This story actually starts almost a year ago, but there is so much news about polls and fundraising totals, I want to ensure the amazing progressive policies being championed by all our wonderful democratic nominees don’t fall through the cracks.
Back in 2018, Sen. Cory Booker introduced the Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act.
The Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act, announced by Booker on Friday, would establish a three-year pilot program in which the Department of Labor would select up to 15 local areas (defined in the bill as any political subdivision of a state, like a city or a county, or a group of cities and counties) and offer that area funding so that every adult living there is guaranteed a job paying at least $15 an hour (or the prevailing wage for the job in question, whichever’s higher) and offering paid family/sick leave and health benefits.
Sen. Booker deserves a lot of credit for leading on this issue:
On Wednesday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) jumped to the vanguard of those lawmakers pushing the federal-job-guarantee initiative when his office formally introduced a bill on the matter. And according to a source directly familiar with the legislation, Booker will have four powerful co-sponsors on his bill: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Separately, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has already broadly outlined his own approach to a federal jobs guarantee.
For a variety of political and institutional factors, the Fed and Congress weren’t able to do enough in 2008 to 2010 to prevent unemployment from breaking 10 percent, and they certainly weren’t able to effect a full recovery within a couple years. Returning to normal unemployment rates took nearly a decade, resulting in years of human misery and lost wage gains that a healthier and faster recovery could’ve delivered.
These institutional factors behind the inability to prevent unemployment from breaking 10 percent during the last recession have been discussed at Infrastructure Kos. In short, there is no such thing as a modern day Works Progress Administration that could be mobilized in sufficient time to keep unemployment down via infrastructure spending. And this is where Sen. Booker’s idea comes into play:
Job guarantee advocates argue that their plan effectively creates a permanent form of fiscal stimulus that politicians wouldn’t need to scramble to pass whenever disaster hits. Instead, if the economy took a turn for the worse and companies started shedding jobs, the government would automatically soak up anyone who’s laid off and give them work. That, in turn, would put more money in consumers’ pockets, boosting demand and improving business’ prospects. Before you know it, the economy’s back to normal.
Well, fast forward to February 2019, and Sen. Booker declares his candidacy.
The idea, according to job guarantee supporters, is to provide a buffer against economic downturns by having the government ensure that Americans who want a job can find one. Booker’s plan would create a three-year pilot through the Labor Department for jobs that pay at least $15 an hour — jobs that could then fulfill some certain social vacuum, like building parks or schools.
Sen. Booker’s bill will pilot the jobs guarantee first in the areas that have proved resistant to recovery. It is also important to note that a Jobs Guarantee eventually made its way into the version of the Green New Deal version released by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.