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Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Employment relationships

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Full-Text Articles in Health Economics

Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Part-Time Employment: Early Evidence, Marcus O. Dillender, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Susan N. Houseman (Corresponding Author) Jun 2016

Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Part-Time Employment: Early Evidence, Marcus O. Dillender, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Susan N. Houseman (Corresponding Author)

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires employers with at least 50 full-time-equivalent employees to offer “affordable” health insurance to employees working 30 or more hours per week. If employers do not comply with the mandate, they may face substantial financial penalties. Employers can potentially circumvent the mandate by reducing weekly hours below the 30-hour threshold or by using other nonstandard employment arrangements (direct-hire temporaries, agency temporaries, small contractors, and independent contractors). We examine the effects of the ACA on short-hours, part-time employment. Using monthly CPS data, we estimate that the ACA resulted in an increase in low-hours, involuntary part-time employment …


The Potential Effects Of Federal Health Insurance Reforms On Employment Arrangements And Compensation, Marcus O. Dillender, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Susan N. Houseman Apr 2015

The Potential Effects Of Federal Health Insurance Reforms On Employment Arrangements And Compensation, Marcus O. Dillender, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Susan N. Houseman

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) presents an opportunity to significantly improve compensation for American workers. A potential concern, though, is that employers will circumvent the employer mandate by increasing their use of workers in staffing arrangements that are not covered by the mandate: workers averaging less than 30 hours per week, working on a temporary basis, or working in organizations with fewer than 50 full-time employees. In this paper, we shed light on the likely effects that the ACA will have on employment arrangements. We first examine how part-time employment in Massachusetts changed after its health insurance reform, which is …