“If you take a look at the net equivalent of 2.5 million equivalent jobs being lost that needs to be interpreted into the states that are affected by it. That’s how you can really point to the problems with Obamacare. It’s not affordable. It’s not fiscally sustainable.”

— Senator-elect Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), interview on Fox Business Network, Nov. 10, 2014

Thom Tillis is a newly-minted senator from North Carolina, having narrowly defeated the incumbent, Sen. Kay Hagan (D). But in one of his first interviews since the campaign ended, he hauled out a stale talking point that has long been debunked.

What’s dismaying about this is that The Fact Checker called out Tillis on this issue back in February, when his campaign first aired an ad making this claim. Time for a refresher course!

The Facts

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in February issued a report that said that the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, would reduce “full-time equivalent employment” by about 2.3 million by 2021.

But this statistic is not about jobs offered by employers. It’s about workers — and the choices they make.

The CBO’s estimate is mostly the result of an analysis of the impact of the law on the supply of labor. That means how many people choose to participate in the work force. In other words, the agency is examining whether the law increases or decreases incentives for people to work.

As the CBO puts it in the report (note the sections highlighted in bold):

“The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).”

Indeed, in congressional testimony, CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf was asked about claims that jobs are being lost because of the law. Here’s what he said:

The reason that we don’t use the term “lost jobs” is there’s a critical difference between people who like to work and can’t find a job or have a job that was lost for reasons beyond their control and people who choose not to work. If somebody comes up to you and says, “Well, the boss said I’m being laid off because we don’t have enough business to pay me,” that person feels bad about that and we sympathize with them having lost their job. If somebody comes to you and says, “I’ve decided to retire” or “I’ve decided to stay home and spend more time with my family” and “I’ve decided to spend more time doing my hobby,” they don’t feel bad about it, they feel good about it, and we don’t sympathize. We say congratulations. And we don’t say they’ve lost their job because they have chosen to leave that job.

Still, fans of the Affordable Care Act should not jump to the conclusion that departing workers will be simply replaced by other workers. Assuming a “normal” unemployment rate of 5 percent, employers’ demand for jobs would equal 95 percent of the supply of workers. Fewer workers initially would lead to higher wages as employers competed to hire people. But over time, the nation ends up with a slightly smaller economy because of the smaller workforce.

Whether this is good or bad might depend on your political perspective. Conservatives may decry the smaller economy that will result; liberals might celebrate that workers will not be bound to their jobs because of health insurance.

But in any case, it’s completely incorrect to suggest that the CBO’s “2.3 million” are all lost jobs.

Daniel Keylin, a Tillis spokesman, said the senator-elect purposely used “net equivalent” in the interview to indicate that this number referred to the equivalent of that many workers choosing not to work.

Tillis at least recognized that this is an “equivalent” number. But the CBO’s figures represent a combination of two conclusions: fewer people looking for work and some people choosing to work fewer hours. The CBO added those two things and produced a hard number, but it actually does not mean 2.3 million fewer workers, just the “equivalent” of that many full-time workers choosing not to work.

Ultimately, some jobs will go away, but the actual number is unclear because of the unknown interaction between part-time and full-time work. It certainly does not add up to 2.3 million, so the use of the word “jobs” in this context is incorrect.

The Pinocchio Test

Repeat after me. This is not about jobs, but workers.

As a conservative, Tillis would have had every right to make an argument such as: “Obamacare will shrink our economy by driving millions of people to work less, and discouraging some of them from working at all.” That opinion would have been justified by the CBO’s findings.

Instead, Tillis choose a misleading way to discuss the CBO report by keeping the focus of his comments on jobs, even though the CBO explicitly said that was not the case.

Given that the campaign is over, we suggest that Tillis actually read the report before he takes the oath of office. In the meantime, he earns Three Pinocchios.

Three Pinocchios





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