The recent report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) regarding some of the impacts of the Affordable Care Act has launched a new round of attacks by conservatives against the ACA, commonly known as Obamacare. 

The report indicated that health care reform might actually be responsible for a reduction in the total number of hours worked by employees over the course of seven years.

While Republicans seized on that number, which works out to be the equivalent of around two million jobs, some Democrats have pushed back with competing statistics to support their argument that Obamacare is good legislation for the country. 

During a recent television appearance, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) said the following:

"You know, if you look at international comparisons country by country, Americans work way more than an average of industrialized countries around the world."

We asked our partners at PolitiFact to fit this fact-check into their busy day without getting into an overtime situation.  PolitiFact reporter Joshua Gillin reports back that Ellison's claim rates MOSTLY TRUE on the Truth-O-Meter.

"Rep. Ellison has numbers that back up the idea that workers in the United States work more hours than workers in other developed countries," said Gillin.  "Ellison gets a downgraded rating on the meter because he used the phrase 'way more' when he was comparing the U.S. to other countries.  The problem with that is that the numbers aren't really that far off."

PolitiFact pulled the latest report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an organization that tracks the average annual number of hours worked in 34 countries around the world. 

The November 2013 report indicates that the average annual number of hours worked is 1,715 hours per worker per year, while in the United States, that number is 1,790 hours per worker per year.  Expressed another way, U.S. workers work about 1.5 more hours a week than the international average, or about 4.4 percent more.

Gillin points out that an extra 90 minutes per work week really can't be categorized as "way more" when it comes to time worked between American workers and workers from other industrial companies.  Ellison gets is right, but overstates the amount of hours worked, which leads to a MOSTLY TRUE rating from the Truth-O-Meter.

 

SOURCES: AMERICANS WORKING MORE