An outside-the-box unemployment fix (Submitted for critique)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

As far as I know the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978 is still the law of the land, but has never been implemented in any strong way because the executive branch put it out to pasture. Carter, then Reagan, etc..

But if it is still on the books it offers an interesting possibility.

It isn't new law.

So here is the question for the wonkish... could this work:

President Obama reverses all executive orders and findings that prevented H-H from ever resulting in action. He then makes a supplemental budget request to congress for $150 billion to implement provisions in H-H. The request is a reconciliation-eligible budgetary item to fund existing law, not a whole new policy. So only 50%+1 required for passage. (Like all those Bush mid-year war-funding requests.)

Under H-H, as passed in 1978, the executive branch is empowered (arguably mandated, but I digress) to directly create (FDR-style) as many low-wage jobs as necessary to reach 3% unemployment. (The act specifies that jobs be created at the low end first, which is sound economics. You don't want people quitting existing jobs so the H-H jobs are presumed to be a measure to put a floor under the labor market. Most importantly, the concept is to soak up low-skill urban unemployment. Urban unemployment is currently about 17%.)

No filibuster. Not a vast sum of money... smaller than what we have come to view as a typical budget supplemental. And under H-H the executive can craft the programs with a surprisingly free hand.

$150 billion should easily cover a year of minimum wage make-work for 4-6 million people. That eliminates deflationary wage pressure in most urban areas and cuts national unemployment some. I doubt all those slots would be filled... the idea is to soak up all possible demand for those jobs. Nobody has to take them. They are an option added to the economy. These would not be good jobs, but they would force private minimum-wage employers to compete. McDonalds would go back to minimum wage +$2, as was typical in tight labor markets in the '90s. Cashier jobs in nice stores in the city go to McDonalds+$2, and so on.

And even folks who are not eligible for unemployment benefits can always easily put a few extra dollars in their pocket, which is better than the alternative. Teenagers. Elderly on fixed incomes. Homeless.

Politically, sell it as a measure that ensures that any able-bodied person willing to work can work, albeit for small wages. The public loves the idea of poor folks working (versus asking for a hand-out... you know the language.)

[FreakinDJ]

1. nice

[MidwestRick]

2. People would go nuts

There are plenty of jobs being offered at minimum wage, however many people on unemployment make more than that or won't drop themselves down to that level to get off the system.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Depends on the region you're in

In my area minimum-wage jobs are plentiful.

In Detroit, for example, they are not.

There was a widely read post on DU last week about a DUers disappointment at being told McDonald's wasn't hiring. In my area McDonald's is hiring, but obviously not everyone lives in such areas.

Our high national unemployment rate includes regional pockets of spectacular starvation-style unemployment.

I would guess black teenage unemployment in Detroit is about 75% today.

You offer the jobs where they are most needed. If nobody wants them then, under H-H, you can move up to higher wage jobs.

But seriously, there are a lot of people who would love minimum wage jobs right now. A wife whose husband is receiving unemployment benefits at half what he used to make... an extra few hundred a week would make a big difference in some households.

[sandnsea]

6. I conclude you've taken a wrong turn

That, or you're seriously misinformed. That's a talking point straight from Hannity and O'Reilly. And there aren't plenty of minimum wage jobs out there either.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

15. Different regions have very different circumstances

I have seen a lot of folks, here and in other threads, say that minimum wage type jobs are easily available.

And in many places I'm sure they are. In others they are not.

[ProSense]

3. "These would not be good jobs, but they would force other minimum-wage employers to compete. "

You're assuming that millions of these jobs exist. Also, the goal is not to create a economy built on crap jobs that people don't keep and can't earn enough to get by. I'd much prefer to see a substantial stimulus focused on creating good sustainable jobs and training. In fact, the current strategy is excellent, now back it up with funding.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. Totally missing the point.

The objective is not an economy based on crap jobs.

The objective is crap-jobs versus no jobs for people in cities who are currently begging on the fucking street and putting a government floor under the entire national labor market.

Classic trickle-up. The point of crap jobs for all is that when someone seeks a better private sector job that job has to pay crap+1, and so on.

If you don't get it, cool.

[ProSense]

8. "The objective is crap-jobs versus no jobs for people in cities who are currently begging"

BS. After seeing your post about putting everything on the agenda off until this millions of crappy jobs are created, it's evident you're ignoring reality. Jobs are being created, and there it makes no sense to propose a single-focused effort to create "crap jobs."

Creating millions of crap jobs is not a solution for people currently "begging on the fucking streets."

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Cool. I will tell the beggar in front of 7-11 that he will soon be running AIG.

You have a delusion that the employment situation is non-pressing because it is moving in one direction versus another.

But the economy shows no signs of growth sufficient to make dramatic employment gains.

Even 7% unemployment is... a... bad... thing. A terrible thing! the fact we are at 10% doesn't make 7% good. And we are not on course to reach 7% for YEARS.

Before being so haughty, run my worthless idea past the black caucus for comment. Detroit is a disaster area comparable to post-Katrina New Orleans, but without the promises of help.

What I propose was the height of progressive thought in a more progressive era. It was a favorite of Michael Harrington, author of The Other America and one of the foremost Democratic-Socialist thinkers of the time. It is humane, economically correct and progressive.

[ProSense]

10. "You have a delusion "

that millions of crappy jobs are out there waiting to be created and will solve the umemployment crisis. This isn't the 1990s.

You want to create another bubble to satisfy your theory that the "public loves the idea of poor folks working." Sounds Cheneyesque.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. Cheney-esque... LOL!

If so, it's one of those "Cheneyesque" proposals that would be applauded by the Black Caucus and condemned by the US Chamber of Commerce.

(Nice attempt to play a class or race card on a progressive proposal, though. :hi: )

It occurs to me that you may be assuming that I am proposing 4-6 million job slots. That is not the case. You make a class of employment available and hire people who show up who want the employment. The proposal would fund up to 4-6 million... we do not know who would actually opt for such employment.

If only 2 million people are so desperate as to seek a government low-wage job then that's what it is.

But every single person who did opt for such employment would be doing so out of a self-perceived NEED for it.

[ProSense]

13. Yes Cheneyesque

"You make a class of employment available and hire people who show up who want the employment. The proposal would fund up to 4-6 million... we do not know who would actually opt for such employment."

Again, who says there are millions of these jobs waiting to be created and millions waiting to jump at them?

"If only 2 million people are so desperate as to seek a government low-wage job then that's what it is."

This is your solution to the economic crisis: spend $150 billion dollars to create crappy jobs and hope people are desperate enough to take them.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. I always like outside the box ideas. This was mine

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6707513
I was completely shocked when no one from the White House contacted me.
*************************

But I digress - your idea about actually implementing Humphrey-Hawkins is fascinating. I remember back in the 70's when there were some sort of subsidiized internships/jobs - ah, here it is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Employment_and_Training_Act

CETA jobs. I think it was a good idea and it did employ people.

[showpan]

11. I find this distrubing and am quite angry

that anyone would think that creating more minimum wage jobs would have any concrete effects for the economy. It sounds like something written by those union buster neocons who have taken over. Instead of paying me $35 an hour for my years of experience, I'm being offered crap for a job that reqiures no skills except that I speak spanish, which would exclude me. If they were really intent on putting America back to work, those massive projects such as FDR started would have happened. They aren't going to because their plan to cripple America is now in it's final stages.
Corporate neocons = 1
America = 0

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. I think you might be adding something that is unwritten

To read that as a proposal for people to get horrible jobs versus good jobs is bizarre. The existence of additional low wage job opportunities is better for all wages than the existence of fewer low wage job opportunities.

People do not accept a wage based on the existence of the job. This is America... you don't have to take any job you don't want.

This is a proposal to eliminate the very lowest rung of the unemployed as an economic category. The existence of hard-core concentrated unemployment, particularly in certain urban areas, suppresses the wages of everyone.

All unions would applaud this because it tightens the labor market.

All union-busters would go insane with rage and call it socialism.

Most civilized countries have some sort of guaranteed low-wage employment. Unions love it.

It is as pro-labor as a concept can be.

Look at it this way... there is a reason Humphrey-Hawkins was never vigorously pursued by Carter, and that was cited by Kennedy as a reason for challenging Carter from the left, and it was finally sunk by Reagan. The reason was not to help working people. Kennedy was a lot more interested in high-wage job opportunities for American workers than Reagan was.

(In Marxist terms, capital uses the lumpen-proletariat to suppress wages of the proletariat. Unilaterally elevating the lumpen-proletariat to the lowest rung of the working class bumps everyone up a notch and de-fangs one of capital's most reliable threats, which is that there is an army of unemployed who will gladly take your job for half the money.)

[malletgirl02]

16. low wage employment

I actually think it might be a good idea. Isn't the unemployment rate higher for low wage earners? I know that the unemployment rate for young people is high,also well as inner city people you mentioned in your OP.