How to Create Good Jobs Now:

A bold proposal for meeting human needs through a permanent U.S. employment program.

Sidney Hollander, Ron Baiman, Bill Barclay, Joe Persky, Elce Redmond, Mel Rothenberg. The authors are members of the Chicago Political Economy Group November 9, 2009 In These Times (Web only)

For the last three decades, U.S. public policy makers have operated on the theory that individual entrepreneurial freedoms are essential to the creation of wealth and thus to the well-being of individuals and society as a whole. One of the great failures this "neo-liberal" approach to economics has been its inability to create enough jobs to keep pace with population growth.

Between 2001 and 2007, the working-age population in the United States outpaced job creation by 10 million individuals. Projections indicate that the shortfall will include another 17 million persons by 2016, making a 16-year total of 27 million missing jobs -- 27 million people, in other words, who will have been pushed out of the labor force.

If current trends continue after 2016, labor force participation will have fallen to barely half the working-age population, down from a pre-2000 level of about two-thirds.

The scale of the problem--and program

To confront the growing poverty and social misery that is engulfing the poorest 40 percent of Americans, the United States will require a national jobs program based on significant public investment in the economy. We propose a program that would pay workers the current median wage ($18 per hour), which is a living wage that still allows room for promotions and pay raises. As we will demonstrate, this program can be funded easily by progressive taxes, cuts in defense spending, and taxes on carbon-emitting production.

In the short term, jobs will help people stay in their homes and encourage consumers to begin spending again. In the longer run, a reordering of our economic priorities through public investment and redistribution of access to good jobs will create an economy that serves the needs of all, rather than the wants of a few.

The plan should aim to boost national employment by 3.5 million new jobs each year for five years, for a total of 17.5 million new jobs. This rate of job creation is more than twice the currently projected growth of only 1.5 million jobs per year, which would yield only 7.5 million additional jobs over the five years.
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Obama Should Declare a Jobs Emergency--F. Stricker

Here is what President Obama should say to the American people about rising unemployment:

My fellow Americans,

The employment situation is continuing to deteriorate and there is no evidence that the private sector can turn things around. We face a tremendous challenge. Our job total has fallen by eight million since the recession began. And we failed to add the three million jobs we need to keep about with a growing labor force. So we are now 11 million jobs below normal.

We cannot fix this problem in a week or even a year. But the longer we wait, the more pain for our people and more difficult the task. Remember that we also have to add more than a million new jobs every year for an expanding work force.

If we are aiming to get back to get back to the time before this recession, we can do it in six years if we add three million jobs a year. Can we do that? During the recovery from the 2001 recession we were adding only 1.3 million a year. During the Clinton job boom we increased our job totals by 2.3 millionBthat was very good but not good enough.

Our Republican friends prefer that we do nothing, even as the misery mounts. That is Hooverism and we know better. Businesses are not adding to our job totals and won=t add much for a while. It is just too easy for employers to send jobs abroad or buy more machines.

So we can have high unemployment for years to come, or government can act. History shows us that we can reverse the job decline. Franklin Roosevelt and his New Dealers showed that the federal government could create job programs and promote a general economic recovery.

This administration has made mistakes. We underestimated the severity of this recession. But we did not make the mistake of doing nothing; and while there is debate about our efforts to save the financial system and our stimulus and recovery package, we are convinced that without these programs tens of millions of Americans would now be living in Hoovervilles.

But these rich programs were not enough to jump-start job creation. So I propose now a federal Jobs and National Enrichment program that creates real work in a variety of programs and areas. Some of the new jobs will be in the federal government, some in local and state government, some in private businesses and non-profits. Many will be permanent positions, with wages substantially above the poverty line.

There is much that needs doing. We will expand and upgrade Head Start and the care industry. We will create a Neighbor Preservation Corps that acquires, cleans up, and sells foreclosed homes. We will create a Civilian Conservation Corps whose members plant trees, repair parks, and build new ones for communities that have too few of them. There are dozen of other tasks that need to be done and over the next few weeks we will be taking your suggestions about things that need doing.

Some will say that we cannot afford a new federal program, but I say that we cannot afford to waste the labor and skills of twenty million Americans. And our investment in jobs will come back to us hundredfold. We will have a better landscape, smoother roads, smarter kids, and more comfortable elders. And we will have millions of people able to spend freely; that will create millions of jobs in the private sector.

We can do this for a relatively small sum. We are spending $800 million to rescue the money barons and almost $800 million for the first stimulus package. I propose that we spend $200 billion, in each of the next six years, on directly creating good and useful jobs.If we do it right, we can fund three million jobs, with decent pay and benefits, and giving our workers the tools, machinery, and materials they need to perform well.

Some programs can start soon; some will take more time. We are learning from our experience with the current stimulus package. And we will learn from the CCC and the WPA in the 1930s. I have faith in the talents and good will of our people and our government officials. We can meet this challenge together.

Frank Stricker, Emeritus Prof. of History at CSU-Dominguez Hills, author of Why America Lost the War on Poverty and How to Win It and member of the Exec. Com, National Jobs for All Coalition

Posted by June Zaccone at 11:57 AM  

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Job Estimates to Get Back to Nov. 2007 Unemployment

Do We Need a Federal Jobs Program?
Frank Stricker

How much do we need to increase total American jobs in 2010-2015 just to get back to the November of 2007 employment level?

1. Decline in Total Jobs in 2008-2009

8 million

2. Jobs not added in 2008-2009 to accommodate labor force growth of 1.5 million a year:

3 million

3. Jobs needed in 2010-2015 for labor force growth of 1.3 million a year:

7.8 million

=

4. 18.8 million, or 3.1 million per year additional jobs needed to get us back to November of 2007 (5% official unemployment) by December, 2015

How have we done recently without much direct government job creation?

5. Annual job increase during strong Clinton boom (1993-2001):

2.3 million

6. Annual job increase during weak Bush boom (2001-2007):

1.3 million

A Clinton job boom would leave us 5 million jobs short of 2007 rates. A Bush recovery would fall 11 million jobs short. Without federal action, we probably will not even match the Bush record. Economists predict that unemployment will rise for another year

Sources

1. BLS numbers (CPS/Household) on total jobs, from November 2007 through September of 2009. Result is a decline of 7.8 million. After we count October, November, and December, the total will surpass 8 million.

2. “Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population, 1940 to date,” BLS.Gov, accessed on October 27, 2009. I subtracted the average labor force total for 2000 from the average for 2007 and divided by 7. The result was an average labor force growth of 1.5 million.

3. James W. Hughes and Joseph J. Seneca, “America’s New Post-Recession Employment Arithmetic,” Advance & Rutgers Report, September 2009, p. 3 and Figure 3.

5. and 6. BLS numbers (CPS/Household). Annual average job growth for Clinton over January 1993-December, 2000; for Bush, January 2001-November 2007.

Posted by June Zaccone at 3:30 PM  

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Earning a Living Without Losing Your Life

A Decent Job Allows You to Earn a Living Without Losing Your Life

What's a decent job? Liberation.fr posed that question to participants in a Paris demonstration last Wednesday that took place near the headquarters of the Medef - the French employers' association. Philippe Brochen, Libération, 07 October 2009

Between 3,000 and 6,000 people assembled last Wednesday afternoon near the Medef headquarters on Avenue Bosquet in Paris (VIIe) in the framework of the International and Interprofessional Day for the Defense of "Decent Work." It provided an opportunity to ask these demonstrators what, in their view, that demand corresponds to.

Elisabeth, 49 years old, France Télécom employee

"A decent job is a reasonable job, that is, one without unacceptable pressure, with standard hours, 35 or 38 hours a week ...."

André, 79 years old, a retiree from the SNCF [railroad]

"A decent job is one that allows you to earn your living respectably, without losing or destroying your life."

Louisa, 18 years old, high school student

"A decent job is one that pays a living wage. That's what's essential first of all, but it should also allow for personal fulfillment and development. .... It's also a job that's not precarious and where one is not in danger of being fired from one day to the next. It's a job with a reasonable schedule, reasonable, that is, with respect to one's personal, and especially, one's family situation. Individuals must not be taken for machines ..."

Marise, 56 years old, a hospital official

"A decent job means that one has the resources to do a good job, to be available for others and to earn a respectable living. At present, a nurse just starting out earns 1.400 euros net per month. Do you find that right, given the hours and responsibilities involved?"
....
Bernard, 65 years old, banking company retiree

"A decent job is one that contributes to personal development and the construction of a better world."

Catherine, 33 years old, a City of Paris agent for local development

"A decent job earns minimally 1,600 euros net. It's also a secure job that offers the potential for further training, and for taking initiative as well as the means to defend oneself when pressure is exerted."

Saïdou, 30 years old, a plumber and native of Mali who arrived in France when he was 21 years old, who holds a residence permit

"I have a decent job. I progress from one day to the next. I learn. I'm well paid. My plan is to gain enough experience and financial support to start my own business. I just have to be patient ..."

http://www.truthout.org/1014098

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EPI Survey Finds Broad Support for Federal Jobs Program

From October 8 - Economic Policy Institute (EPI) News - see links to papers and audio from September 30 conference in Washington DC. Thanks to Frank Stricker for bringing to our attention.

A groundswell of support for federal action on jobs creation

The Labor Department earlier this month reported an official unemployment rate for September of 9.8%, suggesting that about one in 10 American workers is out of work. But even that figure, the highest unemployment rate in a generation, masks the extent to which joblessness has devastated American families.

An analysis of the latest jobs data by EPI economist Heidi Shierholz found that September marked the 21st consecutive month of job loss, making this the longest losing streak in 70 years, and costing the country 7.2 million jobs so far. Considering the additional jobs needed to keep up with population growth, the country now needs 9.9 million jobs to return to a pre-recession level of employment.

Recession is personal for one in four Americans

On September 30, EPI released a new survey showing that almost one in four families have suffered a job loss over the past year, and 44% have suffered either the loss of a job or a reduction in wages.

The survey, Tracking the Recovery: Voters' Views on the Recession, Jobs, and the Deficit, was conducted for EPI by Hart Research Associates, which polled 802 registered voters in mid-September. Asked to name the most important economic problem facing the country, 53% of those surveyed listed unemployment and a lack of jobs, compared with 27% who cited the federal budget deficit. An overwhelming majority of those surveyed-81%-said the Obama administration has still not done enough to deal with the unemployment crisis. Some 87% of voters said they support a major job creation credit for U.S. businesses and 71% support putting unemployed people to work at government-funded public service jobs.

Making new jobs creation a priority

Also on September 30, EPI hosted Generating a Robust Recovery, where a panel of economists and lawmakers elaborated on the need to do more to create jobs and strengthen the social safety net. In a keynote address, Rosa DeLauro, U.S. Congresswoman from Connecticut, said the widespread job loss and mounting poverty levels had left the country at risk of having "a lost generation of American children."

Geoffrey Garin, president of Hart Research Associates, which conducted the Tracking the Recovery survey, also pointed to a disconnect between Washington, where many policy makers continue to see deficit reduction as the top economic priority, and ordinary people throughout the country, who want more jobs. Considering the staggering level of job loss, Garin said he found it "inconceivable" that lawmakers would make fixing the budget deficit a priority "without first getting people back to work."

Krugman makes the case for more public investment

Other speakers at EPI's conference offered some perspective on the federal deficit, in the context of the need for more public investment from the federal government. "The idea that there is a tradeoff between doing more today and having more later is not true," said Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist.

Krugman argued that investments made today to help create jobs and strengthen the social safety net would be good for the economy both now and in the future. Although he said that the $787 billion Recovery Act passed earlier this year had succeeded in creating new jobs and preventing the loss of others, Krugman stressed that the stimulus package was not large enough to deal with such a steep downturn.

While the $787 billion of stimulus spending may have seemed like a massive amount when the Recovery Act was passed earlier this year, many economists, including Krugman, believe it was insufficient. "We did somewhere between a third and a fifth of what we needed to do," said J. Bradford DeLong, professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, who also spoke on the panel at EPI. That estimate was consistent with other findings in the Tracking the Recovery survey. While most of those surveyed seemed to appreciate that the Recovery Act had provided some needed assistance, two-thirds of those surveyed said that it had helped a little, rather than a lot.

The panel, which was moderated by Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein, also featured EPI Research and Policy Director John Irons, who offered more insight on the cost of doing nothing. Irons' latest paper, Economic Scarring, outlines some of the long-term consequences of even short-lived recessions, including increased poverty and reduced educational attainment, private investment, and entrepreneurial activity.

Generating a Robust Recovery [event]
By John Irons September 30, 2009

Officially, the Great Recession may be coming to an end, but it will leave in its wake historically high unemployment and a host of other serious economic problems. How will policy-makers promote a robust, employment-led recovery that will lay the foundation for strong, long-term growth? Meeting this challenge requires both the will to continue investing in families hard hit by the recession despite growing budget deficits and the skill in crafting the right mix of policies to ensure that this recovery -- unlike the last one -- will bring significant numbers of new jobs and rising living standards along with it.

On September 30, 2009, the Economic Policy Institute hosted a discussion of these issues with noted experts in this exciting forum.

Keynote speakers:

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Congresswoman, 3rd District of Connecticut
Geoffrey Garin, President, Hart Reasearch Associates

Panelists:

J. Bradford DeLong, Professor, UC Berkeley; Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research
John Irons, Research and Policy Director, Economic Policy Institute
Paul Krugman, Columnist, New York Times; Professor, Princeton University and Nobel Laureate

Moderator:
Steven Pearlstein, Business Columnist, The Washington Post

Review materials from this event:
*Video from this event will be posted soon

Listen to an audio recording of this event: [listen/streaming] [download MP3]

View slideshows from presenters:
John Irons
J. Bradford DeLong
Geoffrey Garin

Posted by Chuck Bell at 1:41 AM  

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The Economic Bill of Rights

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1/11/44 message to Congress is featured in rare video footage shown in Capitalism: A Love Story, the new documentary film by Michael Moore. The attached YouTube video contains the audio from the speech, but somehow Moore got the original video to include in his film.

Franklin D. Roosevelt -“The Economic Bill of Rights”
Excerpt from 11 January 1944 message to Congress on the State of the Union

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It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

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source: The Public Papers & Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Samuel Rosenman, ed.), Vol XIII (NY: Harper, 1950), 40-42, cited at http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/globalrights/econrights/fdr-econbill.html

Posted by Chuck Bell at 6:33 PM  

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The truth about jobs that no one wants to tell

The truth about jobs that no one wants to tell

If the feds don't spend money to put people back to work, the economy won't recover and politics will get uglier

By Robert Reich
Salon, Oct. 2, 2009

"...Let me say this as clearly and forcefully as I can: The federal government should be spending even more than it already is on roads and bridges and schools and parks and everything else we need. It should make up for cutbacks at the state level, and then some. This is the only way to put Americans back to work. We did it during the Depression. It was called the WPA."

"Yes, I know. Our government is already deep in debt. But let me tell you something: When one out of six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, this is no time to worry about the debt..."


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