Live Coverage Of The First Republican Debate

Republicans love to claim the Affordable Care Act – you know, “Obamacare” – is killing full-time jobs. There’s precious little evidence to support that claim. The quick version of the argument is that under Obamacare, companies with at least 50 employees will have to start offering health insurance to anyone working at least 30 hours a week. In theory, that incentivizes companies to limit the number of employees working 30 hours or more. There’s lots of anecdotal evidence of that happening and, as I wrote earlier this year, some limited evidence in the jobs data, too. But let’s be clear: If Obamacare is having an effect, it’s a small one. The vast majority of hiring during the recovery has been in full-time jobs, as the chart below shows. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines full-time as 35 hours, not 30, so the chart isn’t a perfect measure of the law’s effect. But the big picture is clear.)

Chris Christie wants to raise the retirement age for Social Security, which could be electoral poison: 58 percent of Republicans over the age of 50 are against this. That’s a very big problem for a candidate who’s relying on doing well in New Hampshire, where 56 percent of Republican primary voters were over the age of 50 in 2012.