Bibliography

Abstract

Unemployment has almost always been traumatic for its victims. In earlier times, it threatened extreme privation, if not starvation. Still today, it dramatically decreases its victims’ standard of living, human capital, social standing, and self-respect. It is associated with poorer health, family dissolution, and suicide. Unemployment also entails considerable costs to society such as lost output, increased crime, decayed neighborhoods, and when extreme, political unrest. Why, then, is it tolerated? Why, especially, have workers and their advocates not demanded that employment be guaranteed to all? This article explores why what has always been foremost to workers’ interests—security of employment—has only rarely resulted in a demand for guaranteed employment. Although many employed workers might feel job-secure and thus see little need for guaranteed employment, all are vulnerable to the overpoweringly seductive dominant ideology serving the interests of the owners of the means of production that blames the unemployed for their fate, creating hostility to the very idea of guaranteed employment. This article explores the history of how this ideology has served to block creation of a basic human right to work.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2021.1945886

Macroeconomics

Abstract

This paper proposes a centrally funded and locally administered Chinese Green Job Guarantee to achieve three goals. First, to eliminate China’s 24.27 million urban unemployment by providing a public job to anyone willing, able, and ready to work. Second, to achieve public purposes (building infrastructure, addressing environmental degradation, and preserving traditional culture, etc.) by hiring the previously unemployed 24.27 million Chinese workers. Third, to promote organic economic growth with the increased consumption from the 24.27 million JG workers. Increasing China’s fiscal deficit by 1.58% of 2019 GDP would have financed a complete Chinese Green JG to eliminate the 24.27 million people experiencing urban unemployment and elevate GDP growth rate to the 9.23% and 10.65% range in 2019. Moreover, China’s deficit spending to finance the Green JG is not only sustainable but also functional. Finally, the paper explores the design of a Chinese Green JG, such as how it should be administered, what jobs it could create, and why China should adopt a gradualist approach.

https://www.global-isp.org/wp-content/uploads/WP-124.pdf

Asia Environmental Sustainability Macroeconomics Urban

Abstract

Nous travaillons. Nous participons, nous produisons et nous prenons soins des autres. Dans le monde contemporain, une grande partie de notre travail est transformé en marchandise par des entreprises privées qui organisent la production et l’emploi en vue d’un gain commercial. Dans le même temps, les travailleur·euse·s sont souvent sous-payé·e·s, obligé·e·s d’effectuer leurs tâches dans de dangereuses conditions, confronté·e·s en permanence à la menace du chômage. Avec ou sans la covid 19, le marché du travail est un jeu de chaises musicales impitoyable, dans lequel des millions de personnes cherchent en vain du travail tandis que des millions d’autres endurent un emploi précaire.

Le chômage est un moteur puissant, quoique silencieux, d’injustice économique. Il a miné les fondations des relations professionnelles de l’après-guerre, le contrat social et la solidarité entre les travailleur·euse·s. Il plane sur toutes les négociations entre syndicats et entreprises et favorise les externalisations et la sous-traitance, il tire vers le bas les rémunérations et incite à recourir à la main d’œuvre bon marché fournie par les migrants. La menace du chômage reste le moyen de coercition le plus puissant à disposition des entreprises pour contraindre leurs employé·e·s. Celles et ceux qui ont un emploi, comme celles et ceux qui n’en ont pas subissent le même sort : ils et elles ont perdu la capacité de se faire entendre leur voix sur ce marché du travail.

https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/le-manifeste-travail-isabelle-ferreras/9...

Europe Human Rights Implementation Macroeconomics

Abstract

This article assesses the job guarantee (JG) from two angles. First, by tracing some of the JG’s intellectual origins in the inflationary crises of the 1970s, it questions contemporary claims about…

https://doi.org/10.1080/07078552.2020.1848497

Macroeconomics

Abstract

Dutch: In (academische) discussies over de toekomst van de sociale zekerheid wordt steeds vaker ‘de basisbaan’ genoemd als het antwoord op een falend activeringsbeleid. Met de gezaghebbende rapporten van de Commissie Borstlap en de WRR in 2020 is dit idee stevig op de politieke agenda gezet. De basisbaan houdt grofweg in dat mensen voor wie het lastig is om een plek te bemachtigen op de reguliere arbeidsmarkt, een baan wordt aangeboden waarmee ongeveer het minimumloon kan worden verdiend. De voorstellen die tot nu toe zijn gedaan, besteden echter geen aandacht aan de vraag hoe de basisbaan in overeenstemming met sociale grondrechten moet worden vormgegeven. In deze bijdrage tracht ik in deze lacune te voorzien. Hiertoe bespreek ik allereerst aan de hand van de rapporten van de commissie Borstlap en de WRR en een aantal andere publicaties, de mogelijke invullingen van de basisbaan. Vervolgens ga ik na in hoeverre de verschillende ideeën in lijn zijn met een tweetal fundamentele grondrechten: het recht op arbeid en het gelijkeloonbeginsel. Tot slot formuleer ik op basis van die analyse een eigen voorstel voor de gedifferentieerde basisbaan dat is verankerd in het recht op arbeid en het gelijkeloonbeginsel en dat past in het nationale socialezekerheids- en arbeidsrecht.

English: In discussions on the future of social security in the Netherlands, scholars increasingly refer to the basic-job as a response to failing welfare-to-work policies. The basic-job roughly entails a regular job against at least statutory minimum wages. The proposals for a basic-job we have seen thus far do not pay attention to the question how the basic-job can be designed in conformity with fundamental social rights. In this paper I seek fill this gap in the scholarly literature. The paper addresses two fundamental social rights in particular: the right to work and the right to equal pay for work of equal value. After evaluating current proposals against these fundamental rights I describe the contours of a basic job that fit with national social security and labour law and which is in accordance with fundamental social rights.

Note: Downloadable document available in Dutch.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3641375

Europe Human Rights

Abstract

https://wug.akwien.at/WUG_Archiv/2020_46_1/2020_46_1_0003.pdf

Macroeconomics

Abstract

The future of work is creating uncertainty in labour markets, with a need for instruments that address the risks of heightened inequality and promote decent work. Renewed commitments to full employment are an important part of the social contract for the future of work – with forms of public employment, including jobs guarantees, providing the state with an instrument to act as employer of last resort. They play an important role to promote decent work and create public value in diverse ways, with a need ‘re-imagine’ their role in public policy.

The book “The Value of Work and Its Rules between Innovation and Tradition: ‘Labour Is Not a Commodity’ Today” includes a Chapter entitled “Employment Matters too much to Society to Leave to Markets Alone” The Chapter discusses how to promote full employment in the future world of work. It is done by an examination of the existing measures to promote full employment in the context of the social contract and an analysis of the role of Public Employment Programmes (PEPs) can play in strengthening the future social contract. PEPs are analyzed with reference to their functions as a measure against involuntary unemployment, and fostering a social protection floor to support a Universal Labour Guarantee. This Chapter also evaluates how PEPs can contribute to solving other societal goals such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, labour market transitions, peacebuilding and strengthening the commons.

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6027-7

Environmental Sustainability Human Rights Implementation Macroeconomics

Abstract

The EU in 2020 is in the midst of a triple crisis of unemployment, public health and environmental collapse. These aspects are deeply intertwined and should be tackled together, since they all reflect structural problems of the European labor market. Job Guarantee is the proposed fiscal tool, since a growing body of empirical evidence shows that labor market policies targeting unemployment have considerable positive impact, beyond direct social aid. We suggest creation of a European Job Guarantee (EU JG) as a policy tool for post-pandemic recovery. EU JG would be a programme of publicly funded, high work standard employment of last resort, based on local economic needs (including industrial transition). Pilot projects should be set up; the proposed regions are the decarbonising regions in transition. We analyse the possibilities for job creation and suggest an outline of the pilot programme.

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3715344

Europe Health Macroeconomics

Abstract

The Global Employment Policy Review (GEPR) examines trends in employment policies while at the same time presenting new and innovative solutions to the challenges of policy design and implementation. In this first edition, the report focuses on the issue of structural transformation.

Chapter 3 ‘The contribution of employment-intensive investment programmes to structural economic transformation for peace and resilience’ outlines the potential for Employment Intensive Investment Programmes (EIIP) to respond to profound changes in an increasingly globalized economic system, which makes millions of workers either surplus to the requirements of the labour market or engaged in the market, but without earning a decent living wage. This situation is exacerbated by factors including technological advances, protracted conflicts, accelerating climate change and environmental degradation. All this is contributing to social unrest, migration and conflict. In this context, this chapter explains how ILO-supported EIIP play a transformative role in addressing these challenges, thus contributing to peace and resilience.

https://www.ilo.org/publications/major-publications/global-employment-...

Development Environmental Sustainability Macroeconomics

Abstract

The ongoing job losses, already numbering in the tens of millions, and the mass unemployment that will remain once the COVID-19 crisis has passed are of our own making, argues Pavlina R. Tcherneva, created by our inability to conceive of policies that protect and create jobs on demand. There is another option: instead of capitulating to a world of guaranteed unemployment, we can demand policies that guarantee employment. During the pandemic, the government can protect jobs by acting as a kind of employer of last resort, while in the post-pandemic world it can create jobs directly via mass mobilization and a job guarantee. In this environment, backstopping payrolls, mass mobilization, and the job guarantee are three different but organically linked policies that aim to secure the right to decent, useful, and remunerative employment opportunities for all.

https://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/guaranteeing-employment-dur...

Implementation Macroeconomics

Abstract

Iceland is a developed dwarf-economy (the country’s population is 366,000) with its own free-floating currency (the Icelandic krona, ISK), the world’s second smallest free-floating currency after the Seychellean rupee (SCR). Taking the foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank of Iceland into account, the public sector has a net positive financial position to the rest of the world equal to approx. 20% of GDP. The economy provides an abundant production of energy and the country’s net international investment position is positive, due in great part to prevalent current account surpluses over the last seven years. Despite the need to raise foreign currency assets to pay for imports, the economy’s monetary sovereignty is relatively high, and the potential fiscal policy space is vast. The workforce is well educated, the country is a member of the European single market through the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement, and the government provides universal health insurance, subsidised education (including universities) and a Nordic-model style of welfare assistance that includes unemployment benefits, maternity and paternity leaves, and childcare.

As has been the case for other economies, the COVID-19 pandemic hit Iceland’s economy hard. One of its most affected branches is the tourist sector, as Iceland typically welcomes ~2 million tourists to its shores annually (5-6 times the population). Far from being the only industry affected, jobs in other sectors (retail, restaurants, aviation to name a few) have disappeared, and the rate of unemployment has risen sharply.

Between the second quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020, the number of jobs in Iceland fell by more than 27,000. Comparing the third quarter of 2019, which includes the peak of the tourist season, and the second quarter of 2020, the reduction is just over 38,000 jobs (fig. 1). For comparison, losing 38,000 jobs in Iceland is like losing ~34 million jobs in the US. The outlook is dire: as of September 30th, numerous Icelandic firms intend to decrease their number of staff over the next six months according to data from the Central Bank of Iceland (fig. 2). There is every reason to believe that unemployment in Iceland will increase significantly in the coming months.

https://www.global-isp.org/wp-content/uploads/PN-122.pdf

Europe Gender Health Macroeconomics Quantitative

Abstract

Self-targeting features of a universal job guarantee make it a long-term policy option to protect informal workers in urban India

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/104542

India Macroeconomics Urban

Abstract

Today in the United States, a number of congressional Democrats endorse proposals that would establish a job guarantee for all Americans seeking work. Arguments for such a policy can be traced back…

https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2020.1752525

Macroeconomics

Abstract

En 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt advirtió: “Las personas que tienen hambre y no tienen trabajo son la materia de la que se hacen las dictaduras”, y pidió una Carta de Derechos Económicos que asegurara, entre otros derechos, el derecho a un trabajo para cada persona. Este derecho está grabado en la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos y en las constituciones de muchas naciones, pero el mandato sigue sin cumplirse.

La Garantía de Empleo es una política pública que responde a este llamamiento proporcionando oportunidades de empleo con salarios dignos a cualquier persona que busque trabajo en proyectos de servicio público. A diferencia de los programas del New Deal de Roosevelt de los años 30, la Garantía de Empleo es un derecho permanente. Responde directamente a la eterna amenaza del desempleo, tanto en tiempos de crisis como en tiempos relativamente prósperos. Es un derecho de empleo legalmente exigible  para cualquier persona que busque trabajo y una poderosa política estructural. Establece sin compromiso un nivel de salario digno para todos los empleos de la economía y relega el desempleo masivo y las recuperaciones sin empleo a los cubos de basura de la historia

https://perspectiva.ccoo.cat/la-garantia-de-trabajo-una-nueva-norma-la...

Human Rights Macroeconomics

Abstract

This report focuses on the last mile challenges faced by Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) workers in accessing their wages after the wages have been credited to the workers’ bank or postal accounts. It is based on a survey of 1947 workers conducted in the first half of the financial year 2018-19 in one block each of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Rajasthan (RJ) and two blocks of Jharkhand (JH). The report addresses workers’ awareness about some banking norms, access to information, hardships in accessing wages, transparency and accountability of disbursement agencies, issues concerning payments that get rejected and the workers’ experience of using grievance redressal systems. It offers a set of recommendations for improvement.

https://digitalwages.org/insights/length-of-the-last-mile-delays-and-h...

Implementation India

Abstract

To run a job guarantee public policy scheme, it is important to know the aspiration level or the reference point of labor, and accordingly, the labor hour and the wage sequence are to be prepared. The existing job guarantee schemes consider the same wage rates for all types of jobs. As a result, it is to identify the reference point. The present work aims to propose a job guarantee scheme where different types of jobs have different wage rates. The paper explains the choice problem between labor and leisure at different wage rates and proposes complete computational tools to be incorporated into the job guarantee schemes. The paper also gives a mechanism to prepare the list of jobs and corresponding wage rates by maintaining a balance between labor and leisure, where productive activities measure labor hours and labor welfare measures leisure hours. Lastly, the paper provides the analytical tools to interpret the ex-post data of the job guarantee public policy schemes.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper has been written based on the Coordination Game and its Welfare Implications in the job guarantee public policy schemes. Findings The present paper gives an initial work to measure the choice between labor and leisure for the different wage rates practically. This will help in getting the equilibrium strategies, namely, the combination of the labor hour and the wage rate between the policymaker and the labor. This method will help to implement the job guarantee schemes. For example, to run successfully the Basic Income policy, the basic income calculation should give due care; otherwise, there will be a downward trend in the basic income and the welfare of labor will be reduced, because the labor would have to supply excess labor to meet the target income.

This paper derives theories and explains how the equilibrium in this coordination game can be achieved. The paper explains how the policy of the job guarantee schemes can be practiced practically. In the MGNREGA scheme, the public institution declares different categories of jobs with different wage rates. The categories have been classified with respect to the hours required to complete the job. Therefore, the public institution declares different lists or a sequence of pairs of labor hours and wage rates. Moreover, the list is stochastic, because the list can be changed by the inclusion of an offer from the market as well. The labor has to select from the list. The challenge on the part of the public institution is to prepare the list in such a way so that the inclusion of the market offers will not distort the equilibrium of the coordination game. An important method has been proposed here to analyze the ex-post data of job offers so that the preparation of the future sequence of the job offers can be prepared with due care. One objective of the policymaker here is to make a list of job offers in such a way so that the labor supply will be converging to a point and that will not deviate if the wage rate increases further. This objective will make a balance of the distribution of funds between the existing registered labor and the new entrants into the job guarantee schemes.

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3737285

Implementation India Modeling Quantitative

Abstract

The COVID-19 lockdown implemented in India is estimated to have tripled the urban unemployment rate. Most low-income urban workers will fall through the cracks of the provisions being put in place to support workers, and almost none of them has access to benefits. Swati Dhingra (LSE) argues that the self-targeting features of a universal job guarantee make it an appealing policy option to protect informal workers in urban India both now and in the longer term.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/104579/1/covid19_2020_05_18_protecting_inform...

Development India Urban

Abstract

The employer of last resort (ELR) is a policy proposal designed as an alternative to using unemployment as the primary mean to control the value of the currency. This paper complements the analysis at the theoretical level and provides an estimate of the potential economic effects of an ELR program on the Argentine economy. According to the simulations within the historical economic cycle, the ELR (1) would permanently eliminate involuntary unemployment, (2) by setting an effective minimum wage equal to the poverty line, it would eradicate poverty—at least that originating in insufficient labor income—, (3) if combined with a quantity rule for non-ELR public spending, the policy could influence the size of the program and, thus, attempt to offset the acceleration (or deceleration) of inflation with respect to the target. In addition, the ELR would prevent the so-called “external constraint” from implying (as it currently does) involuntary unemployment (and poverty). In a sense, and as the simulated scenarios pretend to illustrate, an ELR would, at least, replace the tradeoff between the “two evils” (unemployment and inflation) by another between inflation and the proportion of ELR employment.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01603477.2020.1734467

Macroeconomics Modeling Quantitative South America

Abstract

As a bottom-up approach, a Job Guarantee policy can tackle the issue of unemployment on the macroeconomic, socioeconomic, and individual level in a unique way and promote the social inclusion of the unemployed. This paper aims at analysing the potential obstacles – namely inflationary pressure and financing – of a Job Guarantee policy implementation in the case of Germany. A Job Guarantee’s impact on inflation depends on excess production capacities of economic sectors as well as collective wage bargaining structures. In this regard, this paper concludes that under a correct policy design inflationary pressure is no major obstacle. Strengthening workers’ bargaining power in Germany through a Job Guarantee policy could even contribute to reaching the inflation target and prevent deflation. However, deficiencies of the European institutional setup and the analogous restrictive fiscal mantra at European and national level limit the political scope for financing a Job Guarantee policy. Notwithstanding, a small to medium size Job Guarantee programme – comprising up to all currently unemployed willing to work – is politically and legally feasible.

https://www.ipe-berlin.org/fileadmin/institut-ipe/Dokumente/Working_Pa...

Europe Macroeconomics Modeling Quantitative

Abstract

For more than five years the Government has been lukewarm towards the MGNREGA. Yet, in the midst of the ongoing slowdown this very programme is a potentially effective instrument that it can and should use to address the economic emergency in rural areas.

https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/continuing-relevance-mgnrega

Development India

Abstract

This paper uses a new field survey of low-wage areas of urban India to show that employment and earnings were decimated by the lockdown resulting from the Covid-19 crisis. It examines workers’ desire for a job guarantee in this setting. Workers who had a job guarantee before the crisis were relatively shielded by not being hit quite so hard in terms of the increased incidence of job loss or working zero hours and earnings losses. A stated choice experiment contained in the survey reveals evidence that low-wage workers are willing to give up around a quarter of their daily wage for a job guarantee. And direct survey questions corroborate this, with informal, young and female workers being most likely to want a job guarantee, and to want it even more due to the current crisis.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3723523#

Development India Urban

Abstract

Among DIY musicians, one often hears support for a Universal Basic Income on the logic that if rent and food are covered, one could spend more time on music. In some formulations, a cultural job guarantee aims at this explicitly: liberation of creative energies through guaranteed employment. However, technological innovations that allow the nearly zero cost creation and transmission of recordings have moved gatekeeping downstream from production to publicity and audience development. In order to address this, and implicitly challenge the anti-democratic notion that individual preferences are best expressed through markets, any culturally-focused Federal job guarantee must include provision for popularization. Starting from both Michal Kalecki’s proposition of a “political business cycle” and Alan Lomax’s idea of “cultural equity,” I argue that a cultural job guarantee must be a self-consciously left project to restructure the social system of cultural production. I follow Fred Lee’s assertion that consumers choose from available goods, rather than making production decisions. I also affirm Modern Monetary Theory’s vision of money as a boundless public utility. With these in mind, I argue that a cultural job guarantee should democratize American culture, rather than provide the private sector culture industry with a reserve army of unemployed artists. Instead of making it possible for anyone to become a Taylor Swift, a cultural job guarantee should look to the models of Smithsonian Folkways and John Peel to dismantle the cultural form of Taylor Swift itself.

https://www.global-isp.org/wp-content/uploads/WP-127.pdf

Implementation

Abstract

This article discusses some of the issues revolved around implementing the Job Guarantee approach at the local level. Specifically the article addresses the question: Who decides the design of the Job Guarantee program at the local level? And in concert with this first question comes: What are the types of jobs that are implemented at the local level? Here it is argued that these decisions should be made in a way that fosters economic democracy and promotes widespread public participation. Often this means elevating the interests of workers, and the potential JG workforce, alongside businesses and governments into the process of planning and designing JG programs.

https://www.global-isp.org/publication/the-regional-job-guarantee-fost...

Implementation

Abstract

The devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have added urgency to putting in place the policy measures towards establishing an employment guarantee. Such a guarantee would aim to arrest further deterioration of labour markets. Large-scale public employment programmes (PEP) or employment guarantee schemes (EGS) would form a critical part of such a guarantee through acting as an employer of last resort and offering work at a minimum wage to those willing and able to work. However, these programmes need to be designed and implemented as part of a coherent set of economic, social protection and employment policies that collectively protect minimum conditions in the labour market and at the same time support economic recovery and transitions into formal employment.

https://www.ilo.org/publications/role-public-employment-programmes-and...

Implementation

Abstract

The 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 a surprise. 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 continue to threaten the social, political and economic stability of the Eurozone. The institutional constraints of the single currency however preclude bold action to address these challenges. In this paper, we suggest that tackling the twin problems of the Eurozone – its institutional flaws and mass unemployment – could be addressed by creating a Euro Treasury that would finance a Job Guarantee program, which would eliminate mass unemployment, enhance price stability, and foster social and economic integration across Europe.

https://revistaeconomiacritica.org/index.php/rec/article/view/217/202

Europe Macroeconomics

Abstract

This study was intended to examine the perception of the youths towards this programme and find out how the programme has been effective in sustainable youth employment through the Kazi Kwa Vijana programme in Kericho Municipality. This study was carried out amongst youths and their coordinators who participated in the projects of the Kazi Kwa Vijana programme in this Municipality. The study employed Hertzberg’s Two Factor theory which is effectively a theory of job satisfaction. Youths as employees of the KKV programme needed some hygiene and motivational factors referred herein as satisfiers and dissatisfiers. The challenges that affected the Kazi Kwa Vijana programme needed to be studied empirically so that remedial action is put in place for its sustainability in future and in the long run serve as a guideline for the many other projects to be initiated by the government. The study findings are useful to the Government of Kenya, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, policy makers, NGOs, Kazi Kwa Vijana coordinators and all concerned stakeholders in devising workable strategies geared towards achieving the desired goals and objectives at the county and national level.

https://doi.org/10.51317/ecjahss.v1i1.74

Africa Implementation Quantitative Youth

Abstract

This paper examines the policy that has been suggested to resolve involuntary unemployment by having the government employ any persons who register as unemployed. This policy is compared to the full employment proposal of Michal Kalecki. Kalecki’s proposals also contained a strategy for financing full employment. Like the Employer of Last Resort proposal, Kalecki’s strategy allows employment policies to be examined from financial control, rather than the usual approaches of examining the impact of employment policy on labour productivity, or inflation, although both come into the analysis. The paper, therefore, outlines the proposal for an employer of last resort, and the proposed financing of that policy. A second part looks at Kalecki’s proposals for full employment and its financing. A third part then considers the impact of the employer of last resort policy on financial stability.

https://doi.org/10.14746/sr.2019.3.2.03

Macroeconomics

Abstract

Due to the private sector’s inability to absorb the growing number of unemployed youths particularly in developing countries, as expected from neoclassical policies, critics of the neoclassical theory – the ‘critical view’ – have advocated for direct job creation programmes such as the Government as Employer of Last Resort (ELR) as a solution to all forms of unemployment. This paper provides evidence on the ability of Government to tackle youth unemployment based on a study of Ghana’s National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) using features of the ELR proposal as an analytical tool. Design/methodology/approach. A mixed-methods, case study approach. Findings. Ghana’s NYEP has contributed to building some human capital; however, it does not meet all the criteria of an effective ELR scheme. Research limitations/implications. Although, the study focuses solely on Ghana’s NYEP, lessons from the programme’s implementation challenges should serve as a guide for governments and policy makers. Originality/value. This is the first independent empirical study on the NYEP and the first in Ghana and Africa based on the ELR framework. Paper type. Original research paper. Keywords: Labour Market, Youth Unemployment, Government as Employer of Last Resort (ELR), Ghana’s National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), Developing Countries, Human Capital

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332629313_Government_as_emplo...

Africa Macroeconomics Quantitative

Abstract

In the United States, the “right to work” originally referred to a progressive call for the right to employment. For example, from the perspective of John R. Commons, the right to work included “the right of the unemployed to have work furnished by the government.” For Commons, that right was a logical outgrowth of Americans’ constitutional rights to life and liberty, “the next great human right.” This article reviews Commons’s right-to-work stance, the history of federal efforts to establish government as employer of last resort, and some key postwar institutionalist contributions to the literature on achieving jobs for all. Then it presents the case for reclaiming the right to work as a cornerstone of progressive capitalism.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2019.1594498

Macroeconomics

Abstract

AbstractRising inequality in income and wealth distribution and a huge waste of human resources (in the form of labor unemployment and underemployment) has once again led to a focus on Keynesian po…

https://doi.org/10.1080/08911916.2018.1564494

Macroeconomics

Abstract

In an employer of last resort Program the government, through some institutional arrangement, offers direct employment to anyone wishing to work. The total effect is an automatic stabilizer that does a better job of maintaining full employment and at least as good a job at maintaining price stability as policies. Developing a macroeconometric model is a time-consuming process requiring that the model be specified, estimated, and tested before policy experiments can be performed. FairModel–United States (FM) is a well established structural macroeconometric model that has existed in roughly its form since 1976. FairModel–United States breaks the economy down into six sectors: household, firm, financial, foreign, federal government, and state and local government. Many of the key relationships in the April 2000 version of FairModel–United States are very close to those of the Transformational Growth approach to economics developed by Edward J. Nell.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315703930-10

Macroeconomics Modeling North America Quantitative

Abstract

This paper, argues the author, examines how the Job Guarantee proposal uniquely meets two major social requirements. It is a policy response whose merits include much more than its macroeconomic stabilization features, as discussed in the literature. It is also, in a sense, a method of inoculation against the vile effects of unemployment. The paper discusses several preventive features of the program.

https://doi.org/10.1080/05775132.2019.1635804

Macroeconomics

Abstract

This paper presents the idea of the Job Guarantee (JG), which is a logical extension of the paradigm of a tax-driven fiat currency. The JG involves the government offering a public purpose-oriented job with a fixed hourly wage and job benefits to anyone willing to work. The JG as a bottom-up approach is locally administered but federally funded. As the analytical lens of MMT reveals, a monetarily sovereign government is always able to provide the spending required. Macroeconomically, the JG works as an automatic countercyclical stabilizer and an excellent tool for aggregated demand management, ensuring the economy is continuously operating at full capacity. On top, the JG uses an employed buffer stock approach as a superior means to maintain price stability. Next to its favourable macroeconomic impacts, the JG offers many social benefits, particularly related to continuous employment, working conditions in the private sector, power relations in the labour market and democracy. While the JG and Universal Basic Income (UBI) are often discussed as comparable, competing policy proposals, the JG addresses more macroeconomic and social issues than the UBI does. This paper concludes that the JG qualifies for being the single most effective policy in order to drive the economy towards continuous full employment and price stability while realizing additional social benefits.

https://doi.org/10.14746/sr.2019.3.2.04

Implementation Inflation Macroeconomics

Abstract

We examine the welfare effects of India’s workfare program NREGA using a novel, almost sharp regression discontinuity design. We find large seasonal consumption increases in states implementing the program intensely, which are a multiple of the direct income gains. We also find increases in adolescents’ school attendance. Our results imply substantial general-equilibrium effects. We conclude that the public employment program holds significant potential for reducing poverty and insuring households against various adverse implications of seasonal income shortfalls – when properly implemented.

Keywords: public works, employment program, social welfare programs, poverty alleviation, safety net, labor markets, poverty, schooling, child labor, India

https://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/OPHIWP129.pdf

Development India Macroeconomics Quantitative Youth

Abstract

The idea of a universal job guarantee (JG) policy for the United States has become the subject of renewed public debate due to a number of high-profile political endorsements. L. Randall Wray recently coauthored a report that presented a JG proposal “the Public Service Employment program”along with estimates of the economic impact of the plan. However, several other variants have been proposed and/or endorsed. In this policy note, Wray seeks to establish common ground among the major JG plans and provides an initial response to critics.

http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/pn_2018_3.pdf

Macroeconomics Modeling Quantitative

Abstract

This paper reorganizes ecological theory around monetary issuance in order to make visible inclusive paths to ecological egalitarianism. It locates a limiting decentralized localism in Post- Earth Day ecological theory, typified in Arne Næss’ ‘deep ecology’ movement. In doing so, the paper argues that these limits contribute to our deficient global response to the current and incoming effects of climate change. Given the potential revolutionary resurgence of public interest in the central tenant of the Green New Deal, a federal job guarantee, this essay insists on an ecology of centralization that can actualize such a response. By extending the work of Martin Heidegger, it identifies an egalitarian ecology in the abundant and abstract ecological relationality of money as a medium of governance.

https://www.global-isp.org/wp-content/uploads/WP-120.pdf

Environmental Sustainability Implementation Macroeconomics

Abstract

This chapter opens with a discussion of the impact of involuntary unemployment on subjective well-being, based on research undertaken by psychologists and others. A comparison is made between the impact of unemployment and changes in income on subjected well-being. It is shown that there are significant non-pecuniary benefits to paid employment and that full and equitable employment is essential to sustainable prosperity. It is argued that full and equitable employment supported by a job guarantee is consistent with moderate and stable rates of inflation and ecological sustainability.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90981-3_7

Environmental Sustainability Inflation Macroeconomics

Abstract

“The real value of this minimum social wage should be set immediately at a level which restores to the low paid their fair share of national income distribution, accounting for increases in both the cost of living and the benefits of technological change and rising labour productivity over the past half-century. It should not be seen as a mechanism to keep wages down, as is the case with the threat of unemployment at the moment. Instead, the goal should be to raise the relative wage of the low paid, and by doing so to engineer a much greater degree of income equality (Mitchell 2013).

Any inflationary consequences should be negated by an increase in tax rates on those at the top of the wealth distribution, to create space for the low paid to spend more out of their higher incomes, without pushing the economy beyond its productive capacity. A movement towards a more progressive tax system, such as the one which existed fifty years ago, alongside a radical increase in real minimum wages rates, supported by a job guarantee, would play a major part in a transition to a future of sustainable prosperity (Tcherneva 2015).”

https://www.global-isp.org/publication/a-just-social-wage-and-a-job-gu...

Implementation Macroeconomics

Abstract

Poverty in the United States, one of the world’s most wealthy and prosperous nations, is persistently high. Despite a complex array of social insurance programs in place, 43.1 million people remain in poverty. Because unemployment is a strong predictor of poverty, we propose a permanent federal job guarantee for all Americans. The program would provide full-time employment for any American over eighteen, offering at least nonpoverty wages plus benefits. Such a program will constitute a direct route to producing full employment by eradicating involuntary unemployment. It also will substantially increase worker bargaining power by removing the employer threat of unemployment. To make the case that the federal job guarantee is viable, this paper includes responses to five common criticisms lodged against programs of this type.

https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2018.4.3.03

Macroeconomics North America

Abstract

Most workers work too much and too hard, only to benefit the idle rich. Thus, we support reducing working hours and capital’s share of wealth.  Yet evidence suggests exclusion from work causes problems beyond the absence of income, including higher mortality and suicide rates, social isolation and a permanent decline in well-being.

To address these evils, we echo Martin Luther King’s call for “a job to all … who want to … and are able to work,” and “an income for [those] not able to work.” Specifically, we support a federally funded, locally driven job guarantee (JG), which, like programs envisioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) and economists at the Levy Economics Institute and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, commits the federal government to guarantee a living wage job with good benefits, including healthcare, to anyone who wants or needs it.

http://inthesetimes.com/features/job-guarantee-universal-basic-income-...

Gender Human Rights Implementation North America Racial Justice

Abstract

Evidence on the effectiveness of workfare as an anti-poverty program in developing countries is weak compared with the relatively well-established role of public works during economic crisis as a social safety net. This paper contributes to evidence building by examining the impact of a large-scale workfare program in Bangladesh, the Employment Generation Program for the Poorest. Taking advantage of the program’s distinguishable feature of direct wage transfer to a person’s bank account, the paper uses accessibility to local banks as an instrumental variable to identify the program’s impacts on rural social assistance beneficiaries. Based on locality-by-time fixed effects models over two rounds of locality panel data, the analysis finds that the Employment Generation Program for the Poorest has contributed to increasing overall household consumption and reducing outstanding loans. In particular, expenditures on quality food and health care have significantly increased, which likely helps individuals continue to engage in income-generating activities in the labor market. However, the implementation costs and poor quality of public assets built through work projects could potentially undermine the program’s efficiency. Moreover, further evidence is required on the impacts of work experience through workfare on subsequent labor market outcomes and the value of public assets, to assess the program’s effectiveness compared with administratively simpler alternative instruments such as unconditional cash transfers.

https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-8395

Asia Development Implementation Modeling Quantitative

Abstract

This review aims at assessing the economic evaluation of public programmes such as the expanded public works programmes (EPWP) in South Africa. The South African government earmarked the EPWP for departments and municipalities to implement projects that are meaningful for economic transformation and inclusive growth. This study argues that economic evaluation of public programmes must consider the interplay of complex decisions making on resource allocations and take into account consequences thereafter in a systematic way. This review paper adopted a qualitative document analysis, where data is drawn from research reports on programme evaluation, policy documents, EPWP evaluation reports, books and articles drawn from accredited journals. Key findings from this study draw attention to unfulfilled great expectations to sustain job creation in an emerging economy in South Africa. Results also revealed that although the design was suitable for the evaluation, it was not compared to any other alternative cost-effective measurement strategy to assess the economic value of the EPWP in South African public service. Based on the lessons from EPWP, this study recommends an integrative approach to evaluate job creation programmes in order to settle on the economic value of EPWP.

https://doi.org/10.21511/pmf.07(3).2018.03

Africa Implementation Quantitative

Abstract

In this document, we analyze the fundamentals underpinning the performance of the Argentine economy since the abandonment of the Convertibility regime, with the labor market and income distribution at the center of the analysis. We will attempt to break down the elements that contribute to a sustainable path of growth that, in turn, lead to a reduction in inequity levels in the country.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66376-0_10

Inflation Macroeconomics South America

Abstract

We examine the impact of conditional fiscal transfers on public employment across gender in India taking the case of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The MGNREGS, as an “employer of last resort” fiscal policy, is a direct employment transfer, which guarantees to provide 100 days of paid work opportunities at a predetermined wage for public works in India through a self-selection criterion. Using unit record data of the latest 68th round of NSS Employment-Unemployment survey, we examined gender differential impacts of MGNREGS on labour force participation rates across States in India. The unit of analysis in our paper is not `household’, but is one step ahead to capture the intra-household level of participating behaviour in the economic activity. The results, based on the survey enumerating 2,80,763 individuals in rural areas, revealed that there is a striking heterogeneity in the gender impacts of job guarantee programme across States of India. The probit estimates showed that MGNREGS job card holder’s labour force participation rates were higher than the non-card holders and the result was more pronounced for women. The analysis of the time-use patterns and the unpaid care economy statistics of job guarantee card holders obtained from the unit records also shows that augmenting public investment in care economy infrastructure is significant for the job guarantee programme to function at its full potential in India.

https://www.nipfp.org.in/media/medialibrary/2018/03/WP_2018_2https://d...

Gender Implementation India Quantitative

Abstract

In recent weeks, a federal job guarantee has rapidly gained momentum, with many Democrats backing the idea. That’s welcome news to those who have long advocated the goal — activists in black freedom movements and the National Jobs for All Coalition, as well as contemporary economists like William Darity Jr., Darrick Hamilton, Pavlina Tcherneva, and Stephanie Kelton.

The recent discussion is something of a throwback to a previous era. From 1944 to 1980, full employment proposals found themselves in the Democratic Party’s platform every four years. And in the 1970s, Coretta Scott King and others in the civil rights movement pushed for full employment as the next phase of their struggle for freedom.

https://jacobin.com/2018/05/full-employment-humphrey-hawkins-inflation...

Health Inflation Macroeconomics North America Racial Justice

Abstract

This chapter explores the development of the principle of a universal right to employment in the United States from Roosevelt’s Economic Bill of Rights to the contemporary efforts of economists based at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Contribution to the development of the job guarantee scheme by black economists and advocates is given special attention. The breadth of support for the job guarantee across the ideological spectrum indicates that it is an idea whose time has come.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66376-0_9

Human Rights Macroeconomics North America

Abstract

The notion that the government should guarantee jobs is gaining political popularity in the United States. Over the past twenty years, a branch of post-Keynesians has developed a policy proposal known as the employer of last resort (ELR), which they argue would achieve full employment through direct government job creation. However, many have argued that this proposal is deficient, both in its design and its potential for implementation. While most critiques of this policy have come from other post- Keynesians, this thesis contributes to the controversy surrounding the ELR by examining it from a Marxian perspective. Specifically, this thesis aims to address the ELR’s neglect of political and class power dynamics. Included in this investigation is a comparative- critical analysis of the post-Keynesian and Marxian theories of unemployment and of the state, which I argue exposes deficiencies in the post-Keynesian theory. While I am sympathetic to the goals of the ELR, I argue that the lack of class analysis in post- Keynesian theory and policy inhibits the ELR advocates from appreciating the obstacles to the achievement of their goals. Therefore, I would suggest that Marxian analysis be incorporated into ELR theory and policy proposal.

https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/economics_theses/36/

Macroeconomics

Abstract

This report is one of the outputs of the project “Support to a new generation of Public Works Schemes (Kinofelis) in Greece”, which targeted the long-term unemployed providing them with eight months of employment in projects in participating municipalities between September 2016 and November 2017.

The project provided a wide range of technical support with the following focus areas:
– Improve the design of Kinofelis, by helping to introduce the innovations as compared with previous phases;
– Strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to implement the program through training;
– Improve relevance and quality of the public works projects implemented by municipalities though improved selection processes and quality assessments; and
– Strengthen reporting, monitoring and evaluation systems and procedures of the Kinofelis programme.

https://www.ilo.org/publications/getting-back-work-study-social-impact...

Europe Gender Health Implementation Macroeconomics