President Obama and Democrats are planning to make paid leave the next campaign wedge issue in order to paint Republicans as out of touch with the working class.
But Jonathan Gruber may once again come to the rescue of Republicans, due to the fact that the Obamacare architect found in past research that increasing mandated benefits would result in lower wages.
Gruber, you may recall, is the man who claimed that the “stupidity” of American voters aided Democrats in passing Obamacare through Congress.
RELATED: Jonathan Gruber and his Obamacare memory hole
Heritage Foundation labor scholar James Sherk noted in a recent article for the Daily Signal that in 1990 and 1994, Gruber found that mandating increased benefits would actually lead to reduced wages.
In a 1994 article for the American Economic Review on maternity benefits, Gruber wrote, “I study several state and federal mandates which stipulated that childbirth be covered comprehensively in health insurance plans, raising the relative cost of insuring women of childbearing age. I find substantial shifting of the costs of these mandates to the wages of the targeted group.”
RELATED: White House to push for paid leave
Sherk also argued that a paid leave proposal from the Obama administration would lead to lower wages for workers, because employers would seek to keep overall compensation costs the same.
“The popularity of Obama’s paid sick leave proposal depends on workers not realizing it ultimately comes out of their paychecks,” Sherk wrote. “If the president’s proposal becomes law, many workers will lose the equivalent of seven days of pay a year.”
But why let facts get in the way of a good narrative, right?
RELATED: Gruber told the truth about Obamacare — then he was sworn in
