As was pointed out in an earlier post, the right wing media world is in a frenzy over a CBO report that they claim shows that the ACA will cause a loss of jobs. That’s not really what the report says, though.

In fact, Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the CBO stated as much in testimony to a House Committee. Of course Greg Sargent noted the day before Elmendorf testified that the attacks were deceitful (Don’t you love how politely I put that?) and just didn’t jibe with what the report really says at all. The report actually states:

The reduction in CBO’s projections of hours worked
represents a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent
workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about
2.5 million in 2024. Although CBO projects that total
employment (and compensation) will increase over the
coming decade, that increase will be smaller than it would
have been in the absence of the ACA. The decline in fulltime-
equivalent employment stemming from the ACA
will consist of some people not being employed at all and
other people working fewer hours; however, CBO has not
tried to quantify those two components of the overall
effect. The estimated reduction stems almost entirely
from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers
choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’
demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely
as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours
worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise
rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more
workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment
(such as part-time workers who would prefer to
work more hours per week).

The emphasis is mine, of course. Yet in spite of what I think of as a fairly clear statement that does not say what Republican politicians, bloggers, activists and sloppy reporters say it does the meme is still being pushed and defended when they are called on it. Again.