Warren Mosler on the JG and motivation

let me add that the way the labor force participation rate increases during a boom, often to record highs, indicates to me motivation won’t be lost with a jg safety net/buffer stock vs unemployment as a buffer stock. During booms million of people take jobs who apparently don’t need the money, as they weren’t even looking for jobs and weren’t counted as part of the labor force or unemployed until the economy boomed. There is obviously more to motivation to work other than subsistence.

It’s the same argument today about unemployment comp causing unemployment. At the micro level anecdotal evidence is easy to find, but at the macro level that argument does’t make sense as anything but a kind of fallacy of composition.

Warren Mosler
Pragmatic Capitalism