It's hard to imagine a more timely moment for the publication of @ptcherneva's "The Case for a Job Guarantee," a slim and sprightly book that makes the plainest, most straightforward case yet for ending involuntary employment.
politybooks.com/bookdetail/?is…
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politybooks.com/bookdetail/?is…
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The Jobs Guarantee is not a new idea - it came within a whisker being part of FDR's New Deal - but with unemployment at levels to rival (or exceed) the Great Depression, and with countries minting trillions to cushion the pandemic, it's an idea whose time has come.
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Tcherneva's argument has several strands:
* Unemployment is really terrible, and exacts a huge toll on unemployed people, their families and society. This is both a human tragedy and a massive economic drain.
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* Unemployment is really terrible, and exacts a huge toll on unemployed people, their families and society. This is both a human tragedy and a massive economic drain.
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* The private sector's job-creation is "pro-cyclical": it creates jobs when the economy is good, and shed jobs when the economy is bad (that is, when we most need new jobs)
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* The private sector is really bad at valuing caring and sustaining work - education, health care, climate remediation, eldercare, daycare
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* No amount of money for private sector job-creation would end unemployment: giving every unemployed person a $15/h job with good benefits is MUCH cheaper than handing out subsidies or contracts to private firms, and even if we did that, millions would still be unemployed
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* Minting money to buy the labor of unemployed people isn't inflationary. Inflation isn't about the monetary supply, it's about bidding wars - buying the labor of people who lack jobs won't bid up their wages, because no one else wants their labor
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* A Jobs Guarantee scheme would provide training, continuing education, certification and rehabilitation and be especially good for formerly incarcerated people, young people, people with disabilities, parents re-entering the job market, etc
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* Governments guarantee lots of things: price supports for agribusiness, loans for mortgage lenders, education for every child. Guaranteeing jobs is both a bargain (less than 1% of GDP, factoring in savings from ending unemployment pathologies) and humane
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Today, we protect against inflation by keeping people unemployed - unemployed people are a "buffer stock" of workers who might be hired when the economy grows.
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Tcherneva proposes that we replace unemployment with a buffer-stock of jobs: federally funded, locally determined, jobs that the private sector won't do, jobs that pay well (and eliminate sub-subsistence private sector work better than any minimum wage would).
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These are the jobs that need doing, but not necessarily NOW: remediating public spaces, doing after-school programs at the local library or care home, weatherizing houses. When the economy sheds jobs, laid off people know they can get good work the next day doing these.
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When the economy grows, workers with newly acquired skills - and no gaps in their employment history - can walk straight into the new jobs the private sector is creating. When deflation is a risk, a Jobs Guarantee heats up; when inflation is a risk, it cools off.
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It's an "automatic stabilizer."
pluralistic.net/2020/05/05/the…
Tcherneva clearly wrote most of this before the crisis (the introduction does take note of it though), but despite that, it's eerily applicable to this moment.
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pluralistic.net/2020/05/05/the…
Tcherneva clearly wrote most of this before the crisis (the introduction does take note of it though), but despite that, it's eerily applicable to this moment.
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40 years of deficit hawkery has hollowed out our institutions, emptied our stockpiles and replaced the social safety net with punitive workfare. As the pandemic emergency surges, with the climate emergency right behind it, we need capacity building.
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We need care work. We need the Jobs Guarantee.
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