(https://twitter.com/ptcherneva/status/1297182659307802625)
Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
Are you scared of the #JobGuarantee? Have you heard that it’s hostile or antithetical to welfare or unions? Let me try to help.
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
1. The JG is a missing piece of the welfare safety net, an add-on, not a replacement. We strengthen the welfare system by adding an “employment option”. I have a whole book about it:
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
2. If folks have no retirement income, we guarantee it (SocSec) If kids need access to education, we guarantee it (pub educ) If someone wants a job, training and UI aren’t enough, We should guarantee that a basic job is avail. (we need other guarantees too: housing, m4a)
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
3. JG workers can form a union. The JG wage is the de facto min wage. Increasing the de jure min wage is overdue. Both policies work better together: a legal wage floor (min wage law) and the guarantee of such a job (JG). Both should be linked to
in productivity.
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
4. Few seem to appreciate that the JG is a structural reform (not just any jobs program). It is an innovation in stabilization policy.
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
5. It’s a macro stabilizer and an uncompromising wage floor for all jobs in the economy. What is the alternative? Without it, we are guaranteed a “reserve army of the unemployed”.
Is this the preferred option for JG critics??
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
6. How do unions fair under the current regime of mass unemployment? Not well. How would their work change if the economy was more stable, the threat of unempl largely removed, & a basic wage/benefit floor established? Would they be worse off if we banished jobless recoveries? No
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
7. Many working people are not unionized. Who speaks for them? Especially for those on the margins suffering some of the worst labor market conditions. What leverage do they have? What if they knew a basic job offer was always available?
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
8. We can aim to unionize workers wherever possible, and that still wouldn’t solve the unemployment problem. Unionization and JG are not mutually exclusive. They are complementary.
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@ptchernevOOOOOO
Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
Floors and public options don’t erode bargaining power, they strengthen it. The JG provides the de facto wage/benefit floor and the employment option.
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
10. As i always point out, the JG is being asked an impossible task – to remake the public sector and fill the many gaps of our broken and abused-by-austerity government services, and achieve many other social goals. The JG is an critical ally and precondition for many.
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
11. Public institutions need to be permanently staffed, with appropriately skilled workers as needed.
12. In an ideal world JG will be small. But it is required b/c the alternative is the unemployment YoYo, with all the harms in brings. It’s not an ideal world, JG could be large
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
13. The argument that there aren’t enough useful projects for those who seek work in the JG is wrong. It betrays lack of imagination and an odd belief that some people have nothing to contribute to society. Especially bizarre when it comes from the left.
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
14. Low wage workers were mass casualties in the pandemic. What’s their guarantee that they can get a job? What’s the guarantee it will be a living-wage job? A union job, which is even harder to come by? The JG is the “stepping stone” the “bridge”.
About Half of Lower-Income Americans Report Household Job or Wage Loss Due to COVID-19
Only 23% say they have emergency funds that would last them three months.
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
15. Bottom line is: JG is not an either/or policy. But any discussion for its desirability needs to clear one standard: is guaranteed unemployment more desirable? The answer is obviously ‘no‘.
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
16. There are other worries and fear that people have. Will it make workers lazy, will it ruin productivity, will it lead to “big and inefficient government”. I answer these and more here:
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Pavlina R Tcherneva@ptcherneva
In the end, what do you fear more? A world that tolerates and normalizes unemployment and its devastating effects or a world that has secured a basic living wage job option. end/
