President Obama's “Pivot” to Jobs: Lessons from Comparative Law and America's Rivals

By adopting sensible economic policies over the past several decades, Germany and Japan have reduced their unemployment rates without sacrificing the health or financial well‐being of their populations. Japan's unemployment rate is less than 5%, and Germany's is less than 7.5%, while the U.S. rate is over 9%. Their legal tools for achieving these levels include: (1) consideration of the interests of workers when executives plan mass layoffs, and direct action to create jobs; (2) creation of a healthy and well‐educated workforce; (3) preservation of an industrial base that includes a vibrant manufacturing sector, by shifting many of the costs of supporting workers and their families from employers onto the government; and (4) taxation of goods and services imported from abroad, rather than mainly taxing domestic but not foreign producers' incomes.