No, the tax cut was not 'necessary. For the umptee

No, the tax cut was not 'necessary. For the umpteenth time you don't cut taxes when the economy is growing and the unemployment numbers are falling.

Not without blowing up the deficit even more.

Where the money for Defense and infrastructure?

And you pulled the part-time jobs myth out of your ass, again. The vast majority of people were and are in the employer sponsored health care market. The ACA is too small a percentage to move the part time employment number.

Clinton is not an imbecile. Trump is.

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Critics of the law say businesses may artificially keep employees under the 30-hour threshold so they can avoid the costs associated with providing them health care.

Little to no evidence

Is that happening?


Is that happening?

Anecdotally, there are examples critics of the law can point to. Some universities, for instance, have capped the number of hours a student can work on a university job below the Obamacare threshold. The trouble with this evidence, however, is it's unclear how many students or employees are affected. Or in the case of students, if they ever really were considered full time.

In the macro, there is little evidence of a large-scale migration to part-time work.

In April 2010, the first full month under the Affordable Care Act, there were almost 9.2 million part-time workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS defines part-time as working 34 hours or less.

Through May 2016, there are actually far fewer part-time workers, not more. According to BLS, there were 6.4 million part-time workers in May -- an almost 30 percent drop compared to April 2010. There also is still a decrease in part-time workers comparing the current figure to when the employer mandates under the health care law took effect, in January 2015 and January 2016, respectively.

Now BLS data isn't perfect for answering this question. The BLS threshold in hours per week for "full-time" employment is different than it is for the Affordable Care Act. In addition, BLS counts someone who works two 20-hour-a-week part time jobs as one full-time worker. Both of these factors complicate any calculations using BLS data.

But the data is largely corroborated by scientific research.

An August 2015 study from the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, for instance, concluded that there is no increase in part-time work because of the law. "There is little evidence that the ACA has caused the shift across hours categories, or led to an increase in part-time employment," the study concluded. "However, the ACA could cause a shift towards part-time work in the future as the mandate takes effect. "

"The truth is, it doesn’t show up in the data yet," said co-author and American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Aparna Mathur.

A January 2016 study published in Health Affairs, "Little Change Seen In Part-Time Employment As A Result Of The Affordable Care Act,"reached the same basic conclusion with the exception of a possible rise for people with little education and those between 60-64 years old.

And whether it will ever show up in the data is debatable, according to Bowen Garrett, an economist at the Urban Institute, a Washington D.C. economic research non-profit. He argues in a February 2016 blog post that workers could be "equally influenced" by the Great Recession.

"We’ve been in a labor market recovery. We’re not becoming a nation of part-time workers," Garrett said.

Vanderbilt University public policy professor Carolyn Heinrich co-authored a study published in June 2016 looking at the Affordable Care Act’s effect on part-time workers who want to work full-time in the retail and food service sectors.

The study uses Hawaii as a control group, noting that the state has required employers to provide health insurance to employees who work more than 20 hours per week since 1974. Based on the findings, the study estimates a 2 to 3 percent increase in part-time work associated with the Affordable Care Act.

Trump’s "suggestion that many people previously had full-time jobs and have now been pushed into part-time jobs is also greatly exaggerated," Heinrich said. "The people who are working less since Obamacare were more likely to be working hours close to the 30-hour threshold (that defines full-time work under the ACA), or less than 40 hours per week."

Our ruling

Trump said, "Because of Obamacare, you have so many part-time jobs."

While some research suggests a small uptick in the number of part-time jobs as a result of the Affordable Care Act, Trump’s claim goes too far.

Neither the data nor the experts (on the right and left) say Trump’s claim is accurate.

We rate Trump’s claim False.

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