GOP lawmakers press for study of health law's effect on wages

House Republicans told the Obama administration on Thursday that it needs to get moving on a study of how the Affordable Care Act will affect wages.

The healthcare law requires the Labor Department to study whether new regulations under the law will lead to a reduction in workers' pay. 

Reps. John Kline (R-Minn.) and Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) said the Labor Department must move forward with the study before finalizing the policies that might affect employment and wages.

"The Department of Labor has a legal obligation to study how the health care law will affect workers’ wages, yet it has failed to do so," the lawmakers said. "Meanwhile, the federal bureaucracy is busy implementing the law at a time when wages are stagnant and 12 million [people] are searching for work."

They noted recent surveys, conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as the Federal Reserve, in which employers said they're holding off on new hires until the healthcare law is fully in place and they can see how they're affected by its employer mandate.

Some businesses have also threatened to cut their employees' hours so they won't have to provide healthcare benefits, although some major firms later backed off those ideas amid bad publicity.

---