents at $9.52.

Still, when other surveys asked directly about increasing the wage to $10.10 an hour, at least seven in 10 supported the idea.

That could change, however, with polls showing that anxiety about unemployment is on the rise. Nearly one in four Americans mentioned jobs and unemployment in a February Gallup poll as the most important problem facing the country — a marked increase from the 16 percent who said they were most worried about jobs one month ago.

“Whether it’s Obamacare, a minimum-wage hike or a trillion-dollar stimulus bill charged to the nation’s credit card, the bottom line is the president’s big-
government experiment kills jobs,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.).

I find it fascinating that the CBO said it would lift people out of poverty but on the other hand could hurt employment. Interesting. Something of a dilemma.
Now if someone could recommend something that saves every single person, I'd be willing to listen.

No, doing away with the minimum wage isn't viable or rational.
What you would do is have an even greater economic divide, more people having to work every day of their lives, and more people needing that same government to feed them and their children and provide them healthcare.

You're not going to state who the fuck you are to involve yourself in other people's job decision-making?

You even support making any wage you don't agree with, FOR SOMEONE ELSE, illegal, but you aren't going to say who the fuck you're supposed to be to take such a position?

 

[QueEx]

You must be losing an argument, again. Your lack of respect for fellow posters tends to become much more noticeable when that happens.

 

[Greed]

You must be losing an argument, again. Your lack of respect for fellow posters tends to become much more noticeable when that happens.

The emphasis I stressed to match you people's grandiose delusion, that you have a say in millions of workers decision making, seemed inadequate when I first posted it. Now I'm getting called out.

Let me diffuse the situation.

Obama is Jesus. Everthing he says is gospel. No policy he suggests ever leaves anyone worse off.

That should buy me some time until blackness isn't define by blind support of half-white Jesus.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

The emphasis I stressed to match you people's grandiose delusion, that you have a say in millions of workers decision making, seemed inadequate when I first posted it. Now I'm getting called out.

Let me diffuse the situation.

Obama is Jesus. Everthing he says is gospel. No policy he suggests ever leaves anyone worse off.

That should buy me some time until blackness isn't define by blind support of half-white Jesus.

You must be losing an argument, again. Your lack of respect for fellow posters tends to become much more noticeable when that happens.

For him to type that rant, even after I typed this (which he clearly didn't read or chose to ignore)

Now if someone could recommend something that saves every single person, I'd be willing to listen.

means even he thinks he's not faring well in this debate at all.

Minimum wage laws have been around a lot longer than Obama but now that's what he wants to talk about like it's relevant.

 

[Greed]

For him to type that rant, even after I typed this (which he clearly didn't read or chose to ignore)

means even he thinks he's not faring well in this debate at all.

Minimum wage laws have been around a lot longer than Obama but now that's what he wants to talk about like it's relevant.

Have I not, in this thread and other, said you getting out of other people's way is the solution. There is no such thing as a policy that saves everyone, since everyone has a different idea of what it means to be saved. Some people's idea of being saved is getting a low-wage opportunity, but you're definitely not in favor of that.

Just like with QueEx, if someone says something you disagree with, they apparently never said anything at all.

Anyway, I mentioned minimum wage in the context of government polices that distort the labor market like Obamacare. You're the one that got stuck on it, and posted the latest minimum wage news in your own Obamacare thread.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Have I not, in this thread and other, said you getting out of other people's way is the solution. There is no such thing as a policy that saves everyone, since everyone has a different idea of what it means to be saved. Some people's idea of being saved is getting a low-wage opportunity, but you're definitely not in favor of that.

Just like with QueEx, if someone says something you disagree with, they apparently never said anything at all.

Anyway, I mentioned minimum wage in the context of government polices that distort the labor market like Obamacare. You're the one that got stuck on it, and posted the latest minimum wage news in your own Obamacare thread.

I know I did, it's my thread.
It's not just an "Obamacare" thread, it's a CBO thread.
CBO posts good news on Obamacare and it gets very little media play and most of that is wrong.
Now they have a report showing the consequences of raising the minimum wage and the media take off with the negative and underreport the positive.

 

[QueEx]

Congressional Budget Office
Misses the Mark on Minimum Wage

The Congressional Budget Office released a report that said that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10
an hour could eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
said the “report spelled dire consequences.” Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
​

Earlier this week the fight for the minimum wage suffered its greatest setback since President Obama swung behind the idea last year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)—the nonpartisan research arm of the United States Congress—issued a report that said that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could eliminate [PDF] hundreds of thousands of jobs. Not surprisingly both the press and political leaders seized on the news. An Associated Press headline proclaimed “Democrats on defensive after Congress’ budget analysts pin job losses to minimum wage increase.”

In turn, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that the report “spelled dire consequences” that would lead to “fewer jobs” and “less opportunity.” The problem is that these conclusions are way off the mark, and wrong conclusions could lead to the wrong answer of not raising the minimum wage.​

​

Increasing the minimum wage is so pivotal because wages overall are at their lowest level in more than 40 years even as corporate profits are higher than they’ve been in 60 years, and 90 percent of the increase in wealth since 2000 has gone to the top 1 percent. This collapse in income hits struggling Americans particularly hard, and is a leading reason why half of all Americans are either in poverty or one paycheck away from an economic crisis. The tremendous pressure that all of this places on historically marginalized communities can be traced back to the stagnation of the minimum wage which, adjusted for inflation, is the lowest since 1968.

In fact, raising the minimum wage is essential to decreasing income inequality and raising the living standards of economically marginalized Americans who are disproportionately women and people of color. The nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities concludes that most of the growing inequality “between middle- and low-wage women reflects the erosion in the value of the minimum wage.” As the Economic Policy Institute lays out, six out of 10 of those benefiting from the minimum wage are women. Four out of 10 are either black or Latino, higher than than the proportion of African-Americans and Latinos in the general population. When its all said and done, close to 20 million Americans would see an increase in pay and up to eight million people could be lifted out of the poverty. Over half of the benefits of the increase would flow to families living on less than $40,000 a year.

These facts about the minimum wage are not contested by the CBO report. Actually, on poverty, the CBO agrees with the conclusion that a minimum wage hike would lift families out of poverty to the tune of $5 billion a year. But where the CBO’s analysis goes off the rails is on its assumption that an increase would lead to the loss of 500,000 jobs.


Assumptions versus facts

The CBO’s jobs loss analysis runs into trouble in a few places and misses a broader point.

First CBO’s forecast is out out of step with over 60 independent studies that say that the minimum wage has very little impact on joblessness. Raising the minimum wage neither noticeably helps create nor undermines the number of jobs available. That’s why Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), sponsor of the minimum wage bill in Congress’ Upper Chamber, called the job loss estimate a “myth.” Seven Nobel prize winning economists agree with him. For example, 2011 Nobel prize winner Christopher Sims told Bloomberg that there is “very small, if any, negative effects on employment.” Even CBO itself estimates that job losses could range anywhere from 1 million to zero. Therefore, the setback for the minimum wage effort posed by the report is possibly more one of perception than fact.

But there’s another way which job-killing analysis may be in error. Much of economic analysis, including the CBO report, is based upon assumptions about the future rather than an actual knowledge of it. That’s why economics is a social science rather than an actual one. Many predictions are based upon reasonable guesses about the time ahead which can easily be wrong. The CBO assumptions in the report stray into this fuzzier territory.​

The key assumption by the CBO report is that the $10.10 minimum wage hike is so different in nature that all of the hard evidence gathered over the country’s 40-year experience with other minimum wage hikes doesn’t apply and should be laid to the side. Among the two elements that they cite make this hike unique are that: 1) its a relatively large increase at close to 50 percent above the current minimum wage and 2) will go up every year as prices increase due to the fact that—for the first time in history— it will be tied to the annual inflation rate.

The CBO says that the differences proposed in this minimum wage are so new that it has to “simulate” what their impact will be, because companies large and small have never had to contend with them. But by their own estimate “simulation” rather than using America’s actual history with the minimum wage leads to different conclusions about what actual jobs losses might be. That’s why the CBO conclusions are so different than dozens of other studies.

It’s important to note that there’s nothing inherently flawed about the CBO’s data or methodology. But what is open to debate is whether its assumptions about the minimum wage are accurate given all of the available evidence. There’s a strong argument to be made that it’s not.


All of these twists and turns over numbers and assumptions can be confusing but they actually lead to the pivotal factor in all of this. The truth is that the moral and economic questions at stake in whether America raises its minimum wage are too big to be left to statisticians and their spreadsheets. They go to the very essence of what America is all about and what we consider to be bedrock economic rights and wrongs. And the answer to these questions can’t be answered by econometrics. They actually have to answered by all of us.
​

SOURCE: COLORLINES

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Interesting.

The one thing I find more interesting than the CBO is the reactions to it's reports, especially on contentious issues.

 

[QueEx]

IDK U.D.

Interesting or consistent?

Seems to me the President's detractors (whether the right-leaning media or the right-wing politicos who appear unwilling to accept his legitimacy or tolerate any success through him)spare no attempt to raise any "possible" discrepancy, problem, etc., to the level of scandal or incompetency. Consistently.

.