Create Good Jobs

Solution: As a first step to providing more permanent, full-time, high-paying jobs, we should increase our national investment in education, training, technology, and infrastructure, and provide younger Americans more opportunities to develop critical work-force skills.

Detailed Proposal

Over half of all workers under 25 are paid hourly wages -- which means no health benefits -- and have earnings below the poverty line. Minimum wage has 26 percent less purchasing power today than it did in 1970.

The largest private employer in the U.S. today is not General Motors but Manpower Inc. -- a temporary employment agency. Manufacturing employment, where millions of our parents earned decent livings, is on the decline. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of new college graduates will outpace the number of new jobs by half a million a year, every year, for the rest of the decade.

In the past, when the U.S. has faced this kind of "permanent" unemployment, we've done one of two things: tried to create new jobs by stimulating the economy through increased government spending, or cut spending and taxes in an attempt to boost investment and growth.

Today, we need to do a little of both, adopting policies that will restore strong enough growth in the private economy, jump-start job creation, and begin to close our national "investment gap". To undertake this effort, the United States should

• Guarantee every young person the opportunity to enhance his or her skills through apprenticeship tracks in high schools, and provide college assistance for anyone willing to do national service. The National Service Program, passed in 1993, is one step toward this goal.
  
  
• Ensure access to retraining for jobless people and for displaced and low-wage workers. This can be accomplished through "one-stop" assistance centers for retraining workers.
  
  
• Increase investment in basic research, infrastructure, and worker training -- three areas that will be underfunded without help from Uncle Sam. Despite its importance to job creation, federal investment as a share of national output has declined by over 30 percent since 1976. Meanwhile, other countries such as Japan have saved and invested much larger shares of their national incomes. The result: U.S. job growth has slowed, while job growth in nations with high investment has increased.
  
  
• Remove subsidies and trade protections on most U.S. industries. Just like you can't make new wine in old bottles, America will not create new jobs by protecting the old ones. A recent study by the Institute of International Economics showed that 15 of the 21 most heavily protected industries (in terms of quotas, tariffs, and other trade protections) in the U.S. suffered significant job losses from 1986 to 1990 -- and three others showed no significant gains in employment.
  
  
• Eliminate wasteful programs and tax breaks that insulate certain private industries from market competition. This would free up tens of billions of dollars to invest in our future.

The harsh reality is that the job market is bleak -- and will be for some time. But these five actions would be important steps toward solving our job crisis and creating longer-lasting, higher-wage employment for millions in our generation.

America should get busy and help put us to wotk. It would be one of the best investments this country could make for the 1990s and beyond.

For More Information

• Progressive Policy Institute, (202) 547-0001