The Slinky Effect

   The multiplier effect works both ways. Slinky-like, a small effort at one end sends a wave of activity all along the economic line. A single dollar's worth of effort is not the total value, because it generates another dollar's worth of activity (more or less) at each point along the way. Added up, the total amounts to many more dollars worth of economic output for one dollar's worth of input.
   Here's a family example: Suppose a teenager gets a part-time job and brings home $100 a week. Of that, he or she gives $20 to Mom to help out with food (yes, teenagers do eat), spends another $20 on gas for the car, drops $20 at the local Starbucks on drinks for himself and girlfriend, puts $20 into a college fund, and uses the rest for incidentals.
   But this additional boost to the economy doesn't stop there. Consider the employees at the grocery store, the gas station, the baristas, and other employees at wholesale distributors and suppliers, and multiply that one teenager's extra spending by a few million, and after a while you're talking real money.

  Now suppose, in the name of austerity and a balanced budget, America cuts Medicare and Obamacare. Yes, it would greatly affect the aged, the poor, and those with part-time jobs and no health care insurance plan.
   But the fastest-growing employment field in America today is health care. Reduce the health care program, and you put out of work millions of nurses, physician assistants, lab technicians, aides, hospital support staff, food service and housekeeping workers, plus educators who train the needed nurses, aides, techs, etc. as well as doctors and other specialists. Not to mention the many clerical personnel needed to administer the health care insurance program.

   It might, however, increase the demand for funeral workers to lay to rest those who die from lack of adequate health care.