Study: Providing Housing For The Homeless Saves Government Money | ThinkProgress
^a $3.6 million initiative to get the worst off homeless people into homes yielded a net savings of $238,700 over a 2 year period or a 7% return rate (3.5% a year). This is due primarily to decreases in health costs/er visits, and police/court/jail costs. This does not include increases in tax payments from the participants working more
Who Creates Jobs? Taxes, Spending, and Class War | Working-Class Perspectives
^Providing poor people (unemployed) with more money creates around 7 times more jobs than providing the rich with more money. So this means that poor/middle class peoples spending creates the vast majority of all jobs while rich peoples spending creates the least amount of jobs per dollar spent.
Rich people create jobs by investing in companies (little ones they own themselves or big ones they own stock in), and its these companies who actually hire workers and pay them a wage. This is true. But its like saying that the light coming from the ceiling of my office is caused by the light switch on the wall. Without turning the switch on, there will be no light, but the ultimate creator of that light tracks back to a power station and a national electric grid that hooks into the wiring behind the walls of my building. In an economy, consumer demand is the power station, the grid, and most of the wiring. If there is not enough consumer demand, businesses have no reason to hire new workersjust as there is no reason to switch the light on if nobody is using the room.
The reason companies arent hiring more now isnt that they dont have the money. Its the lack of consumer demand. Businesses are currently sitting on huge piles of cash. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the 3,000 largest publicly traded U.S. companies have $2.9 trillion in cash and short-term investments they dont know what to do with. Workers and consumers (and most state governments), on the other hand, are struggling to pay last months bills and to provide for basic necessities. The latter is the primary cause of the former. That is, not enough money in the hands of workers and consumers means a lack of profitable investment opportunities for business and rich folk.
Thats why extending unemployment compensation, among many other things, will create more jobs than any tax cut.
Good points in the article linked. Giving to the top in hopes of a trickle down haven't worked, perhaps trying to stimulate the middle and lower class will increase demand and thus productivity, especially if
" According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the 3,000 largest publicly traded U.S. companies have $2.9 trillion in cash and short-term investments
heres the proposed cost and predicted job growth for the three policies currently in dispute:
Increased aid to the unemployed:
Amount passed or proposed-$34 billion
Number of jobs likely created in 2010-2011-300,000 to 600,000
Increased aid to states:
Amount passed or proposed-$26 billion
Number of jobs likely created in 2010-2011-80,000 to 180,000
Tax cuts for top 2%:
Amount passed or proposed-$70 billion
Number of jobs likely created in 2010-2011-70,000 to 210,000
extending unemployment compensation creates from 6 to 8 times the number of jobs as the tax cut would. Aid to states creates about 3 times as many jobs.
You can turn this around and say that a $70 billion tax increase on the top 2% could lead to the loss of as many as 210,000 jobs, and that would be true (given the CBO estimates). But if the government used that $70 billion in new revenues for increased aid to the unemployed, it would create more than 1.2 million jobsor a net gain of about a million. Why wouldnt we as a nation want to do that?
So the theory seems to be that
taxing the rich kills some jobs, but not nearly as many jobs as are created by bailing out the unemployed, state governments, construction workers, autoworkers, transit workers, homeowners, and many others. With that kind of increase in consumer demand, the businesses currently sitting on trillions of dollars would start hiring to produce all the things they could profitably sell.
Who Creates Jobs? Taxes, Spending, and Class War | Working-Class Perspectives
