🧵 On the heels of the 2008 financial crisis, Obama won across most counties in Wisconsin.

By 2012, though he was reelected, he had lost most rural support.
1/x
In 2016, Hillary didn't even campaign in WI. She lost.

2/x

🧵The ballot measures last night say a few things about voters’ feelings about the economy.
Here is how they played out.

PAID SICK LEAVE
All three measures requiring employers to provide paid sick leave PASSED (AK, MO, NE)
All 3 states went to Trump

1/x MINIMUM WAGES and TIPPED Worker Wages
4 states passed measures to increase the minimum wage (AK, MO, NE, AZ)
1 state rejected a measure to erode tipped worker wages (AZ).
All 5 states went to Trump
2/x

🧵 Labor flows have been softening to a degree normally associated with past recessions.
The slowdown could be bigger than currently discussed🧵
This is our "labor market absorption measure" The labor market absorption measure shows the ratio of people who were Not in the Labor Force and moved into the Employment category VS those who were NLF and went into Unemployment. It is indicative of how hard it's getting to find a job

Appreciate the thread by @GeorgeSelgin. A note on MMTs view of 'fiscal discipline'.
For MMT at the macro level, prices are influenced by prices paid by govt and this has key implications for policy, esp for 'controlling' spending. We prefer to modulate fiscal policy not by...

https://twitter.com/GeorgeSelgin/status/1790300102667460988

...chasing debt/deficit to GDP ratios but by designing better automatic (esp employment) stabilizers. The JG/ELR is self limiting unlike pump priming and works with a fixed price-floating spending mechanism. The goal: full empl, better infl control, distribution, real outcomes

🚨🧵
I am pleased to unveil a new Job Guarantee resource tool for scholars, policymakers, and engaged citizens.

1/x jobguarantee.org
Created by my team at the Economic Democracy Initiative @EDI_tweets, we feature a map with real-world programs that embody some of the Job Guarantee principles. The site also collects academic papers, books, legislative initiatives, surveys, events, FAQs and other information 2/x

🧵I'm pleased to launch a new symposium on Post-Neoliberalism in collaboration with @AAzmanova.
We feature inaugural pieces by Ian Shapiro, @RBReich, @rodrikdani & James Galbraith.

Our project explores two forces that reproduce the neoliberal paradigm:
1/x postneoliberalism.org
1) We focus on precarity as a fundamental force that reproduces the neoliberal economy. We consider illiberalism to be a consolidation of neoliberalism (not evidence of its crisis), largely because liberal democracy has failed to address the question of economic insecurity
2/x

Despite impressive job growth, labor market slack remains.
The employment level continues to flatline (total and prime age)
edi.bard.edu/research/notes/ Labor market flows indicate a slowdown.
We watch a few ratios that tell us the distribution of who gets jobs:
fewer people who were outside the labor force and slightly more who were officially unemployed (this ratio dipped for the first time in 2 years)

The New Deal projects employed millions of people, even if not enough relative to need.
They made a real impact on those who found employment, the economy, and left a lasting legacy.
In just a few short years, they built (a partial list):
🧵 Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942:

2.3 billion trees planted
2,500 cabins built in state & national parks & forests
6.4 million man-days fighting forest fires
68,000 miles of new firebreaks constructed
1 billion fish stocked in lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams

Heterodoxy has long criticized the NAIRU and the natural rate, but has not mounted a robust challenge for lack of a clearly articulated policy alternative that can secure full employment without compromising price stability.
MMT has such a proposal.
The federal Job Guarantee As an anti-cyclical economic stabilizer JG creates employment when it's needed most: downturns. As permanent policy it tackles pandemic, structural, climate related job losses.
JG is self-limiting. It shrinks when other parts of the economy furnish their share of well-paying jobs

Lots to like in the #InfrastructureBill, esp that public investment is back.
For me, the Q is always about scale & direction.
E.g.
-US school bus fleet 480,000
-Cost per bus $100,000-$300,000 (electric cost more)
-Fleet replacement cost $48b-$144b +
-Infrastructure bill: $7.5b🧵 Allocation to address inequities from gentrification and the highway system: $1b

That's approx what it costs to build 100-200miles of highway. I.e., a very small amount to redress decades of legacy investments in an interstate hwy system that ripped through many communities.

There was a recent exchange on whether MMT prescribes a certain size deficit. As @KarlWiderquist argues here, the answer is no. But I would go even further.
MMT does not prescribe or aim to estimate a specific size of 'desirable' govt deficit for several reasons.
🧵

https://twitter.com/KarlWiderquist/status/1380870037775527937

The deficit is not under govt's control. Govt can appropriate budgets, but cannot control actual spending. Some line items are automatic. Govt can set tax rates, but cannot control size of tax collections. They are endogenously determined by changing incomes, profits, etc.

9 in 10 Americans support a national jobs and training program
Gallup poll. gallup.com/analytics/3295… Support for paid work dwarfs other options

Quick comments:
Postwar "Keynesianism" prioritized govt support for private industry & dropped the direct govt employment efforts after the New Deal/WWII. This was a mistake. No direct job creation featured here though there's potential in Biden's platform nytimes.com/2021/02/11/mag… If "bold efforts" end up meaning only large govt spending, be prepared to be disappointed.
While green manufacturing is critical, manuf employs only 8% of workers. Double it. Impact will still be small. Service sector employs 80%. Tis where the pain is: unstable, poorly paid jobs

$600/wk Unemployment Insurance cannot deliver the benefits of a $600/wk Job Guarantee. From the outset, I should say JG is not a replacement for UI, no matter what you may have heard. I’ll get to this later, but read this long 🧶 w/ that in mind.

https://twitter.com/ptcherneva/status/1344035918596829185

Automatic stabilization: Both $600/wk UI and JG will provide counter cyclical spending. But UI will be weaker. Counter-cyclical stabilization is not just about the absence of income. It is also about the transmission and structure of economy

Are you scared of the the #JobGuarantee?

Have you heard that it's hostile or antithetical to welfare or unions? Let me try to help. 1. The JG is a missing piece of the welfare safety net, an add-on, not a replacement. We
strengthen the welfare system by adding an "employment option". I have a whole book about it:
amazon.com/Case-Job-Guara…

"The private sector always does things 'better' than the public sector" is a perennial and pernicious argument. There is of course no 'natural law' that makes this so. But defending it often rests on a confusion between Administration and Purpose. FedEx is 'better' than #USPS, private charter schools are 'better' than public schools, a private payments system is 'better' than one run by the Fed, private banking is 'superior' to public banking... you get the gist

[thread] What If We Nationalized Payroll?

It was great to speak with @petersgoodman about a Nordic style rescue of the US economy. We ran a few thought experiments. Here are some thoughts that didn’t make it in the article
nytimes.com/2020/03/28/bus… 1st the US can budget/pay for ANY amount that's appropriated for whatever reason.

https://twitter.com/ptcherneva/status/1243929284378583042?s=20

Peter asked “what if the govt paid all US payroll for a time?” My answer: "it would amount to nationalizing the payroll & would make the govt the Employer of First Resort"

Thread
Recession is sadly required to tackle the pandemic. As millions lose their jobs, we still need an army of ppl to disinfect, deliver essential meds, food, etc
The solidarity economy is key. But we have no preparedness/protocol how 2 do this w/o putting ppl in harm's way 1/n This is why we cannot rely on emergency responses. Going forward, preparedness in all aspects of public life must guide policy. So that we have the institutions and protocols for dealing with shortages in both equipment and human resources. 2/

Thread:
I realize many celebrate the Fed’s newfound comfort w/ low unemployment. I do too. But I don’t think this is a fundamental change in perspective. As @TheStalwart points, for Powell “It’s all about wages”. I.e. wage discipline is still the Fed's plan to fight inflation 1/n @TheStalwart So inflation will continue to be stabilized on the backs of working people. Before it was the NAIRU (not yet dead btw): unemployment as inflation fighting tool. But w/ unemployment breaking through every NAIRU barrier, the Fed acknowledges the relationship isn't a good guide 2/n

We call it the "Roosevelt Revolution" (I use the term too) but it's technically Perkins' revolution. Underappreciated is her influence over FDR at the start, when he didn't have his policies prioritized yet. (Recall he tried to balance the budget causing the '37-38 recession) 1/x 1st on Frances Perkins' list where public works. She did think of them as temporary, but as the primary tool for tackling unemployment. 2/x

Prob the most significant Fed testimony of the decade, almost entirely due to the thoughtful questioning by @AOC, @RashidaTlaib & @AyannaPressley on the futility of the NAIRU, the need to support the real economy in recessions, & importance of an equitable public payments system. Esp moving to hear @AOC challenge the Phillips Curve as a policy guide for Fed policy. While this was happening I was teaching my #MMT course in Spain--a country whose "NAIRU" the EC estimated to be 25% just a few yrs ago & in the double digits today

https://twitter.com/rortybomb/status/1148990897838800898?s=19