NEW YORK (MainStreet)  Is the Affordable Care Act (ACA) increasing the size of the 'precariat' - especially among Millennials? The early indications are that it is.

For those unfamiliar with the word, "precariat" is a portmanteau of the words "precarious" and "proletariat." It is used to describe those who have little or no job security; these folks very often work at jobs for which they are overqualified.

The depressed economy hit Millennials hard. Unemployment among Millennials exceeds the national average  between 12% and 16% as opposed to the general 7%. It put many in the precariat class.

Obamacare, for all its noble intentions, seems to have made this worse.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey recently said during an interview with a cable news network that Obamacare is hurting his employees. The mandate has created an incentive among employers, he alleges, to hire fewer full time workers.

The plight of Mackey's workers is not unusual. Many employers are changing full time workers to part time to avoid the necessity of coping with the health care mandate. Many companies eliminated health insurance benefits for the same reason. It was cheaper for them to pay the fine for not offering insurance for their employees and letting the employees buy through the exchanges or enroll in Medicaid.

Predictably, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a different opinion of the economic effects of Obamacare. It posted a video on its website quoting a gentleman by the name of Mark Sullivan.

"The Affordable Care Act, for me, was absolutely a job creator," Sullivan says. "I like to call it the entrepreneurial tax credit. I was able to browse through 76 plans and pick one that best fit my needs  which made it easy to figure out what was good for me. I found a plan that was exactly what I wanted. Now, I get to invest more in my business and less into health insurance."

HHS says that tax credits for Sullivan means he will only pay $78 a month for health coverage as of January 1. "Knowing that I have this plan that covers me in case of an accident or problem is incredibly meaningful," he says.

Obamacare advocates tout the November jobs report as proof that the program has not deleteriously affected employment. The report showed unemployment decreasing. But as the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted much of this was the result of furloughed federal workers returning to work. Still private sector employment did increase. So this runs counter to the doomsayers.

But the Obamacare cheerleaders omit that President Barack Obama delayed the employer mandate, so the motivation to go part time was eliminated. Also the BLS divides part time workers into voluntary (those who choose to be part-time) and involuntary (those who cannot find full-time work).

Involuntary part-time workers remain a significant amount of the total.

A San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank study addressed this. It acknowledged that the ACA's impact would not be great. But it did say there would be an impact.

"An alternative interpretation of the persistent high level of involuntary part-time work due to an inability to find full-time work is that it reflects employer anticipation of the 30-hour cutoff for mandatory employee health benefits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010," the report states. "This phenomenon will probably continue, although perhaps at a slower pace due to the recently announced delay in implementation of the employer mandate to 2015."

Others are more definite. They say that Obamacare is creating a precariat class especially for Millennials. Edmund F. Haislmaier, a senior research fellow in health policy studies for the Heritage Foundation, a Washington D.C. think tank, is one of them.

"What is happening is the creation of a serfdom," said Haislmaier. "If you think about it, there are very wealthy people paying the taxes, so they feel good about themselves helping the poor, and then there are the poor. It is the middle class that is forgotten. They are the ones most burdened by the higher taxes and increased regulation. As more of the middle class leave, places like California and New York are beginning to look like Russia before Catherine the Great."

Haislmaier also noted that Obamacare encourages employers to keep low wage workers on Medicaid by limiting their pay rates and hours worked. He points out that as long as those workers don't earn too much for Medicaid, their employers not only don't have to pay for their health insurance but also avoid Obamacare's fines for not offering them coverage. The trade-off for the workers is that they can keep their "free" health coverage (Medicaid), and their jobs, so long as their incomes remain low. Thus, a program initially established for the vulnerable poor (children and disabled) becomes a catch-all for low paid, able-bodied workers, half of whom are young adults.

"This means Medicaid is now added to the list of government initiatives that actively discourage economic upward mobility," declared Haislmaier.

Written by Michael P. Tremoglie for MainStreet