Late last week, I spoke with former SEIU president and current Georgetown fellow/fiscal commission member Andy Stern about hosting a series of pieces laying out different ideas to kick-start job creation. The idea here is not to see how many compromises can dance on the head of the congressional pin; it's to see what exactly different experts think needs to be done. The first piece comes, naturally enough, from Andy Stern. In the coming days, there'll also be pieces from Moody's Mark Zandi, CEPR's Dean Baker, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's David Walker and others. Here's Stern:
It’s Time to Put America Back to WorkAndy Stern
Senior Research Fellow, Georgetown Public Policy Institute
Former President, Service Employees International UnionIf we want to return the country to the kind of strong and stable economic growth that provides good jobs and decent wages -- not to mention is necessary to solve our long-term fiscal crisis -- we need to create 17 million new jobs. This would cut our unemployment rate by about half over the next two years.
But to create 17 million jobs, we need big, bold ideas. So, let’s come up with a plan. And let’s force our leaders and employers to act. My opening bid is 12 million jobs and I want you to call or raise me.
The reality is that job creation will cost some money. But in my plan, taxpayers either won’t have to pay a dime up front or all of their investment will be paid back and then some. In any case, the numbers should not scare anyone. If we can afford to pay nearly $800 billion to bailout out a few Wall Street banks, we can afford one-sixth of that amount to create nearly 12 million jobs.
My Jobs Bid:
Job Sharing Program. Cost: $54 billion
Pay-for: Loans to Unemployment Insurance (UI) Funds to be repaid with a small UI surtax starting in 2013 on all employers.
Jobs created: 2.4 million Infrastructure Bank. Cost: $30 billion
Pay-for: One-time repatriation break for corporate earnings
Jobs created: 8.4 million
Youth Employment Programs. Cost: $46.5 billion
Pay-for: Financial Speculation Tax
Jobs created: 3.1 million jobs
Total $130.5 billion 11.8 million jobs
Net Cost to Taxpayers = $0
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Will Politicians Pay a Price for Leaving 15 Million People Unemployed?Dean Baker
Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy ResearchAndy Stern has put forward a serious proposal for getting the economy moving forward and putting people back to work. We should demand that our politicians take up the Stern challenge to “call or raise me.”
So, how does my scorecard look? I’ll take my top two items from Stern, then throw in $100 billion a year for infrastructure spending, and $15 billion a year for home retrofits.
Job Sharing $ 54 billion 2.4 million jobs
Youth Employment $ 46.5 billion 3.1 million jobs
Infrastructure $ 100 billion 1.6 million jobs
Energy Retrofits $15 billion 0.5 million jobs
Fed Inflation Target 1.4 million jobs Total $215.5 billion 9.0 million jobs
It was not a natural disaster like a hurricane or an earthquake that led to 25 million people being unemployed or underemployed. This disaster was an entirely preventable result of incredibly inept economic management. In other words, there is mass suffering across the country because the people who were charged with running the economy did not have a clue as to what they were doing.
This apparently continues to be the case. The proposals that Stern has put forward are entirely reasonable routes for creating jobs and boosting the economy. My favorite is work sharing just because it is so simple, obvious and quick.
As Stern points out, this really should not be a big partisan issue. Both Republicans and Democrats recognize the need for unemployment insurance in a downturn. What is wrong with having the government partially offset the loss of pay from a 20 percent reduction in work hours rather than demanding that someone be 100 percent unemployed before they can collect unemployment benefits?
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