Mandated health insurance and the low-wage labor market

Lee, Dwight R.; Warren, Ronald S.

doi:10.1007/s12122-999-0018-x

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…One theoretical perspective suggests that employers should be indifferent as to how total compensation for workers (wages or salaries and benefits) is apportioned between wages and other forms of compensation (Lettau and Buchmueller 1999). In fact, Lee and Warren (1999) suggest that employer provision of nonwage benefits may initially appear illogical, in the sense that firms could convert cost savings from eliminating benefits into increases in wages that employees could then use to purchase the forms of nonwage compensation that they value most.…”

Section: Background On Benefits Compensationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Potential Effects of Federal Health Insurance Reforms on Employment Arrangements and Compensation

Dillender¹,

Heinrich²,

Houseman³

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in ABSTRACTThe 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 similar to the ACA in many ways. We find, contrary to prior research, that the Massachusetts reform resulted in modest increases in part-time employment among low-educated workers. We then identify the characteristics of employers and employees most affected by the ACA's employer mandate. For the period 2010 to 2012, we estimate that workers who were not offered health insurance at their workplaces but whose employers would be required to offer health insurance under the ACA made up about 5 percent of the workforce and that reducing average weekly hours worked may be relatively straightforward for employers in industries with the largest concentrations of these workers (e.g., retail trade and accommodation and food services). We also point to recent industry patterns of involuntary part-time employment and temporary help use that are consistent with these potential effects of the employer mandate.JEL Codes: I13, J3

show abstract

Section: Background On Benefits Compensationmentioning

confidence: 99%