Fox News Sunday Rehashes Myth That Obamacare Creates A Part-Time Economy

Written by Andrew Lawrence

Published

Fox News Sunday perpetuated the myth that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was causing a rise in part-time jobs at the expense of full-time jobs, despite evidence that shows that 90% of all jobs created since the passage of the ACA have been full-time.

On the September 29 edition of Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace used anecdotal evidence to make the case that the ACA was hurting employment and jobs. Wallace pointed to an Investor's Business Daily study claiming that 313 companies are cutting work hours due to the ACA employer mandate:

But the accusation that the ACA has hurt job full-time job growth has been debunked by economists as well as actual employment data.

In September, Moody Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi disagreed that the ACA had hurt full-time employment on a CNBC panel, saying, “I don't see it in the data.” Previously, Zandi had debunked this claim in comments to USA Today:

As more data come in, the law's impact can't be seen in hiring statistics, says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics.

“I was expecting to see it. I was looking for it, and it's not there,'' says Zandi, whose firm manages ADP's surveys of overall private-sector job creation. If the Affordable Care Act ”were causing a drop, you would see meaningful slowing."

Additionally, Fox News Sunday hosted House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to discuss the Republican plan to shut down the government unless the demand to delay or defund the ACA was met by the Senate and signed into law by President Obama. During the discussion, McCarthy claimed that “when you look at what has transpired since Obamacare has moved forward, we have created more than 840,000 jobs in this country. More than 90% of them have been part-time because of Obamacare.” McCarthy did not offer any citations for his claim, but the reality is different.

In August, the non-partisan fact-checking website Politifact analyzed a claim by Alan Krueger, the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger had asserted that “Since the Affordable Care Act passed, 90 percent of job growth has been in full-time positions.” Politifact agreed, concluding:

Krueger said that “since the Affordable Care Act passed, 90 percent of job growth has been in full-time positions.” The statistics show that 87 percent of the increase in jobs between March 2010 and July 2013 consisted of full-time jobs. A shorter time frame would show the opposite pattern, but on the numbers, Krueger is right. We rate the claim True.