Full Employment as a Permanent Policy Response to Poverty

Journal of Community Practice, 23:367–391, 2015 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1070-5422 print/1543-3706 online DOI: 10.1080/10705422.2015.1091802

POLICY AND ADVOCACY TOOLS

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Full Employment as a Permanent Policy Response to Poverty STEPHEN MONROE TOMCZAK and TODD W. ROFUTH Department of Social Work, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT, USA

Rising inequality and concomitant economic insecurity and poverty is a continuing problem in the United States today. Enacting full employment policies would resolve this problem and would serve as a viable poverty reduction strategy. Using a more accurate measure of unemployment such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics U-6 measure would reveal the true unemployment rate. This article provides different strategies, historical and more recent, for enacting full employment with a living wage, particularly the enactment of a permanent national public service employment program administered by the states through the TANF Emergency Fund. Public sector employment expansion in the green or clean economy would benefit the urban unemployed the most. To achieve these ends, social workers, unions and community activists will need to collaborate. Finally, the Federal Reserve should review the history of the relationship between unemployment and inflation rates and develop a more accurate formula for attaining full employment while keeping inflation low. KEYWORDS full employment, poverty, economic inequality, policy There are few challenges facing the United States today greater than those posed by economic inequality, and its inevitably corollary, poverty and economic deprivation. And in a society where remunerative employment is seen as so central to people’s economic well-being, it is imperative that those Address correspondence to Stephen Monroe Tomczak, Southern Connecticut State University, Department of Social Work, 101 Farnham Avenue, New Haven, CT 06515. E-mail: tomczaks1@@southernct.edu 367

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concerned with advancing social welfare make achieving full employment a central focus of their work. There are few policies that will do more to advance the social welfare, social justice, and equality of opportunity in the larger society than the achievement of full employment. As Thomas Palley (2007) of the Economic Policy Institute has postulated not only will full employment result in a greater number of jobs but also a pronounced reduction in poverty and crime rates. Yet, the threats to all these goals have been well-documented by a plethora of research showing that the significant increases in economic inequality and deprivation over the last 30–40 years has significantly eroded gains made in the middle years of the 20th century (Piketty, 2014; Stiglitz, 2012). Furthermore, there is convincing evidence that associates this growth in inequality with a host of social problems with which social work is concerned (Wilkenson & Pickett, 2009). The rising inequality and resulting economic insecurity faced by a sizeable segment of the population is a clear challenge to social work and others concerned with the social and economic betterment of all. The Code of Ethics of the main professional organization in social work, the National Association of Social Workers, clearly states that the “primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty” (NASW, 2008, p. 1). If a policy tool is available that will, by its very establishment, greatly enhance the well-being of all in asociety, then it is imperative that practitioners take action. This view is consistent with the emphasis, in the NASW Code of Ethics, on Ethical Responsibilities to the Broader Society—which clearly obligates social workers to work for outcomes that would naturally flow from a policy that truly guaranteed employment for all, suggesting that social workers should participate in social and political action that leads to all people having equal access to employment and other resources for meeting their basic human needs (NASW, 2008). As this implies, full employment matters far more than simply its impact on the society as a whole, although this impact would be important. It matters primarily for its impact on individual human well-being. It matters because of the human suffering inevitably—and avoidably—created by the lack of employment for all who want to work. And it matters because of justice. As Baker and Bernstein (2013) argued, “When we have a willing and able worker who cannot find a job because of a weakness in the economy, we are denying that person’s desire to realize his or her potential and losing a contribution to the economy and society” (p. 94). It is clear that such a weakness in the economic system—its lack of ability to provide enough jobs for all who want to work—is something that social work values demand that we work to correct. Establishment of true full employment will do this.

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ONGOING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY Over the last 30–40 years, there has been a significant increase in economic inequality. According to the Census Bureau, the top 20% of the income distribution received 50.2% of all income in 2010, which was up from 44.1% in 1980. During this same period, the Gini Index, a generally accepted measure of inequality, had increased from 0.403 in 1980, to 0.469 in 2010 (zero represents perfect equality, 1.00 represents maximal inequality) (US Census Bureau, 2010). This increase in income inequality in the United States has been further documented in the work of economist Thomas Piketty (2014), who reported that this increase is largely due to policy changes in developed countries, contending that the “resurgence of inequality after 1980 is due largely to the political shifts of the past several decades, especially in regard to taxation and finance” (p. 20). Not only has there been a significant increase in income inequality over the last several decades, there has also been a significant increase in wealth inequality. Research by economist Edward N. Wolff found “evidence of sharply increasing household wealth inequality between 1983 and 1989, followed by a modest rise between 1989 and 1998” (p. 3). This “wealth inequality, after rising steeply between 1983 and 1989, remained virtually unchanged from 1989 to 2007” (Wolff, 2010, p. 11). Furthermore, the recent Great Recession has exacerbated these trends toward growing inequality. Although the economy has improved in recent years, the gains have been concentrated in the hands of a few, further increasing and entrenching the increases in income inequality over the last 30 years. One recent study (Saez, 2013) found that in the years 2009–2012, although “average real income per family grew modestly by 6.0 . . . the gains were very uneven” (p. 1); incomes of the top 1% increased 31.4%, and those of the bottom 99% increased by only 0.4%. In this same period, there have also been dramatic increases in wealth inequality. As Wolff (2013) reported, “the years of the Great Recession saw a very sharp elevation in wealth inequality, with the Gini coefficient rising from 0.83 to 0.87” (p. 7). Not surprisingly poverty has also increased. In 2007, according to a report from the US Census Bureau, the overall poverty rate was 12.5%. By 2010, the poverty rate had reached 15.1%, and was still at 15.0% in 2012 (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Smith, 2013). Similar increases, although from higher levels, were evident under the recently developed Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). Clearly, there is a need for innovative solutions to address this problem of income and wealth inequality.

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FULL EMPLOYMENT AS A RESPONSE TO POVERTY AND INEQUALITY A full employment policy can function effectively as a poverty-reduction strategy by providing jobs to the unemployed and underemployed, and reducing inequality (Wray 2009). Economist and full employment expert Dean Baker has recently written about the poverty reduction effects of implementing full employment policies and the particular importance of these policies during economic recessions when workers with low skill and education experience the greatest increases in unemployment. Baker (2014) argued that promoting full employment directly benefits low-income people in the following ways—by increasing their likelihood of finding jobs, allowing them to work more hours, and by increasing their bargaining power in the economy. So an expansion of available jobs clearly benefits them. Second, in a tight labor market, when work is plentiful, those at the lower end of the income distribution have greater opportunity to increase hours worked, should they wish to do so. In the late 1990s, when the unemployment rate was approaching the full employment level, lower-income workers increased their total number of hours worked by 17% (Baker & Bernstein, 2013). The third direct benefit of full employment to lower income workers suggested by Baker is the increase in their bargaining power—particularly their ability to demand higher wages. Research suggests that “a 10% increase in employment rates . . . would lead to about a 7% increase in the real wage level of low-wage workers” (Baker & Bernstein, 2013, p.17). This income increase, in itself, is an important reason to consider full employment as an important element of a poverty-reduction strategy. Full employment policy, therefore, can provide a counter-pressure to trends that exacerbate economic inequality by reducing unemployment and forcing employers to pay workers higher wages. This outcome can also work to strengthen labor unions because not only does an employment guarantee empower workers to demand higher wages, it also empowers them to form unions without the fear of losing economic security as a result. As Pollin (2012) noted, “in a full employment economy, unions also gain increased leverage as representatives of workers’ interests” (p. 155). Pressing for full employment policies, then, is clearly in the interests of the labor movement.

DEFINITIONS OF FULL EMPLOYMENT AND MEASUREMENT ISSUES Full employment is typically defined by mainstream economists as that rate that does not lead to increased inflation. This rate has been termed the nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment, or NAIRU; according the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), this rate has fluctuated between 5.0 and

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6.27% over the last 60 years (CBO, 2011). Noted economist and social policy expert Jared Bernstein and his colleague Dean Baker of the Center on Economic and Policy Research, stated that “while in the 1990s, there was near unanimity in the economics profession that the unemployment rate could not fall much below 6% without triggering a dangerous acceleration of inflation . . . this concern proved to be wrong, as the unemployment rate fell first to 5.0 and then to 4.0 as the year-round average in 2000. During this prolonged period of low unemployment, the core rate of inflation ticked up only slightly; it certainly did not accelerate” (Baker & Bernstein, 2013, p. 95). This NAIRU concept is obviously not without controversy. Collins, Ginsburg, and Goldberg (1994) argued that although the choice between employment or inflation is often presented as one of economic necessity, the decision is largely a political one, reflecting a lack of power of those who experience unemployment or the lower wages and deteriorating work conditions that are its indirect effects. (p. 54)

The relationship between inflation and unemployment has been debated since the 1960s, with Friedman’s (1968) criticism that “permanent reductions in unemployment could be achieved by accepting higher levels of inflation (the Phillips curve tradeoff)” (Bernanke, Laubach, Mischkin & Posen, 2001, p. 13). Friedman also believed that higher inflation might stimulate the economy and lower unemployment for short periods: For example, if wage rates are fixed by contract and prices unexpectedly rise, then the profit margins of firms increase, giving them the incentive to produce more goods and services. (Bernanke et al., 2001, p. 13)

However, according to Bernanke et al. (2001), the goal of activist monetary policies of the past of keeping “output and unemployment close to their ‘full employment’ levels at all times” (p. 11) has not been achieved over the long run. Inflation and unemployment have fluctuated wildly with high inflation and unemployment in the late 70s and early 80s, and high unemployment and low interest rates and inflation over the last several years. This seems to have shifted somewhat recently, as the unemployment rate has come down to under 6%, reaching 5.3% in July 2015, and the inflation rate has declined to 1% in 2015 from a high of 4.1% in 2007, when the unemployment rate was much higher (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015). It would seem that attaining a low unemployment rate and low inflation might be a new policy objective.

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According to economist Philip Harvey (2007), the “prevailing view” on full employment among progressive economists “is that unemployment cannot be driven much below the 4–6% range—well above the 2% level that progressive economists in the 1940s considered achievable” (p. 115). This is important, because, as Harvey argued, this conception of full employment “implicitly or explicitly accept[s] the view that job shortages are either inevitable in a market economy, or cannot be eliminated except by making unacceptable sacrifices” (p. 115). This limiting conception of full employment closes off the possibility of truly guaranteeing everyone who wants to work “the right to . . . useful and remunerative employment,” as the Economic Bill of Rights articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 stated (Roosevelt, 1944, p. 41). According to Goldberg, Harvey, and Ginsburg (2007), this conception of full employment as consisting of the goal of a right to a job for all, was understood in the 1940s to equate to an unemployment rate of 2–3%. This vision seems to be one that is most consistent with the values, goals, and beliefs of the profession of social work. However, because the world has changed due to globalization of economies, achieving a full employment level that is very low will be challenging. Finally, although much of what has been discussed herein has focused on traditional labor market employment, it should be noted that the conception of a true right to work should include provisions for the payment of caregiving labor; that is, work done in the home to raise families and care for relatives (Gil, 2013). Thus, activities such as childrearing, which have traditionally not been conceptualized as constituting employment, should be reconceptualized as employment and counted as such.

UNEMPLOYMENT MEASUREMENT ISSUES Regardless of the strategies utilized to attain full employment, there is the issue of defining the concept, and specifically setting a targeted rate of unemployment. Although this question of setting acceptable unemployment rates was discussed generally at the outset, it is important for a consideration of strategy, because the stated goal impacts the scope of the methods undertaken to achieve it. The target unemployment goal set by Baker, Bernstein, and other prominent economists of 4–5%, or even the 3.5% target proposed by economist Robert Pollin (2012) is criticized by Harvey and others as being too high to achieve a true right to work, in the sense of a establishing a basic human right to employment (Harvey, 2013b). This criticism would seem accurate, but it does not mean that the target of 4–5% could not be conceptualized as an intermediate goal along the way to achieving the 2–3% goal that was set by prominent full employment advocates in the 1940s. Further, there is the question of how unemployment will be defined and measured. Currently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a range of

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six indicators of labor underutilization, ranging from least inclusive to most inclusive. This range, designated U-1 to U-6, places the official unemployment measure, labeled U-3, as the middle of this range (Bregger & Haugen, 1995; Haugen, 2009). These indicators, originally developed in the 1970s by Julius Shiskin, then Commissioner of Labor Statistics, were substantially revised in the mid-1990s. The official measure of unemployment limits those considered unemployed to only those who are not only out of work, but indicate they have looked for work in the preceding month—thus excluding many people who would like a job, but may have not recently looked for one. These individuals are, somewhat arbitrarily, defined as out of the labor force under official statistics. So too, are those who are employed in parttime work involuntarily—who would work full time if jobs were available. Underemployment has occurred for several reasons: shifting of manufacturing jobs to other countries, increased number of jobs in the service industry, lack of confidence in the business sector in the economy, and changes in health care laws (Affordable Care Act) that lead employers to reduce hours from full-time to part-time. To resolve underemployment these underlying issues will have to be addressed. The U-6 measure, the broadest measure of unemployment, takes into account all of those who both lack work and would like to have a job, and those who are involuntarily employed part time. According to Bregger and Haugen (1995), it provides the most comprehensive measure of the “degree to which existing and potential labor resources are not being utilized” (p. 24). This measure is, therefore, a more accurate measure of the degree of job-deprivation that exists in the United States. For this reason, to more accurately access the degree to which full employment has been attained, the U-6 measure should be made the official measure of unemployment. Taken together, by setting low unemployment target rates as described previously in this section, and by establishing the current U-6 measure as the official measure of unemployment, a clear definition of full employment constituted by a meaningful right to employment at living wages, can be established.

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE ACHIEVABILITY OF FULL EMPLOYMENT Full employment has long been a goal that has been advanced by policymakers associated with the social work profession. During the Great Depression, Mary van Kleeck and others associated with the rank-and-file movement, argued for economic planning to ensure adequate employment and living standards (Selmi & Hunter, 2001; Van Kleeck, 1932). In 1942, Eveline Burns, an economist who taught at the Columbia University School of Social Work (then known as the New York School of Social Work), served as the director

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of research for the Committee on Long-Range Work and Relief Policies of the National Resources Planning Board (NRPB), a planning agency established in 1933 by the Roosevelt administration (Clawson, 1981). Its report, Security, Work and Relief Policies, strongly endorsed “government provision of work for all adults who are willing and able to work, if private industry is unable to provide employment” (NRPB, 1942, p. 545). The report went on to suggest that to “carry out the principle that work should be provided for all adults willing and able to work, a Federal work agency charged with responsibility for developing and operating work programs should be established on a permanent basis” (NRPB, 1942, p. 546). What followed was the introduction in 1945 of the Full Employment Bill of 1945, which would have implemented Roosevelt’s guarantee of useful and remunerative work by establishing a national policy guaranteeing employment to all who were seeking work. It would also have helped the United States achieve some of the economic rights that were later incorporated into the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The bill held that all Americans able to work and seeking work have the right to useful, remunerative, regular and full time employment. And it is the policy of the United States to assure the existence at all times of sufficient employment opportunities to enable all Americans . . . to freely exercise this right. (cited in Ginsberg, 2012, p. 126)

Although the bill that ultimately passed, the Employment Act of 1946 was a greatly watered down version of this legislation that did not contain a guarantee of employment for all who wanted to work, this episode illustrates that the issue reached the top of the political agenda in a previous era. And it did again, in the 1970s, with the introduction of the HumphreyHawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978. Like the legislative effort to promote full employment in the 1940s, this legislation, as initially introduced by Representative Hawkins, had a goal of ensuring jobs for all those who wanted and needed them, which would be legally enforced by government policy (Ginsburg, 2012). The final version backed off of this substantially, and set a short-term goal of reducing unemployment to 4% within 5 years. Harvey (2007) suggested that the high rates of unemployment and inflation that characterized the 1970s (often termed “stagflation”) caused “progressives to lose confidence in their own ability to achieve full employment” (p. 117)—at the same time shifts in the political climate, with the election of Ronald Reagan, created a hostile environment toward the achievement of such goals. That full employment is a technically achievable goal can readily be seen through an historical study of the unemployment rate in the United States. In 1944, unemployment reached an historical low of 1.2% (Ginsburg, 2012). Now, although this occurred largely as a result of military and related

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spending during World War II, there is no technical reason why a significant national effort could not be undertaken to mobilize currently inactive workers to, for example, rebuild the country’s infrastructure. As reported by Ginsburg and Goldberg (2008), public investment in both “human and physical resources has been a major casualty of the attack on government for the people” (p. 125). In 2008, 154,000 US bridges were structurally deficient or obsolete and 2,600 dams were unsafe; many public schools needed renovations, in addition to other pressing societal needs (Ginsburg & Goldberg, 2008). Thus, there is much work that could be done, if intentional public investments were made with the objective of both securing needed public goods and services and guaranteeing jobs for all. Another area of great potential for employment expansion is the green or clean economy, which has recently produced impressive employment numbers that benefits the unskilled and unemployed. According to Muro, Rothwell, and Saha (2011) the green or clean economy: ●

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Employs some 2.7 million workers with a significant number of jobs in establishments spread across a diverse group of industries; Outperformed the nation during the recession; Is manufacturing and export intensive, with 26% of all clean economy jobs in manufacturing compared to just 9% in the broader economy; Offers more opportunities and better pay for low-and middle-skilled workers than the national economy as a whole; Provides median wages that are 13% higher than median U.S. wages; Provides a higher percentage of jobs for workers with relatively little formal education; and Is concentrated within the largest metropolitan areas where the majority of the unemployed live.

Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics briefing paper on assessing the green economy and its implications for growth and equity found that First, the strong economic performance of green industries suggests that green investments could play an important role in a broader short- and long-term job creation strategy. Second, investments in green jobs could promote economic mobility by opening up the labor market to more workers without a college degree. . . . For every one percentage-point increase in green intensity in a given industry, there was a corresponding 0.28 percentage-point increase in the share of jobs in that industry held by workers without a four-year college degree. (Pollack, 2012, p. 2)

A report by Granade, Creyts, Derkach, Farese, Nyquist, and Ostrowski (2009) suggests that energy efficiency improvements in residential and commercial

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sectors alone could create 600,000 to 900,000 stable and ongoing jobs. The Apollo Alliance & Urban Habitat (2007) argued that it “is the chief moral obligation in the 21st century: to build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty” (p. 1). These groups and supporting data make a strong case that urban communities could become green meccas with jobs for urban residents particularly unemployed youth who have one of the highest unemployment rates. This report by the Appollo Alliance & Urban Habitat provides specific strategies and policies on how the green economy can create jobs for the poor. One key aspect of building support for these environmentally-focused policy recommendations will be to increase awareness among both labor and environmental groups that the protection of the environment does not lead to a “trade-off at all between jobs and the environment. Rather, investing at a large scale in energy efficiency . . . can be a major engine of job creation for a generation” (Pollin, 2012, pp. 149–150). This fact provides the basis for the formation of so called blue-green coalitions in favor of job creation policies (Mayer, 2009a). And, as sociologist Brian Mayer (2009b) suggested, these “efforts to bridge the divide between the two movements are increasingly common” (p. 219). Uniting these groups in favor of a full employment agenda, with green jobs as a key component, can be a powerful tool to overcome entrenched opposition to full employment.

Solving the Full Employment Problem Although it may not be possible, due to political obstacles, to move all the way toward the goal of 2–3% unemployment favored by advocates of full employment in the 1940s, it is nonetheless possible to attain the intermediate goal of a reduction to 4% within the next several years. Special attention should also be paid to those segments of the population most prone to higher levels of unemployment, such as African Americans, youth and Native Americans. Full employment could solve a number of problems that negatively impact the economy by raising living standards, reducing the deficit, increasing payments into social security and reducing public assistance. All of these outcomes could be supported by both sides of the political spectrum through rational political-economic arguments. Although the primary political obstacle is resistance to any type of Keynesian macroeconomic approach by the Republican Party in favor of supply side economics that holds the belief that tax cuts will stimulate the economy, and thus more jobs will be created. Most everyone agrees that full employment is good, except that when it is too full, wages will increase due to competition for jobs. However, agreeing on the ideal rate where this would not occur is not technically possible except in theoretical arguments. According to Weir (1987), to achieve full employment three interrelated conditions must occur: a strategy to achieve full employment must be proposed, the government must have the capacity to carry out this strategy, and there must be a relatively stable political

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coalition supporting this goal. With a concerted effort at social movement building to put pressure on the government to act, as will be described in greater detail below, we believe that it will be possible to create these conditions. As data have emerged showing the failure of supply-side economics to produce the economic growth and prosperity for all that it promised (Ettlinger & Irons, 2008; Ettlinger & Linden, 2012)—and in particular no improvements in economic security and mobility for ordinary people—the arguments of those who favor full employment and related demand-side strategies is strengthened, and the position of those who oppose such policies is weakened. Thus, the possibility of building coalitions for the support of a full employment goal, and overcoming opposition in some policymaking circles to full employment, can be advanced by evidence-based arguments that show that these approaches are more likely to produce greater benefits for the majority of people than the trickle-down approaches that have dominated the last 30 years of economic policy. Recent remarks by new Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen indicate a strong focus on full employment as a goal of policymakers. In a speech given at the Economic Club of New York in April of 2014, Yellen suggested that since the recession has subsided, full employment is possible in the medium-term. It is important to note that Yellen, consistent with the mainstream view of the economics profession, sees full employment as “maximum employment in the context of price stability” (Yellen, 2014, p. 1). In fact, “under the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, the Federal Reserve System must explain to Congress semiannually how it is gearing its policies to further the goals of full employment and reasonable price stability” (Ginsburg, 2012 p. 132, n. 5). Yellen (2014) suggested that federal reserve “projections for the unemployment rate at the end of 2016 [are] 5.2–5.6%. If this forecast was to become a reality, the economy would approach what my colleagues and I view as maximum employment” (p. 3). However, in fact, the unemployment rate was 5.5% in May 2015, a year ahead of Yellen’s 2014 projections Even with a declining official unemployment rate, the unofficial rate remains extremely high and this article proposes that the unofficial rate be instated so that people who are in hysteresis or are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits be counted. The real rate of unemployment will provide a more accurate measure of those actually in need of work, and thus allow the Federal Reserve to engage in more realistic economic planning based on accurate numbers. In fact, the Federal Reserve should review the last decade of unemployment and inflation rates and develop a more accurate formula for attaining full employment while keeping inflation low. Today, full employment, at least using the current measure, is increasingly being considered an achievable goal by policymakers. As is discussed in detail in the following, a variety of strategies have been suggested to

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achieve this goal. Some favor the use of fiscal policy to stimulate the economy and promote job growth (Ball, DeJong, & Summers, 2014). Others suggest direct job creation programs of varying degrees of comprehensiveness (Harvey, 2011; Pavetti, 2014). Still others argue for a combination of approaches that would promote employment and keep unemployment low (Bernstein, 2014).

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COLLABORATION IN ACHIEVING FULL EMPLOYMENT Clearly, an effort to achieve full employment—even under the more restricted visions of mainstream economists—is going to take a broad, multipronged effort involving many individuals, groups, and organizations. These efforts should both draw on the historical lessons from the social movements of the 1930s and 1960s, and avoid some of the mistakes that those periods experienced. In the 1930s, the primary groups advocating full employment included labor unions and prominent economic justice advocacy groups such as the Share Our Wealth movement (Christman, 1985; Piven & Cloward, 1977). In the 1960s, it included the Civil Rights movement and the welfare rights movement. The economic justice component of the Civil Rights movement is often overlooked in popular accounts of the movement’s history. In fact, one of the 10 demands made by the March on Washington (1963) was for “a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed Workers— Negro (sic) and White—on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages” (p. 4). Although these movements achieved concrete gains in the middle years of the 20th century, these gains have been significantly eroded over the last 30 years (Roth & Peters, 2014). And full employment, as shown by the fate of the full employment bill in the mid-40s, was not among these achievements. In fact, one of the key reasons why it has been so difficult to maintain the social and economic policy gains of the middle 20th century, is that the benefits won tended to target segments of the population, rather than the vast majority as a whole, as a universal full employment policy would. Over the last 20 years, at least one group has been formed with achieving full employment as its central purpose—the National Jobs for All Coalition (NJFAC). Formed in the 1990s, and including the NASW among its founding groups, it clearly states the importance of assuring true full employment for all at the center of its mission, arguing that if there were enough jobs at living wages available for those who wanted or needed them, it would be far more likely that the goals of various social justice movements regarding things like health care and the environment, for example, would become more achievable (NJFAC, n.d.). The NJFAC provides a vehicle that the social work profession—if it were to commit itself thoroughly and completely to the goal of full employment—could utilize to collaborate with other groups and

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individuals concerned with this critical issue. But, as coalition chair Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg has noted, a broader consciousness raising strategy is needed to build a social movement focused on the achievement of full employment. This strategy should include two major groups—those who would benefit directly from this policy and those who support the effort on principle—and should include, among other things, promoting awareness in the broader public of the negative impacts of unemployment on its victims and the larger society. Such a strategy, Goldberg argued, could lead to increased public support of full employment policy (Goldberg, 2012). Social work community practitioners, as is discussed in greater detail in the following, have an important role to play in facilitating the development of social movements pushing for full employment. However, an outside strategy of movement building is not the only thing that is needed. So, too, is an inside legislative advocacy strategy. In March of 2013, Representative John Conyers introduced H.R. 1000, The HumphreyHawkins Full Employment and Training Act, the stated purpose of which is “to provide a job to any American that seeks work and to, ultimately, create a full employment society” (n.p.). This legislation, although somewhat vague in its objectives, provides a starting point on which advocates of social and economic justice—including social work and its major professional and educational organizations—should unite to support. Furthermore, social work policy practitioners may be particularly useful in helping advance this aspect of the strategic effort to enact full employment policies. One key organization that has worked assiduously to promote the idea of full employment is the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, under the leadership of economist Jared Bernstein. Bernstein, a graduate of Columbia University with a doctorate in social welfare, organized an important forum in 2014, The Path to Full Employment: Making Jobs a National Priority, a project sponsored by the Center and the Rockefeller Foundation. The work of Bernstein and others affiliated with the Center serves as a valuable resource, both for empirical data supporting the effort to achieve full employment, and advocacy at the federal level to put this issue on the policy agenda. The Center has sponsored a series of papers on the issue of full employment, which can be a useful resource of information, particularly in public education or legislative advocacy efforts. Legislative strategies, although necessary, may not be sufficient, and should be augmented by additional approaches. One such approach, suggested by social worker and social policy analyst David Gil of Brandeis University, is to use international agreements and accords, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights, to pressure policymakers into adopting full employment. Gil (1995) argued that full employment is effectively required by the US Constitution and United Nations charter, which the United States is bound to uphold, and therefore any actions or inactions by its government are violations of human rights. As a result, advocates of full employment

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should, in Gil’s view, press the argument that the US government is bound to uphold guarantees of full employment contained in documents like its Declaration of Human Rights, on the grounds that governmental policies that maintain unemployment are, in effect, violations of international law. To force recognition of this by the US government, Gil suggested a strategy of legal advocacy, arguing that full employment advocates should appeal to federal courts to mandate that these international agreements be adhered to and “unconstitutional and unlawful practices by government agencies” that create unemployment be legally prohibited (n.p.). Although it is unlikely that federal courts would take these cases in the present political climate, highly publicized efforts to bring these economic human rights abuses under the UN Declaration to US courts could have the impact of bringing greater attention to problem. Further, although the legal strategy suggested by Gil faces significant obstacles in the current political environment, it can be advanced by promoting what human rights scholar Joseph Wronka (2014) called a “human rights culture,” which is to say a shift in “minds and hearts” that leads to values which can then be “enshrined in legal documents, such as state and federal constitutions” (p. 217). A key aspect in beginning this shift in “minds and hearts” is relentless education, not only in traditional venues such as universities, but using more nontraditional educational tools, such as the various forms of social media which have emerged in recent years. Given the socio-political context faced by those concerned with achieving social and economic justice today, it is likely that all these community organizing strategies, and more, will be needed to achieve true full employment. The challenge in bringing together groups with varying purposes and agendas—such as labor, human service and social advocacy groups of various types—is significant, but it can be done. As the example of the welfare rights movement in the 1960s showed, although there are obstacles inherent in building the kinds of cross-class coalitions necessary to force important social and economic changes, the gains that can be won are not insignificant (Nadasen, Mittelstadt & Chappell, 2009). Furthermore, as indicated, it is a challenge in which the social work profession should be centrally engaged, because it goes to the heart of what this profession, at its best, has stood for.

INNOVATION IN DESIGNING STRATEGIES FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT The effort to achieve full employment has generated significant discussion in recent years, due to the recent economic downturn, now termed by many the Great Recession. In identifying strategies used to achieve full employment, economist Philip Harvey (2013a) divided these into two major approaches based on historical precedent. The first is what he termed a direct jobs

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creation strategy, which involves establishing government job creation programs that provide employment for those seeking work that cannot find employment in the private sector. The second approach is what he termed the aggregate demand management strategy, which is essentially macroeconomic policies that use “deficit spending by the federal government to raise aggregate demand enough to achieve full employment” (Harvey, 2013a, p. 135). This approach was heavily influenced by the ideas of John Maynard Keynes. Harvey asserted that both were used during the New Deal era by the Roosevelt administration, job creation being applied first, primarily through the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps, and aggregate demand strategies utilized during World War II and afterward. Harvey favored the job creation strategy, suggesting that it will more closely realize the goal articulated by Roosevelt in 1944 of establishing a true guarantee of jobs for all who want and need them. Economist William A. Darity (2010) of Duke University offered a similar proposal, arguing for what he called a “National Investment Employment Corps,” to operationalize this guarantee of jobs for all (p. 179). What is needed today, even after the conclusion of the Great Recession, is a permanent national Public Service Employment program.

PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYMENT Public Service Employment has been tried before with varying success. The Civil Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration employed millions within a short period of time and provided infrastructure, human services, and the arts for the country. These programs were administered directly by the federal government and considered a huge success in terms of employing large numbers of unemployed (between 1/4 and 1/3 of the unemployed) and stimulating the economy (Goldberg, 2012). The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) of 1974 was intended to be a direct job creation program but, because it was administered by state and local governments, it became a revenue sharing program that was used “during the recession of 1974–75 to pay for jobs that state and local governments would have continued to fund out of local tax revenues in the absence of the program” (Harvey, 2011, p. 26). Finally, a number of states implemented Community Work Experience Programs (CWEP) during the 1980s as a response to welfare reform; the intent was to mandate state-funded General Assistance and federally funded Aid to Families with Dependent Children recipients to work for their welfare check. CWEP operated on a large scale in some states (in Pennsylvania, several hundred thousand recipients were active in CWEP each month for several years; Rofuth, 1987). CWEP eventually faded away as administrations in state government changed and other federal welfare laws were enacted. Using the Temporary Assistance to Needy

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Families Emergency Fund (TANF EF) model would be a better option than either a CETA or CWEP type program, because states could operationalize their own subsidized employment programs based on local need. The TANF EF program is totally different from the earlier CWEP in which welfare recipients were put in make-work jobs and did not receive a wage. Harvey (2011) has proposed that direct job creation would be more effective for economic recovery than other fiscal stimulus policies (e.g., tax cuts, etc.) because the latter policies are not directly targeted where the job creation need is greatest and the impact of fiscal stimulus on the unemployed may take many years to materialize. Direct job creation also takes into consideration the persistent job gap in the United States since 2000, which levelled off by the end of 2010 but still remains at least three times as high as 2000. The impact of a 2-year $100 billion direct job creation fiscal stimulus would be 3,374,000 jobs created over 4 years (2,151,000 directly created jobs during first 2 years and 1,223,000 jobs created indirectly as a result). Harvey (2011) also annualized the cost of creating 1 million jobs in a direct job creation program plus an additional 414,000 jobs outside the program (with approximately 85% full time and 15% part time). A total jobs program budget of $46.4 billion would be reduced to $28.6 billion after government revenue (taxes) and savings attributed to the program are subtracted ($17.8 billion). The funding options to support this proposal include deficit spending, using the Bush-era tax cut money, establishing a trust fund to pay for the program, or a payroll tax. The jobs would be created in the communities where the unemployed live and would include “construction work on abandoned and substandard housing and new affordable housing units, conservation measures, the improvement of existing public parks and construction of new parks and the beautification and maintenance of indoor and outdoor public spaces” (Harvey, 2011, p. 13). Such a program could also include expanded “public services in areas such as health care, child care, education, recreation, elder care, and cultural enhancement” (Harvey, 2011, p. 14). Wages would be paid based on the labor market rates and the skills of the workers. TANF EF would be the best mechanism to deliver subsidized jobs and it can be tailored to local state needs. To further increase the likelihood that the type of program proposed by Harvey could be successfully implemented, we propose expanding this type of direct job creation program as a permanent program that would fluctuate in size depending on the unemployment rate, thus resolving the issue of long-term fluctuations in unemployment. Adding physical infrastructure development and repair as a job assignment solves an immediate national problem (e.g., hundred of thousands of bridges in this country have deteriorated due to lack of funding to subsidize the work such as the federal gasoline tax remaining constant for 2 decades). Administration of the program could be a combination of the federal government and local Workforce

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Alliances in each community, with strict rules in place to ban job replacement. To politically sell the program, some funding for the program could derive from reductions in Unemployment Insurance (UI) extension compensation and General Assistance (in those states that still offer General Assistance, these funds could be used for the state match for the TANF EF program) due to people in those systems becoming employed through public service employment. UI extensions would no longer be necessary if jobs are guaranteed to people seeking UI. Also, more states could be encouraged to use the TANF Emergency Fund program of subsidized employment, which in several states has been found to increase employment and earnings “not only while individuals worked in a subsidized job but also after the program ended” (Pavetti, 2014, p. 1). The transfer of UI funds would apply only to the UI extension period. The assumption would be that while a person was on UI, they could look for a job or become employed in subsidized employment. For TANF, states would be allowed to transfer funds into its Emergency Fund to be used for subsidized employment. For General Assistance, most states have only minimal coverage now, and the funds would be better put to use in subsidized employment. If a single person could not work they would be eligible for disability coverage under Social Security Disability Insurance. This transfer of funds would have political support from conservatives because cash assistance would be used for jobs instead. Liberals would support these policies because poor people would have more income. Also states can use TANF funds for the supports that TANF recipients need to succeed in the labor market (e.g., child care, health insurance, and transportation). The TANF Emergency Fund has proven to be highly successful and could be the model for a national permanent subsidized employment program because it is locally administered, funds can be provided to states based on need (states that have low unemployment would not need these funds and would have the option of using TANF funds for better support services), and wage rates could be set based on the local minimum wage rate. Recent research has shown this program produces a number of positive outcomes, including increasing employment and income for participants, particularly the long-term unemployed, as well as stimulating the local economy, and therefore promoting additional job creation (Roder & Elliott, 2013). Others favor a more eclectic approach, including public investment (what Harvey termed “demand management” [2013a, p. 135]), public jobs and work sharing. Baker and Bernstein (2013) emphasized infrastructure spending as a way to stimulate employment, and proposed “a system of publicly funded jobs that can ramp up and down, expand and contract, as needed, in tandem with the business cycle” (p. 72). Perhaps most innovative is their proposal for work sharing:

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Under work sharing, employers would address drops in demand by reducing hours across their workforces instead [of] by laying off an unfortunate few; the government funds that would otherwise have gone to unemployment benefits could be used to partially make up everyone’s lowered wages that result from working shorter hours. (p. 73)

In fact, as of January 2012, 24 states have adopted work sharing legislation since 2009 using a provision in the federal unemployment insurance program. And, according to Ridley and Balducchi (2012), work sharing does not appear to have any significant impact on state UI trust funds. According to a US Department of Labor study, “an employer that participates in a work sharing program is likely to pay back the trust fund through unemployment taxes or direct reimbursements” (National Employment Law Project, n.d., p. 2). A similar alternative would be to use job sharing to prevent layoffs and stimulate employment through a tax credit to compensate employers for shortening work-time while keeping overall compensation unchanged (Baker, 2009). The theory behind job sharing that makes it economically feasible for employers is that “if workers’ purchasing power is held constant even as they work fewer hours, then labor demand will he held constant. This should cause employers to want to hire additional workers to make up for the fewer hours worked by their incumbent work force” (Baker, 2009, p. 1). Sources of funding for all of these subsidized programs include nonextension of unemployment benefits, state funded General Assistance programs, and eliminating the Work Opportunity Tax Credit Program which has had little effect on hiring choices or retention (Lower-Basch, 2011). Additional sources include making TANF EF a permanent funding stream for subsidized employment. Once subsidized programs are in full operation, tax revenues will increase. Taken together, these proposals constitute a more comprehensive strategy for the achievement of full employment. Economist Robert Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute also suggested a multifaceted strategy, including “increasing investments in the areas of clean energy and education;” establishment of an “industrial policy” to revive manufacturing; financial regulation that promotes productive investments in things like green jobs, and discourages speculation; and fiscal policies that maintain an “acceptable” budget deficit, while “supporting a return to a more egalitarian society” (Pollin, 2012, p. 101–102). The ultimate end goal of establishing a basic human right to employment at living wages should be clearly delineated, however, even if intermediate goals are the initial target. Full employment without living wages—wages that ensure “’the ability to support families, to maintain selfrespect and to have both the means and the leisure to participate in the civic life of the nation’” as Lawrence Glickman argues—does not fully achieve

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the goals of providing a decent standard of living for all, which should be seen as a basic human right (quoted in Pollin, 2005, p. 13). In early 2014, the median level of that standard, according to MIT’s living wage calculator, was ”$51,224 for two working adults, two children per year before taxes” (Glasmeier, 2014, n.p.). In principle, Harvey is correct in arguing for an unqualified human right to work in a society where basic economic security is, and has become even more so in recent years, dependent upon employment—and it is important for advocates of full employment to keep focus on this ultimate goal. It is also important to recognize that progress towards this important goal requires creative thinking, innovation, and a willingness to acknowledge the importance of incremental progress toward the establishment of this basic human right.

Building Support and Overcoming Opposition Full Employment Policy Overcoming the current entrenched opposition to progressive policy initiatives will not be easy, but as analyses of earlier periods of social reform have shown, the mobilization of mass movements of disruptive power has forced concessions of social benefits that have reduced poverty and economic inequality (Piven, 2006; Piven & Cloward, 1977). Indeed, what Frances Fox Piven (2006) has termed the “big bangs” of American social welfare policy—the New Deal era of the 1930s and the Great Society era of the 1960s—were largely responses to the disruptive power of social movements (p. 91). And the extraordinary gains won in these periods—which in the case of the New Deal era nearly included a legislative guarantee of full employment—were won in a relatively short period of time. The Occupy movement, although it has seemingly receded somewhat since it burst on the scene in 2011, could provide the basis of a narrative that helps push full employment policy to the forefront of the agenda. Similarly, the current Black Lives Matter movement against the excesses of the harsher approach to crime and punishment that has emerged with the recent shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other similar incidents, could also provide the basis of energizing a broad-based movement for social change. These movements, although on the surface having disparate purposes, are rooted in social and economic dislocations that have their origins in the retreat from the social policy regime of the mid-20th century, and the movement toward the “penal state” that has been identified by the sociologist Loic Wacquant (2010, p. 197). As the connection between the movement from welfare to prisonfare, becomes more widely recognized—and its inherent instability and injustice as a model of social organization becomes more apparent—the merger of these seemingly distinct social movements into a broader force for promoting the sort of dissensus politics that Piven & Cloward (1977, 1997) suggested produces the pressure necessary to force concessions of social benefits seems more realistic.

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So the building of movements is critical, and in this process, community practitioners in social work can be invaluable participants. Community practitioners bring particular skills relative to movement building. As the roots of the problems faced by workers today are grounded in a shifting economy that has made employment more precarious, a labor-organizing model seems to be a valid starting point of movement building focused on ultimately establishing a right to employment at living wages. As Gates and Dobbie (2013) argued, promising strategies involving social work community practitioners include the formation of labor-community coalitions to push for, among other things, living wages. Although these coalitions have “faded over the past several decades as U.S. social justice movements in general retreated into separate silos,” and “[s]ocial workers in particular have withdrawn from their long-standing partnership with unions” (Gates & Dobbie, 2013, p. 485), the early 21st century may provide opportunities for the reemergence of these alliances, and social work community practitioners, by virtue of their training, skills and value-orientations can play a critical role in reinvigorating these critical associations of like-minded individuals with an interest in promoting full employment policies. The living wage movement of the 1990s and early 2000s also provides a successful example of where local activists, including social work community practitioners, were able to pressure government to institute policies that improved the situation of working people (Brooks, 2007; Pollin, 2005). As Brooks (2007) argued, “Living wage campaigns have created large, broad, diverse coalitions to work on an economic justice issue that has broad appeal” (p. 441). It can be reasonably inferred that broadening the goal to include large-scale programs focused on the creation of these living wage jobs will further expand the appeal, and potentially the power, of such a movement. The success of the TANF Emergency Fund program at the state level, and particularly the political support that it generated from employers, workers, and state and local officials across the political spectrum (Roder & Elliott, 2013), could provide a basis for leveraging federal funds for job creation that could be initiated in some states and then expanded to others. Although this would be only an incremental step toward the ultimate goal of creating true full employment and a basic human right to work, it is clearly something that might be achievable in the short term, if political pressure could be brought to bear. The living wage movement, as indicated, provides a useful example upon which social work community practitioners can build to make this goal a reality.

Policy Consequences As has been demonstrated, there are numerous important policy consequences of this shift to full employment policy. Perhaps the most

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fundamental, however, is the shift from a primarily income maintenance approach to promoting human welfare, through programs of public assistance and social insurance, to one based on employment at living wages. Although such programs would need to be retained for those who are unable to participate in employment for various reasons, establishment of full employment produces, and financially requires, a lessening of reliance on these non-employment approaches to ensuring economic security for all. The shift from conceptualizing the goal of income security policy from one of just assuring an income floor, one typically minimal and conditional, to an employment-based system of guaranteeing decent jobs at living wages is a profound change, and one that will likely need to occur in stages. But with the increasing emphasis on work as a goal of social policy—a goal that has been embraced by all sides of the political spectrum—the establishment of true full employment policy will help obviate the historic distinction between those considered “deserving” and “undeserving” of assistance, a distinction that has been based primarily on whether someone was considered capable of working (Trattner, 1999). The reduction in reliance on programs that provide income support, and a move toward ones that emphasize job creation, is consistent with the historic emphasis in the United States on the Protestant work ethic, and thus should be seen as consistent with the beliefs of all who value an emphasis on productive human labor of all sorts, and see it as deserving of reward.

CONCLUSION True full employment cannot be considered achieved unless everyone who wants to work is guaranteed a job at a living wage. This does not mean that intermediate goals such as achieving a significant reduction in unemployment, along the way to eliminating it, should not be considered worthwhile achievements also. But a clear, unwavering commitment to creating a society where all who want and need to work are not denied the opportunity to do so is essential to the achievement of any progress toward this ultimate goal. The benefits of full employment are clear. As Pollin (2012) argued, it will lead to poverty reduction, wage increases—especially for low income households—and cause workers to increase bargaining power. And, given that it will likely reduce inequality, it should lead to a reduction in some of the many social ills associated with increased inequality, including improved mental health and health outcomes; increases in educational performance; as well as reductions in teenage births, violence, and incarceration. All of these are important objectives, ones that are central to the values and aspirations of the social work profession. And they are achievable, if social work joins with other like-minded groups and individuals to take up the challenge of working to achieve true full employment for all.

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