shintao
Take Down ~ Tap Out
- Aug 27, 2010
- 7,230
- 361
- 83
This is a great read to get your wheels spinning. It points out some countires (? Where?) have achieved full employment, yet we never have. Part of the answer is we have never put in place programs to move people from unemployed to employed and up the ladder to success. And we have established social nets tht allow a person to reject personal responsibility (As Retards note: welfare, unemployment). But most importantly, there is no program or effort or plan to put all Americans to work.
==========ARTICLE
Since Barack Obama entered office in January 2009, the official unemployment rate has averaged more than 9.5 percent, representing some fifteen million people in a labor force of about 154 million. By a broader definition, including people employed for fewer hours than they would like and those discouraged from looking for work, the unemployment rate has been far higher16.5 percent, on average. Still worse, if we count people who have dropped out of the labor force, unemployment would rise to nearly 20 percent, or 30 million people, roughly twice the combined populations of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The stimulus has clearly proven inadequate for fully reversing the effects of the Wall Street collapse. Combined with the huge decline in tax revenues tied to the recession, the stimulus spending has also generated federal fiscal deficits of a magnitude the United States hasnt seen since World War IIaround $1.4 trillion in 2009 and 2010, or 10 percent of GDP each year. Bringing the U.S. economy, along with most of the rest of the world, out of the deep ditch into which Wall Street has shoved it will clearly be a long, hard struggle.
Beyond the challenges in advancing such short-term programs, there is a broader and longer-term goal that is not even on the agenda: creating and sustaining a full-employment economy in the United States. Especially at this historical juncture, as we attempt to grope our way out of the Great Recession and onto some kind of new growth trajectory, we need to be clear on the centrality of full employment as a policy goal. That is, we need to think about what exactly we mean by full employment; on why, properly defined, full employment is so fundamental to building a decent society; and on what kind of longer-term policy innovations will be needed both to get the U.S. economy to full employment and, once there, to stay. Success in answering these questions will necessarily engage large numbers of people coming at the issue from a wide range of perspectives. My proposals here are aimed at energizing this broader debate in fresh and constructive directions.
An economy operating at full employment has the capacity to deliver great individual and social benefits. Why then doesnt everybody agree that this should be a fundamental goal of public policy, with debates focused on the narrower question of the most effective means of achieving it?
Boston Review — Robert Pollin: Back to Full Employment
==========ARTICLE
Since Barack Obama entered office in January 2009, the official unemployment rate has averaged more than 9.5 percent, representing some fifteen million people in a labor force of about 154 million. By a broader definition, including people employed for fewer hours than they would like and those discouraged from looking for work, the unemployment rate has been far higher16.5 percent, on average. Still worse, if we count people who have dropped out of the labor force, unemployment would rise to nearly 20 percent, or 30 million people, roughly twice the combined populations of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The stimulus has clearly proven inadequate for fully reversing the effects of the Wall Street collapse. Combined with the huge decline in tax revenues tied to the recession, the stimulus spending has also generated federal fiscal deficits of a magnitude the United States hasnt seen since World War IIaround $1.4 trillion in 2009 and 2010, or 10 percent of GDP each year. Bringing the U.S. economy, along with most of the rest of the world, out of the deep ditch into which Wall Street has shoved it will clearly be a long, hard struggle.
Beyond the challenges in advancing such short-term programs, there is a broader and longer-term goal that is not even on the agenda: creating and sustaining a full-employment economy in the United States. Especially at this historical juncture, as we attempt to grope our way out of the Great Recession and onto some kind of new growth trajectory, we need to be clear on the centrality of full employment as a policy goal. That is, we need to think about what exactly we mean by full employment; on why, properly defined, full employment is so fundamental to building a decent society; and on what kind of longer-term policy innovations will be needed both to get the U.S. economy to full employment and, once there, to stay. Success in answering these questions will necessarily engage large numbers of people coming at the issue from a wide range of perspectives. My proposals here are aimed at energizing this broader debate in fresh and constructive directions.
An economy operating at full employment has the capacity to deliver great individual and social benefits. Why then doesnt everybody agree that this should be a fundamental goal of public policy, with debates focused on the narrower question of the most effective means of achieving it?
Boston Review — Robert Pollin: Back to Full Employment
