Tag Archives: Job Guarantee

“Any government,” writes the economist and hedge fund manager Warren Mosler, “can achieve full employment by offering a public service job to anyone who wants one at a fixed wage.” Versions of this idea have received powerful endorsements from prominent Democratic politicians in the US, including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has linked a government job guarantee to a Green New Deal. Moreover, versions of a job-guarantee program (JGP), more or...

This is Part 2 (and final part) of my series on printing money, debt and power. The two-part series is designed to draw a line through all the misconceptions and errors that abound on the Internet about the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) treats deficit spending and bond issuance. The social media debate about MMT is at time nonsensical, thriving on falsehoods and fantasy. I get many E-mails after some robust Twitter exchange between some self-proclaimed expert who has found the latest fatal...

This Labor Day, Our Money will gather 500 participants to host a march for Full Employment and Economic Justice in commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement legacy of advocacy for a Federal Job Guarantee. The march will begin at the MLK Memorial in Washington DC at 11 am and end at the Marriner Eccles Building of the Federal Reserve around 2 pm.  Our Money founder, Rev. Dr. Delman Coates, will use this opportunity to draw the connection for lay audiences between the Civil Rights struggle...

AbstractThe problems with the design of the Eurozone came into focus when, late in 2009, several member nations– notably Greece – failed to refinance their government debt. The crisis that followed was not entirely asurprise. When the Euro was launched in 1999, many economists warned that the single currency was unworkable. Even Eurozone optimists argued that the Euro project would eventually need to be completed. More than 10 years after the crisis, unemployment rates remain elevated and...

The GND proposed in the US already includes a JG. Now it looks like Scotland is in play, too. Asked if a Job Guarantee would be part of her vision for a Scottish Green New Deal, [First Minister] Nicola Sturgeon says: “‘Yes’ is the short answer.” A Job Guarantee would involve the state acting as an ‘employer of last resort’ to the unemployed, and was last year proposed in the United States by Senator Bernie Sanders Finance Secretary Derek Mackay warns that more powers over employment law...

First, of course I welcome this. Second, a job guarantee is a logical part of a Green New Deal, which offers work in every constituency by ensuring jobs are available everywhere to transform our green infrastructure, and most especially our housing. Third, it has to then be noted that this policy is linked to modern monetary theory, which is the only current school of economic thought that makes full employment for those who want work its core objective. And fourth, and inevitably, this...

In mapping out what I think are the essential aspects of a social transformation that we might call a Green New Deal, eliminating precarious work is one of the priorities – it is intrinsic to creating a more equitable society in harmony with nature. This aspect also calls in question the role of a Job Guarantee. Note the capitals – there is only one Job Guarantee but many jobs guarantees. I will explain today why the Job Guarantee will be an intrinsic part of the Green New Deal but by far a...

When the governments in the advanced nations abandoned full employment as an overarching macroeconomic objective, and instead, starting pursuing what I have called full employability, they stopped seeing unemployment as a policy target (to be minimised) and began using it as a policy tool to suppress inflation. As mass unemployment rose, the politics were massaged by the mainstream of my profession who claimed that the level of unemployment that constituted full employment had risen (this...

Together with Esteban Cruz and Pavlina Tcherneva I have written a chapter in a book on the Eurozone. It has been published by Revista Economica and is available for download here (PDF). This is the abstract…. econoblog 101New chapter on Euro Treasury and Job GuaranteeDirk Ehnts | Lecturer at Bard College Berlin, research assistant at the Technical University of Chemnitz, and spokesperson of the board of Pufendorf-Gesellschaft eV in Berlin

The House of Representatives didn’t know what hit it.The Green New Deal, introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in February, energized politicians on both sides of the political spectrum with its twin goals of carbon neutrality by 2030 and the promise of jobs for every American. It also polarized them. Critics have one main question: How the hell are we going to pay for it?As the guy responsible for the plan’s “jobs guarantee,” Andrés Bernal, 32, has a lot to answer for. And...