A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office indicated that 2 million Americans would voluntarily leave their jobs by 2017 as a result of the Affordable Care Act, or the ACA. Ron Crouch, director of research and statistics for the Kentucky Career Centers Office of Employment and Training in the Kentucky Cabinet for Education and Workforce Development, found that the impact felt in Kentucky would be rather small, if national numbers are distributed evenly.
“Kentucky’s January employment number was 1,827,400, and if the national percentage of 1.37 percent leave their employment or reduce their hours due to ACA, that would be 2,504 full-time-equivalent persons,” he wrote to Business Lexington.
“However, it would allow 2,504 full-time-equivalent persons who are unemployed to find employment and at the same time reduce the Kentucky civilian labor force by the persons who leave the workforce altogether. That factor would slightly reduce the unemployment rate in Kentucky as well,” he stated.
People may choose to retire earlier or reduce their work hours who before would not have been able to since they would lose their health-care coverage from their employer, Crouch wrote, citing the CBO’s report that states: “In CBO’s judgment, there is no compelling evidence that part-time employment has increased as a result of the ACA.”
“CBO anticipates that the unemployment rate will remain high for the next several years. If changes in incentives lead some workers to reduce the amount of hours they want to work or to leave the labor force altogether, many unemployed workers will be available to take those jobs — so the effect on overall employment of reductions in labor force supply will be greatly dampened.”
Crouch surmises, “as the CBO report stated, there will be an increase in the demand for health goods and services particularly in poor regions of Kentucky, like southeastern Kentucky, with high rates of uninsured adults resulting in increases in health-care employment.
“The largest industry sector in the 5th Congressional District is health-care, which grew by 11,153 jobs, before ACA, from 27,627 jobs in 2002 to 38,780 jobs in 2011 based on the latest 2011 Census Quarterly Workforce Indicators. Also related to health care are
professional, scientific and technical services, which had the second highest growth of 2,980 jobs, from 4,560 jobs to 7,540 jobs. Overall employment grew by 7,400 jobs from 207,973 jobs to 215,373 jobs, with losses in education and manufacturing jobs and limited gains in retail and mining, and of course mining has declined dramatically since 2012,” Crouch wrote.