An employer of last resort would work like this: The federal government would provide funds to local employment centers that would create jobs that pay a living wage and that serve needs in their areas. Jobs would be created based on their social usefulness -- day care centers, education programs for low-income children, care for the elderly, improving the quality of public parks and recreation centers, and repairing dilapidated infrastructure, to name a few. Training and putting unemployed workers to work would improve productivity, boost living standards, and improve the quality of public goods.
Critics argue that such a program would be too costly and would increase the deficit. But estimates find that it would have no effect on the deficit, and would decrease it over the long run because the government would be able to reduce its expenditures on welfare programs for the unemployed, saving hundreds of billions of dollars per year, in addition to boosting tax revenue by having nearly all of the adult population gainfully employed. Guaranteed employment would also reduce social costs of unemployment that these critics ignore: alcoholism, increased mortality, divorce, substance abuse, and loss of self-worth.
Having the government serve as an employer of last resort would end the sorts of crises that have plagued the economy for the past 30 years and eliminate poverty. Providing workers with jobs would create an economically and socially productive use of their skills, boost wages, create incentives for investment, and restore the prosperity that has been siphoned off by the financial elite, only to be used for risky investments that create crises and the need for a never-ending cycle of taxpayer-funded bailouts.The Huffington Post Blogs
The Limits of the Fed and the Right to a Job
Aaron Pacitti | Assistant Professor of Economics, Siena College
(h/t Charles Hayden)
Re: "day care centers, education programs for low-income children, care for the elderly, improving the quality of public parks and recreation centers, and repairing dilapidated infrastructure"
ReplyDeletePublic day care would compete with private day care. What happened to the rule that the JG would not compete with the private sector?
Re: education program for low-income children? Got specifics? Wouldn't it be better to hire PROFESSIONALs to teach children instead of random temps? And who would staff these education programs after JG workers transition to the private sector?
Re: care for the elderly. So the JG would compete with private sector nursing homes and private sector in-home care providers? And who would care for the elderly after the JG workers "transition" to the private sector?
Re: improving the quality of parks? Such as? There are already local government crews responsible for maintaining local parks. Should we replace them with JG workers and drive down wages?
Re: repairing infrastructure. Exactly what kind of infrastructure jobs does the author propose that can be done within the 80% wages budget limitation?
Re: "government would be able to reduce its expenditures on welfare programs for the unemployed." But MMT promised that the JG would not replace existing welfare programs. You mean they lied?
Let's review the JG rules and limitations:
1) must not compete with the private sector
2) since workers are temps, they shouldn't be assigned to jobs that must be done on an ongoing basis. I.e., you wouldn't want to assign a JG worker to drive a school bus because then who would drive the bus when the worker "transitioned" out of the JG?
3) I propose that the JG should not compete with existing government programs, i.e., park and recreation maintenance. If you replace steady, middle class P&R maintenance jobs with minimum wage temp jobs, then all you have accomplished is to drive down wages. If existing government programs lack funding to do their jobs properly, then the solution is to provide adequate funding for existing government programs, not to substitute cheap temps for permanent staff.
4) a JG must not replace existing benefits because then it's "workfare."
Since JG advocates don't seem to have given these limits much thought, let me spell out the logical conclusion -- JG workers would mostly pick up trash. If they are liberal arts majors, then you could pay them to write poetry or some such thing, though that might arguably compete with for-profit poets !
You want infrastructure jobs? Then pass an appropriations bill.
You want free public daycare? Then pass legislation to set up a free public daycare program, and of course Congress would have to address the issue of competing with private daycare.
You want adequate staffing for public schools and parks? Then bring back Nixon's revenue sharing program so state and local governments don't have to lay off during recessions.
There may be a legitimate place for a certain number of jobs picking up trash and writing poetry, but there's a limit to how many trash picker-uppers are required, and a limit to how much poetry the taxpayers are willing to pay for.
Dan Lynch,
ReplyDeleteI think the point is to be as least disruptive as possible.
Just a few:
re: daycare
I think you can do day care centers. maybe only for the kids of other JG workers? or in house for government/JG workers? or in under-served areas/or as a public option?
re: normal gov't
If government decides to use the transitional JG to do certain 'normal' government functions, then in the expansion period the services provided by JG workers falls off. So if they want to keep those workers in place, they have to offer a higher wage to keep them on the normal gov't payroll.