Labor Supply Impacts of the Affordable Care Act

Abstract

This study leverages geographic variation in health insurance premiums to estimate the impact of the Affordable Care Act on the US labor market. We link data from the Current Population Survey from 2010 to 2015 with geographic-specific premiums from the health insurance marketplaces. Our findings indicate that the Affordable Care Act resulted in a reduction in hours worked concentrated among households with earnings near 400% of the Federal Poverty Level, which is the eligibility cutoff for subsidies. There is also evidence that low income individuals in states that did not expand Medicaid were incentivized to increase their labor supply.