A study done by the National Employment Law Project has some troubling results on wages.

• Americans’ after-inflation wages have dropped by almost 3% since President Barack Obama’s inauguration
• people who earn between $10.61 and $14.21—in the minimum wage range—have seen their incomes drop by more than 4%
• restaurant cooks, food preparation workers, home health aides, personal care aides, and maids and housekeepers lost 5%

Hmm….

…or, in this case, Obamacare, or maybe just generalized government meddling in people’s lives through our free market.

Ken Adams has been turning to more part-time workers at his 10 Subway sandwich shops in Michigan….

He added approximately 25 part-time workers in May and June as he reduced some employees’ hours and replaced other workers who left.  The move showed how efforts by some restaurant owners and other businesses to remake their workforces because of the Affordable Care Act may be turning the country’s labor market into a more part-time workforce.

And

For the entire U.S. workforce, employers have added far more part-time employees in 2013—averaging 93,000 a month, seasonally adjusted—than full-time workers, which have averaged 22,000.  Last year the reverse was true, with employers adding 31,000 part-time workers monthly, compared with 171,000 full-time ones.

Because delays in enforcing Obamacare notwithstanding, businesses need both to get their full-time numbers down in order to reduce their Obamacare cost baselines, and absent repeal, those delays will come to an end in just 12 short months.  Indeed, the practical effect of the delays is simply to prolong and enhance the hiring of part-timers rather than full-timers.

Here’s a more direct example:

Rod Carstensen, owner of 11 Del Taco restaurants around Denver, began in April converting his mostly full-time workforce into one comprising mostly part-time help to minimize his health-care costs.  He estimates the costs could have climbed by as much as $400,000 a year without the change.

It’s temporary work, whether under contract or not.  It’s also part-time, whether under contract or not (OK, that’s two aspects.  Sue me.)

The nation’s unemployment rate still stands at 7.6%, but there is one area showing significant improvement: temporary and contracting work.

An estimated 17 million people are employed in these areas of the labor force, making up 12% of all employed people in the US.

Here’s a clue of why that is:

Full-time workers come with benefits packages that tend to include health care and retirement plans, which come with a hefty price tag for companies still unsure of the economic recovery.

Health care and pensions—for those employers still using these instead of 401(k)-like retirement plans—are horribly expensive.  And no, this isn’t another anti-Obama screed.  Even before Obamacare and public service union pension-caused city bankruptcies, health and pension benefits were horribly expensive.  The Panic of 2008 just brought those to light, and Obamacare only made a terrible health side worse.

And there’s that uncertainty about this failed recovery and when it will start in earnest.  Here’s James Sherk, senior policy analyst in Labor Economics at The Heritage Foundation:

In many cases, employers are not confident to bring in regular, full-time employees because it may hurt the entire firm.  This is the most disturbing trend, due to the weak economy.  It’s an economy and situation where employers aren’t seeing their shelves pick up, so they won’t commit to hiring a full-time employee.

“Hurt the entire firm.”  This is an area where Obamacare exacerbates an already bad situation.  A full-time employee costs the employer a minimum $2,000 in health benefits—that’s the fine the employer pays for not providing benefits that suit the Federal government’s definition of adequacy.  If the business isn’t there to cover that added cost, the employer would be stupid to hire that employee, at least full-time.

Another downside is that part-time workers or contract workers who know their contract expires in a few months (another version of part-time work) have their own uncertainty about the future—their future.  This makes them less willing to spend the money they do earn until they have to.  That reduced demand lowers the ability of employers to sell their product.  Those reduced sales lower the employers’ interest and ability to hire.  That reduced hiring incentive….