Forbes, February 4, 2014
By my read, the report released today by the Congressional Budget Office is the first time that CBO explicitly acknowledes the impact of Obamacare on the wage-labor relationship and incentives for full-time work.
In its new budget outlook, CBO very clearly states that Obamacare amounts to an implicit tax on work and workers.
Here’s how the CBO arrives at its new conclusion:
As workers transition from part time work (without benefits) to full time work (with health benefits) many workers will actually lose income in the form of the subsidies that they will have to forgo (and the additional fact that lower wage workers, who are in lower tax brackets, won’t benefit as much from the implicit subsidy they will get from the special tax treatment of health benefits that they receive by purchasing their health insurance through their employer).