Hasthe availability of coverage under the Affordable Care Act spurredan increase in retirement by older workers? (Photo:Shutterstock)

If older workers have access to health careoutside the workplace, do they choose to retire rather than keepworking? Employers struggling to fill vacancies in a tightlabor market might be wondering, concerned that the pool of olderworkers they have to draw on is shrinking. However, such does notappear to be the case.

A working paper from the Michigan Retirement andDisability Research Center at the University of Michigan looked atthe figures to see whether the availability of coverage under theAffordable Care Act spurred an increase inretirement by older workers—and found, surprisingly, that theanswer was in the negative.

Among the paper's key findings were a significant increase incoverage among Americans ages 50–64 after the ACA became effectivein 2014, with the uninsured rate dropping from 16 percent in 2013to 12 percent in 2014 and 10 percent in 2015 and 2016.

Previous studies had suggested the potential for a rise inretirement among older workers once they were able to obtaincoverage through the ACA. As a result, many analysts expected thatACA implementation in 2014 would reduce the labor supply of olderworkers.

But that didn't happen.

In fact, says the paper, "We find no changes in labor supply ofolder Americans either in response to subsidized marketplacecoverage, which became available nationally in 2014, or in responseto the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in some states but notothers. We fail to find labor supply effects even for subgroupswith less than a high school education or those with fair or poorhealth, who might have been expected to have a greater labor supplyresponse."

Considering the results of the earlier studies that projected adrop in the older labor force once coverage was available,researchers concluded that the "political uncertainty" surroundingthe ACA and Medicaid expansion "discourage[s] older workers fromcounting on them when making career decisions."

Thus, no drop in the older workforce despite earlier indicationsto the contrary.

The paper concludes that "for Americans approaching retirementthe Affordable Care Act achieved its primary goal of increasingcoverage without the unintended consequence of reducing laborsupply."

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