Policy

Immigration Bill May Reduce Obamacare Employer Fines

The fines incentivize businesses to hire immigrants over citizens

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The Senate Gang of Eight is working to fix the unintended hiring advantage their bill would give to newly legalized immigrants over U.S. citizens as a side effect of ObamaCare.

A careful analysis suggests that any politically realistic fix likely has to involve sharply reducing the health law's employer fines.

As first reported by IBD, many employers will owe up to $3,000 per full-time worker who taps ObamaCare's insurance exchange subsidies. But newly legalized immigrants would be ineligible for those subsidies.

As a result, many employers deciding whether to employ a legalized immigrant or citizen full-time would have a big incentive to favor the immigrant. Because the annual fine of up to $3,000 is nondeductible, it is equivalent to as much as $5,000 in wages for companies paying a combined 40% federal and state tax rate.