How to Create Good Jobs Now

A bold proposal for meeting human needs through a permanent U.S. employment program.

By Sidney Hollander

This article was written by Ron Baiman, Bill Barclay, Sidney Hollander, Joe Persky, Elce Redmond, Mel Rothenberg.

For the last three decades, U.S. public policy makers have operated on the theory that individual entrepreneurial freedoms are essential to the creation of wealth and thus to the well-being of individuals and society as a whole. One of the great failures this “neo-liberal” approach to economics has been its inability to create enough jobs to keep pace with population growth.

Between 2001 and 2007, the working-age population in the United States outpaced job creation by 10 million individuals. Projections indicate that the shortfall will include another 17 million persons by 2016, making a 16-year total of 27 million missing jobs — 27 million people, in other words, who will have been pushed out of the labor force.