Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

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I think the article missed a step here... it spends a lot of time wondering why people would not want more leisure time, and spends time boggling at why people would be upset about having their hours cut.

Well... you know, as a journalist-type piece, did you consider going out there and, you know, asking someone?

Because all the answers that leap to mind based on what I've seen out in the world in my circle of acquaintance, which (as I don't live in the valley) is not full of computer programmers, pretty much make the piece an entire waste of time because it fundamentally misses the mark. The people complaining about not having jobs and getting their hours cut are not people who are all well-to-do and just working because "what the heck else are they going to do?".

It also boggles my mind that one could write an article like this without examining the question of marginal value of time... if one is in the "leisure class" and has a job that pays $200/hour, when examining how much the person chooses to work one can't miss the fact that they have an option to make $200/hour. It shouldn't be that surprising that one might choose to work a bit more at that valuation.

> spends time boggling at why people would be upset about having their hours cut

I don't think this is fair. From the original article:

> [...] the Affordable Care Act might result in millions of workers’ scaling back from full-time to part-time jobs.

The implication is that millions of workers would be voluntarily cutting back their hours, since they no longer need to be employed full-time to get health care -- not that these workers would be having their hours cut. It's people like Rand Paul and talk-show hosts who are complaining complaining that other people might start choosing to work less hours overall ("adding insult to injury").

If people who are currently fully employed choose to reduce their hours, that means more work is available for those who are interested in working more -- there's no conflict of interest here.

The implication is that people who used to have a full time position would now be forced to take a part time position. The ACA employer mandate only applies to companies with more than 50 full-time employees, incentivizing employers to have less than 50 full-time employees. The thought is that some companies around this limit will avoid the mandate by making a greater percentage of their employees be part-time.

That said, the employer mandate has been delayed until 2015 for companies with >100 employees, and until 2016 for companies with 50-99 employees.

This is 100% incorrect; you've entirely misunderstood the discussion in this thread, the OP Chronicle article, and the Politico article that _that_ is referencing. You're confusing that discussion with an entirely different concern about the ACA (the mandate causing fulltime jobs to be cut to part-time jobs) that is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

From the OP article:

> In February he published an article in Politico celebrating a projection that the Affordable Care Act might result in millions of workers’ scaling back from full-time to part-time jobs.

From the article referenced by that passage (and linked directly from it):

> This week, America’s political class has been consumed by an intense, vitriolic debate over a single number: 2.5 million. That’s the amount by which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, President Obama’s signature health care law will effectively reduce the U.S. work force over the next decade. The initial Republican reaction was predictable: Pundits filled the airwaves, Cassandra-like, to paint Obamacare as the ultimate job killer. Never mind that, reading the fine print, it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law—not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back.

Following the link through to the Politico article:

> Never mind that, reading the fine print, it’s clear the CBO was talking about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law—not getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back. [0]

I don't mean to take a position on how the changes in health care law will affect employment; but I think it's clear that the article is talking just about the forecast of voluntary reductions, along with the corresponding press.

[0]: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/jobs-leisure-...

Ah, didn't realize that there was this dimension to the debate. Sorry for the hasty/inaccurate comment, and thanks for correcting me.

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