IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/wrkpap/wp_981.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Jobs Should a Public Job Guarantee Provide?: Lessons from Hyman P. Minsky

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Haim

Abstract

The job guarantee is a viable policy option for tackling both unemployment and underemployment. Hyman P. Minsky was one of the seminal writers on this subject. The first part of this working paper provides a survey of Minsky's writings to identify what kind of jobs he had in mind when recommending employer-of-last-resort policies. Minsky favored: (1) jobs increasing socially useful output, providing all of society better public services and goods; (2) jobs guaranteed by the public sector on a project-by-project basis at a minimum wage; (3) jobs in the places where people need them; and (4) jobs taking the people that need them as they are. The second part of the paper suggests policy recommendations for today's economy. As long as the COVID-19 pandemic still rages on, a targeted public job guarantee program can assist in the social provisioning and distribution of food, shelter, and medical services. After the pandemic, a public job guarantee can reduce poverty and inequality, and bring about a more democratic, sustainable, and socially cohesive economic system.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Haim, 2021. "What Jobs Should a Public Job Guarantee Provide?: Lessons from Hyman P. Minsky," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_981, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_981
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_981.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. L. Randall Wray, 2016. "Why Minsky Matters: An Introduction to the Work of a Maverick Economist," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10575.
    2. J. M. Keynes, 1997. "The General Theory of Employment," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, vol. 5.
    3. William F. Mitchell, 1998. "The Buffer Stock Employment Model and the NAIRU: The Path to Full Employment," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 547-555, June.
    4. Jan Kregel, 2020. "Alternative Macro Policy Response for a Pandemic Recession," Economics Policy Note Archive 20-6, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Luiza Nassif-Pires & Laura de Lima Xavier & Thomas Masterson & Michalis Nikiforos & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2020. "Pandemic of Inequality," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_149, Levy Economics Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tamara Premrov & Leonard Geyer & Nicolas Prinz, 2022. "Arbeit für alle? Kosten und Verteilungswirkung einer Jobgarantie für Langzeitbeschäftigungslose in Österreich," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 48(1), pages 59-82.
    2. Françoise Drumetz & Christian Pfister, 2021. "The Meaning of MMT," Working papers 833, Banque de France.
    3. Françoise Drumetz & Christian Pfister, 2021. "Modern Monetary Theory: A Wrong Compass for Decision-Making," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(6), pages 355-361, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Van Den Hauwe Ludwig, 2016. "Understanding Financial Instability: Minsky Versus the Austrians," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 25-60, July.
    2. Claus Dierksmeier, 2011. "The Freedom–Responsibility Nexus in Management Philosophy and Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(2), pages 263-283, June.
    3. Philip Du Caju & Erwan Gautier & Daphne Momferatu & Melanie Ward-Warmedinger, 2009. "Institutional Features of Wage Bargaining in 23 European Countries, the US and Japan," Ekonomia, Cyprus Economic Society and University of Cyprus, vol. 12(2), pages 57-108, Winter.
    4. Cordelius Ilgmann & Martin Menner, 2011. "Negative nominal interest rates: history and current proposals," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 383-405, December.
    5. IONESCU, Lucian C., 2014. "The Economy Of Indebtedness," Journal of Financial and Monetary Economics, Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 1(1), pages 19-24.
    6. Martin Watts & Timothy Sharpe & James Juniper, 2014. "Reformation or exodus: Assessing the future of the Euro," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 25(3), pages 465-483, September.
    7. William Van Lear, 2011. "Economic Crisis and the Fiscal Challenge of the State," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(6), pages 61-77.
    8. William F. Mitchell, 2020. "Debt and Deficits—A Modern Monetary Theory Perspective," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 53(4), pages 566-576, December.
    9. Miguel D. Ramirez, 2020. "Capital as a social process: A Marxian perspective," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 9(1), pages 41-71.
    10. Alex Izurieta & Pierre Kohler & Juan Pizarro, 2018. "Financialization, Trade, and Investment Agreements: Through the Looking Glass or Through the Realities of Income Distribution and Government Policy?," GDAE Working Papers 18-02, GDAE, Tufts University.
    11. Colombier, Carsten, 2011. "Konjunktur und Wachstum [Business cycles fluctuations and long-term growth]," MPRA Paper 104739, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Pavlina R. Tcherneva, 2012. "Beyond Full Employment: The Employer of Last Resort as an Institution for Change," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_732, Levy Economics Institute.
    13. Peter Rodenburg, 2016. "How Full is Full Employment?How Tools and Not Theory Explained Full Employment," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 5-25.
    14. Maria N. Ivanova, 2017. "Profit growth in boom and bust: the Great Recession and the Great Depression in comparative perspective," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(1), pages 1-20.
    15. Yeva Nersisyan & L. Randall Wray, 2021. "Can we afford the Green New Deal?," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 68-88, January.
    16. Mathew Forstater, "undated". "Public Employment and Economic Flexibility: The Job Opportunity Approach to Full Employment," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_50, Levy Economics Institute.
    17. Yeva Nersisyan & L. Randall Wray, 2022. "Is It Time for Rate Hikes? The Fed Cannot Engineer a Soft Landing but Risks Stagflation by Trying," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_157, Levy Economics Institute.
    18. Van Den Hauwe, Ludwig, 2006. "The Uneasy Case for Fractional-Reserve Free Banking," MPRA Paper 119085, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Marc-Andre Pigeon & L. Randall Wray, "undated". "Down and Out in the United States, An Inside Look at the Out of the Labor Force Population," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_54, Levy Economics Institute.
    20. John Henry, 2007. "“Bad” Decisions, Poverty, and Economic Theory: The Individualist and Social Perspectives in Light of “The American Myth”," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 17-27, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Job Guarantee; Public Service Employment; Employer of Last Resort (ELR); Unemployment; Full Employment; Minsky; Policy Design; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_981. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Elizabeth Dunn (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.levyinstitute.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.