How To End Unemployment

We could, of course, just borrow $10 trillion now while interest rates are negative (that means the lenders pay us to borrow their money), and hire 10 million Americans at good salaries and benefits to do all the things the federal government should be doing but isn't: inspecting pipelines, building highways, caring for children and the elderly, building schools, maintaining parks, counseling addicts and mental health patients, building water and sewer lines and treatment plants, helping nurses in hospitals and everything else that is not getting done around here because we're letting private fucking corporations steal tax dollars for not doing it.

 

Or ....

 

David Johnson:

Alongside Friday's good employment data, there is a brouhaha on the Internets over claims that the government's employment numbers are a "big lie." Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of the Gallup polling company penned "The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment," claiming that "the media" is "cheer-leading" and the White House is "scor[ing] political points" over phony numbers that the government makes up to make things look better than they are.

In fact, the "top line" unemployment number – now 5.7 percent, representing 9 million people, does not factor in people who have given up looking, 6.8 million part-time workers who want to work full-time, 2.2 million "marginally attached" people, people who are grossly underpaid, etc. But everyone knows that, and the government reports that. The "official" number has a specific definition, the "U-6 "alternative measure of labor under-utilization" reports the more accurate 13.5 percent number. So somewhere between 15 and 20 million Americans count as un- or underemployed. But even that doesn't count those who have given up. It's still bad out there, but the government's figures are not being manipulated.

Intentionally High Unemployment
I want to suggest that this high un- and underemployment is intentional. Here is why. Two things that the government could easily do right now would pretty much get rid of unemployment. But our government is blocked from doing those things by extremely wealthy people, who benefit from the low wages, and a desperate and "cowering" reserve army of unemployed status quo.

SNIP
We got here by cutting taxes for the rich, gutting government, deferring maintenance, a and letting a few billionaires harvest our public wealth through privatization, etc. We'll get out of it by fixing the trade deficit, repairing our infrastructure, undoing policy mistakes that have continued since the Reagan era, and ending "trickle down" tax cuts.

How do we take this a step further? The following things would employ tons of people and bring a long-term economic return far above any “cost.”

SNIP

There is so much we could do to first bring about full employment, and then move our economy into the 21st century. But we are held back by this weird Reagan/Wall Street/conservative ideology that tells us not to believe that We the People deserve a government that spends to make our lives better. That spending boosts us up now, makes our lives better, and more than pays for itself later. But we are kept from dreaming and doing because that return on our investment would go to us, instead of into the pockets of a few billionaires.