Saturday, June 17, 2017

Insight — Returning to the Promise of Full Employment: A Federal Job Guarantee in the United States

Returning to the Promise of Full Employment: A Federal Job Guarantee in the United States outlines the socioeconomic case for establishing a Federal Job Guarantee to fundamentally transform the U.S. labor market through the promise of inclusive economic opportunity.

Co-authored by Darrick Hamilton of The New School for Social Research, William Darity, Jr. and Mark Paul of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, and Anne E. Price of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, the report traces the history of job guarantee proposals in the U.S., and details the disproportionate impact unemployment has on significant segments of the population, including people of color and other historically marginalized groups.

To eliminate persistent involuntary unemployment and underemployment, the authors call for the establishment of a National Investment Employment Corps that would empower workers, invest in infrastructure and socially beneficial services, and improve the economic well-being of millions. Read the report to learn how a Federal Job Guarantee would reduce poverty, remove unjust and discriminatory barriers to work, and create a stronger, more inclusive economy.
Doesn't cite the MMT economists or mention the MMT JG.

Returning to the Promise of Full Employment: A Federal Job Guarantee in the United States
Research Brief, Volume 2  – June 2017
Mark Paul, William Darity, Jr., Darrick Hamilton and Anne E. Price
Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, New School for Social Research and Insight Center for Community Economic Development

6 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Doesn't cite objections to a JG either. Then again, this a brief not a patent application.

Ralph Musgrave said...

I clicked on the link and just got a dark screen.

Also the authors look like they’re typical of the numpties who ramble on about JG, but who don’t have a clue.

Why concentrate on infrastructure: because it’s flavour of the month, presumably. Plus it’s nonsense to suppose that given a recession, a high proportion of the unemployed will be qualified for infrastructure work. Plus of all the different areas of economic activity, one of the ones that’s most difficult to expand in a hurry is infrastructure.

Peter Pan said...

The link should prompt you to download a pdf. It's just a brief for goodness sakes. And heaven forbid anyone do actual independent research for a research paper. No doubt Wray and Mitchell are on the phone with their lawyers ;)

Tom Hickey said...

Ralph, I just tested the link and it connects to the PDF.

Brian Romanchuk said...

I did not check out the paper, but we need to distinguish between academic citations and policy pushes. If an academic was publishing JG papers and ignored the MMT literature, one woud be right to scream bloody murder about precedents. But if it is people writing on policy, you want as many talking about your policy proposals, even if they do not cite you. You need to build a coalition to get things done. Ideally, you want to get conservatives supporting the idea, and they would probably avoid citing MMT authors. As long as you win, who cares who gets credit?

As the great 20th century philosopher Al Davis said, "Just win, baby."

NeilW said...

Yup.

The main problem with 'Job Guarantee' ideas, is that they end up getting perverted like 'living wages' and just become yet more subsidy for private operations so they can avoid spending any capital on investment and automation.

The big issue on the conservative side of the fence is realising that the 'private sector good, public sector bad' trope is a false one.