It's astonishing, when you think about it, that neoliberal economists actively target an "optimal" or "ideal" level of unemployment. Imagine if we sought to induce an optimal level of starvation, or an optimal level of homelessness.
The optimal level of unemployment is zero, and it can be accomplished with a Job Guarantee. Neoliberals say we need unemployment (the NAIRU) to protect against inflation. But it's not true. Pavlina Tcherneva shows that a JG is more effective at delivering monetary stability.
For more: wiley.com/en-us/The+Case…
To clarify, I should add that I see the job guarantee not as a policy for generating more output, or increasing growth (as some Keynesians see it), but rather as a component of degrowth policy - an argument I develop in chapter 5 of Less is More.
