PKT message, Re: unemployment

In his paper, “The Employer of Last Resort Approach to Full Employment” (C-FEPS working Paper #9), Randy Wray writes:

In discussions of ELR, there are 3 main questions that always come up:

1.How can the government afford to hire all those who might want to work?

2.Won't full employment cause inflation?

3.What will all those workers do?

After discussing the first two questions, he writes:

Let us move on to an analysis of the proposal, but we shall begin by stating what ELR is NOT.

It is not slavery; only those ready, willing, and able will participate

It is not workfare; it is only a guarantee that there will be a job vacancy for those who are

ready, willing and able to work

It is not meant to replace all social programs; we can retain any and all welfare programs that

might survive the current conservative attack; we can even keep unemployment insurance as

it is currently designed

It doesn't pay starvation wages

It is not meant to provide union-busting low wage labor

It is not soviet-style communism; it will not replace market-based capitalism; rather it

complements the market sector.

Several times prior to this he affirms that the program is NOT designed to replace already existing government jobs—nevertheless this question is raised again and again. It is fairly simple to enforce this: there is a rule or law that states that ELR workers may not replace public sector employees. There is a clear demarcation between “normal” or “regular” public sector employment and “elr” or public service employment. Also, in this paper and elsewhere Wray and others, including myself have stated many times that there may be those who cannot work for a variety of reasons (mental or physical health, age, etc) and that there would still be other government programs administering aid as determined by social policy. Many of us do state, however, that there might be many who could work in a carefully constructed ELR program who presently do not. For example, elr jobs could be designed for those who are wheelchair bound, etc. And many of us also have written that we believe that many people would want to work if given the opportunity.

Wray writes:

Is it really that hard to believe that we can find useful work for 8 million or so? John Kenneth Galbraith has been writing for almost 40 years of the lack of public goods in the new industrial state. So, one obvious thing that can be done is to increase the supply of public services. A partial list of such services includes:

Companion for senior citizens, the bed-ridden, mentally or physically disabled

Public school classroom assistant

Safety monitor for schools, parks, neighborhoods, playgrounds, subway stations,

street intersections, or shopping centers

Neighborhood cleanup/Highway cleanup engineers

Low income housing restoration engineers

Day care assistants for children of ELR workers

Library assistants

Environmental safety monitors

ELR artist or musician

Community or cultural historian

Obviously, this list is not meant to be definitive, but is only to suggest that there are many jobs

that could be done by ELR workers. We have not listed the more "obvious" jobs, such as

restoration of public infrastructure (patching holes in city streets, repairing dangerous bridges),

provision of new infrastructure (highway construction, new sewage treatment plants), and

expansion of public services (new recycling programs) that should be carefully considered

because they might reduce private costs and increase private profitability. In any case, these

are types of social spending that should be done even without an ELR program, and that

might be better accomplished by non-ELR (including unionized) workers. However, it should

be noted that WPA (one of Roosevelt’s "New Deal" programs) employees did indeed

engage in this sort of work.

If a substantial portion of ELR employment is accomplished through non-profit community

service organizations, questions about "what will the workers do?" should become far less

important. These organizations are already providing the kinds of services that communities

need, and have a very good idea of labor needs to increase services to fulfill unmet needs.

Furthermore, this sort of decentralization should tend to reduce fears of corruption as the

public (at least in the case of the US) places greater trust in non-profit service organizations

than it does in government or for-profit firms. Should a scandal result, it may also help to have

the program decentralized in order to contain the inevitable backlash to the specific non-profit

that has behaved improperly—rather than tainting an entire government-run program.

Now one may disagree with what Wray writes or be against it, but we can’t say he hasn’t given any idea of the kinds of things elr workers might do.

In my paper Full Employment and Environmental Sustainability (C-FEPS working Paper #13, I have suggested a number of examples of elr work that could be good for the environment in some way:

Public Service Employment activities can also help promote sustainability is by performing environmental services of some kind. In fact, it may be desirable to create an Environmental Service

Corps, or Green Corps, along the lines of the Peace Corps. There is an enormous array of services

that such a Corps might perform that can help society satisfy the biophysical conditions for a

sustainable economy. It is not the purpose to provide a full catalogue of the possibilities here, but to

suggest a few examples.

One of the primary areas that a Green Crops could focus on would be recycling (here including also

reuse, repair, and reduce). Biophysical conditions require that society maximize its recycling efforts,

and there is plenty more recycling that could go on now that does not. Much of the work here is

labor intensive, and much of the labor need not be specially trained. Recycling has multiple benefits,

in that it not only means that society will utilize new materials at a slower rate, but it also diverts

materials from landfills and incinerators. Recycling can also result in a reduction not only of new

resource depletion but also of pollution, if recycling itself does not pollute as much as new extraction

and refining. Reduced use of some materials not only slows the depletion rate, but also leaves

resources to perform other environmental services, such as trees absorbing carbon dioxide.

Recycling also can reduce costs in many areas.

Major recycling efforts should be divided into at least two major categories, community-based and

industrial. Community-based recycling entails collecting, sorting, and cleaning materials, and other

jobs that anyone can perform and that contribute to the community and the environment. Repair for

reuse entails another whole set of operations and may be considered separately. Repair may be for

the original owners or for reuse by someone else. Chicago's "Creative Reuse Warehouse" is a good

model for demonstrating how such items as "used office furniture and supplies, salvaged lumber, and

broken bikes are turned into valuable assets for communities, schools, and the general public"

(Weinberg, et al., 2000). The Green Corps can run both recycling and repair efforts. Industrial

recycling zones and parks may also be sites for Green Corps employees to perform certain jobs.

Another major area for the Green Corps could be in transforming homes and some businesses to

more efficient and more renewable heating, lighting, and cooling and refrigeration. This does not

have to mean every building becomes completely transformed and solar powered, although

photovoltaics clearly need to be more exploited, and initial efforts may inspire homeowners and

businesses to go further on their own. But even simple and basic adjustments could be performed

that would save people money and reduce energy use. Better insulation alone could make a huge

impact. Other types of weatherizing are also possible. Green Corps teams could be trained to visit,

evaluate, educate, and make suggested or even required changes in a several hour visit (patching

areas, fixing items, blocking drafts, installing low-power shower heads).

Another major area that could be addressed by a Green Corps could be automobile use and traffic

congestion. Long term sustainability may require larger structural changes and the move to other

forms of transportation, but in the short term, a well organized van pool system could reduce traffic

congestion and pollution for those areas not served by good transit. The Green Corps could drive

and repair the vehicles, and experiments could be conducted with using alternative vehicle types and

alternative fuels. A ten-person vanpool cuts unit private, social, and environmental costs to 15-20%

of single-operated-vehicle costs (Vuchic, 1999, p. 307). If the van is more fuel-efficient or uses

alternative materials or energy, these costs will fall even more.

The Green Corps can also transform many items in the public infrastructure over to solar. There are

now effective and reliable pv-powered streetlights, school crossing lights, highway construction

warning signs, and billboards (Cole and Skerrett, 1995). In addition to saving energy, decreasing

pollution, and reducing costs, public use of solar in these ways will help educate the public about the

efficiency and reliability of photovoltaic power.

Another important area for the Green Corps to be involved in is rooftop gardening and urban

landscaping. The benefits of both of these are little-known. In addition to producing food (for

humans), and food and habitat for wildlife, rooftop gardens and urban landscaping help purify air,

soil, and water, and can provide air conditioning, shade, and windbreaks, and provide a productive

sink for organic waste. (Milano, 2000, p. 105). Human waste could also be redirected and put to

better use than polluting water.

Modern composting toilet technologies are available and user-friendlier than ever.

Another area of concentration for PSE workers could be in what might be called Environmental

Defense or Environmental Security, and it may be desirable to create a whole section of PSE

especially for a Green Security Force. This would be specifically devoted to two major areas,

monitoring and clean up.

The new laws and rules will only affect change if there is monitoring to assure compliance. Often,

environmental legislation is criticized as being difficult to monitor, and that monitoring can only be

done with great effort. PSE can support monitoring efforts, as well as testing. Much testing can be

done with relatively basic training. Samples can be collected with almost no training, and returned to

labs.

PSE workers can also support clean-up efforts. Obviously there are some types of clean up that

require special skills and equipment. But there is a tremendous amount that can be done with basic

training, and much that is more or less unskilled. With the support of a well-managed PSE plan,

monitoring and clean up can be supported at a level that is consistent with the shift to sustainability.

Environmental sustainability requires that information be disseminated and lots of education take

place. From pre-school to the University, in the community and the workplace, sustainable practices

cannot be adopted without changing some of our most ingrained habits. Moving from the waste

disposal society mentality to the recycle/reuse/reduce/repair society mentality to some extent means

socialization and education needs to take place. PSE workers can visit classrooms and workplaces

and do presentations. They can set up tables in the community to demonstrate the effectiveness and

simplicity of many sustainable practices.

Again, one may disagree with these suggestions, criticize them for any number of reasons, but one cannot say that there have been no suggestions as to the types of jobs that elr workers might perform, or no references to other studies or programs.

These are only some of the places where these topics have been discussed. There are many more passages in dozens of published and unpublished papers and books that do the same. Let me also suggest the National Jobs for All Coalition website, and again Phil Harvey’s work, for some additional perspectives.

Mat