Letter to Editor:

Remarkable that few have put together the significance of the headline news. Yes, the Affordable Care Act MAY reduce full time employment and cause small businesses to hire fewer workers, but Boomers are delaying retirement and young people experience lower success finding jobs and setting up separate households. The mostly obvious conclusion is that some Boomers find themselves suffering chronic illnesses that limit their job effectiveness or want to take a chance on their own business venture and would like to retire early or at least work part time which will open job opportunities for others-middle aged or young.

Small businesses still suffer from very conservative lending standards and loan covenants that make them reluctant to hire more employees, so their avoidance of ramping up hiring is not based simply on the potential imposition of costs or fines based on health care law mandates. Rational economic analysis suggests that all businesses-not just small ones-rely upon complex evaluations of employee productivity, sales increase probability and bottom line potential net revenue. . If a small business views costs of health insurance as a detriment to growth, then they are unfortunately in a low margin, limited growth business. The government cannot solve that.

Lastly, we Boomers have had a great run! We enjoyed fabulous low cost/high value education opportunities; high growth economic times and expanding technologies while the US dominated world economic well-being.  We are reaching late 50’s and early 60’s healthier than our parents. But, we are burdened by financially supporting not only our parents, but our children who have not thrived as we did. So, we may be willing to cut expenses and scale down in order to preserve our assets, take the time to care for ailing parents, and perhaps motivate children to accept financial independence. Besides, determining the value of a bigger house, more expensive clothes and investments diminishes for most of us as we see more clearly the sources of joy in our lives.

Early retirement or acceptance of part time employment for people over 60 will surely make more jobs available to younger people in this country since Boomers have filled roles that are less likely to be digitally transferrable offshore.

So, there are many winners in this transition-people able to cut back on work as they seek quality of life over wealth, struggle with chronic illnesses or early onset disabilities of aging. Business growth based on careful evaluation of opportunities and net income growth underpins all sound business decisions. Most important, enabling millions of young people to find jobs or improved jobs is necessary for many who were harmed by the recession in ways that have postponed their independence and careers.

Let’s look at the Big Picture-not headline stories portraying narrowly focused impacts, not portraying the larger implications and longer term effects.