Monday, November 5, 2012

Obamacare’s War on Women

We noted this morning’s Wall Street Journal article outlining the many companies that are reducing the hiring of full-time workers due to Obamacare’s impending employer mandate.  But while the impact of Obamacare on jobs is well-known, perhaps less known is the fact that women will be hit hardest by Obamacare’s job cuts.

Because Obamacare’s mandate hits low-wage workers hardest, studies have demonstrated that women are disproportionately likely to be affected by the mandate.  For instance, in 2007 Harvard Professor Kate Baicker published an analysis examining the impact of one type of employer mandate.  Her work demonstrated that, under the scenario modeled, millions of low-wage workers would be “at substantial risk of unemployment” – and that the workers at risk “tend to be disproportionately low-education, minority, and female.”

Over the past several months, Democrats have spent countless hours drumming up charges of a Republican “war on women,” based on supposed attempts to restrict access to contraception.  But studies like the Baicker paper confirm that the real “war on women” is being waged by Democrats – whose policies will restrict access to jobs for hard-working females.