Support the Jobs-for-All Manifesto

The inability to provide good jobs for all, even in the best of times, is a key failure of the modern economy -- one that reinforces inequities, squanders human potential, and takes a tremendous toll on society. Despite a booming economy, millions of workers remain jobless or underemployed, more tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Dollars & Sense 2020 (346), p.5
Main Author: Schaffner Goldberg, Gertrude
Format: Newsletterarticle
Language:English
Subjects:
Economic justification
Economics
Employment
Environmental justice
Inequality
Unemployment
Workers
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The inability to provide good jobs for all, even in the best of times, is a key failure of the modern economy -- one that reinforces inequities, squanders human potential, and takes a tremendous toll on society. Despite a booming economy, millions of workers remain jobless or underemployed, more than 40% of American workers earn less than $15 an hour, and 40% of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency. This is neither sustainable nor necessary. From US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inclusion of guaranteed living-wage work in his Second Bill of Rights, to Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King's call for guaranteed jobs in the fight for racial and economic justice, to the call by environmental justice advocates for a job guarantee in the Green New Deal, visionary leaders know a job guarantee is a potent solution. The National Jobs for All Network; the Columbia University Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare, and Equity; and PolicyLink sponsored a conference at the Roosevelt Institute in the winter of 2019 so that experts who are designing job-guarantee legislation could meet to discuss different approaches to this important task.
ISSN:0012-5245