“It was obdurate government callousness to misery that first stoked the flames of rage and frustration. With unemployment a scourge in Negro ghettoes, the government still tinkers with half-hearted measures, refuses still to become an employer of last resort. It asks the business community to solve the problems as though its past failures qualified it for success.” –Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his last letter requesting support for the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom”Economonitor — Great Leap Forward
Jobs For All: The Missing But Essential Element Of Dr. King’s March On Washington
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, University of Missouri at Kansas City
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, University of Missouri at Kansas City
2 comments:
The 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom made a vague call for a basic income guarantee in addition to a job guarantee.
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The subsequent "Freedom Budget" also called for universal health care, affordable education for all, massive investment in Keynesian public works, and creating skilled jobs, not merely minimum wage "transition" jobs.
In his last book, "Where Do We Go From Here," MLK firmed up the call for a BIG, stating unequivocally that a BIG was the best way to eliminate poverty.
At no point did the 60's civil rights leaders call for limiting job creation to minimum wage "transition" jobs. At no point did they advocate outsourcing their JG to NGO's. At no point did they oppose a BIG.
Note that the Darity/Hamilton JG proposal mentioned in Randy's blog suggested a minimum salary of $20,000 and a mean salary of $40,000 -- in other words, their proposal was not limited to minimum wage jobs.
The Darity/Hamilton proposal suggests infrastructure projects. I'm fine with that, but the cost of infrastructure is only 10% - 20% wages, the rest is materials and equipment, so it's not compatible with MMT'er proposed 80% wages funding formula.
Major infrastructure projects are normally bid out to private contractors who have the technical skills and the expensive equipment to do the job. That creates private sector jobs, all well and good, but it's not a JG.
The Darity/Hamilton proposal suggests that such infrastructure projects would be countercylical, but doesn't explain what would happen if a bridge needed to be repaired during a boom? The reality is that infrastructure needs to be maintained year after year, not just in recessions.
As for building schools, public schools are being closed all over the country due to austerity budgets, privatization, and an aging population. So why do we need to build more public schools?
If JG workers are used to provide daycare, won't for-profit daycare centers complain about unfair competition? Who will take care of the little toddlers when the economy recovers and the JG daycare workers leave for better paying jobs in the private sector?
Randy quotes Pavlina as claiming the Jefe program reduced poverty 25%, but another study says that the Jefe program made no statistically significant reduction in poverty.
http://www.est.uc3m.es/afrodrig/public.html
It gets back to my usual complaint about the JG -- that no one has any well thought out proposals on exactly what JG workers would do, given the JG's 80% wages budget restriction, and given the fact that most public purpose activities need to be done on a continuous basis, not merely during recessions.
If you want to have good roads and bridges, then fund existing transportation departments. If you want to have good schools, then fund existing school districts. If you want to have free public daycare, then pass legislation creating a PERMANENT system of free public daycare (which would involve buying out or somehow compensating the existing private daycares). And so on for just about any other public purpose project you can think of.
MMT advocates delegating the JG to state and local governments, as well as to NGO's, but when is the last time a red state did a good job of managing a Federal program? How well are the red states managing the ACA? How wellare the red states managing wolves? How well did Chris Christie manage the Hurricane Sandy relief? Who in their right mind would delegate a Federal program to a red state?
I think we need to look at the JG along a spectrum of actuality.
On one extreme, those on the right agreeing to a JG would see the JG as workfare and do it's best to configure it that way over time if it could not be done immediately in the political climate. They would work pretty relentlessly to change that more liberal climate.
On the other extreme is opening the JG to many jobs that a lot people would not consider "work."
I would not be simple to come up with the right mix, but I don't think it could not be done. But a politically acceptable result probably would not please many.
Of course this is not unique to a JG. Just about everything involving politics hits this snag. But we still get stuff done anyway.
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