Universal jobs seems nuts, until you realize there is a ton of work.
Bernie Sanders made an announcement yesterday; that he and progressive Democrats were putting together a program that would guarantee a $15/hour job with benefits to anyone who needed or wanted one. And despite what pundits are going to say, it isn’t crazy. If you’re a progressive, this article already makes sense. If you’re a conservative, bear with me, even when I get preachy.
Bernie’s plan, as explained so far, is an infrastructure and job-training stimulus plan. Both of which are things that have been neglected, not just for one administration, but for decades.
There is another component though: There are far more jobs in America than there are people.
First, infrastructure: pretty much everyone in this country agrees that all the quiet things that hold us together and make us a nation “from sea to shining sea” are falling apart. Necessary utilities, roads and bridges, and facilities are failing or are beyond obsolete. We have to fix them, or else our communities will become isolated, suffer and the middle class will head further into economic decline.
The bad news to the cut-cut-cut crowd is that a solid repair and improvement plan has already been estimated to cost at least a trillion dollars. It is going to need money. Gobs of it. Sky high stacks of it. And there are only two places to get it; taxes and borrowing. Taxes are low and debt is high, and I would bet that most progressives would say that the former is far better than the latter. I would even venture to say that conservatives would agree as well.
The next part is jobs: Bernie’s plan covers the creation of projects to improve specific regions based on proposals, but also by creating positions that need to be filled to complete said work. If there are a lack of trained professionals, the idea is to send Americans to training, or to have them learn it hands-on.
We are not trained for this, and we absolutely need to be. It’s been too long since we emphasized the good-paying-and-always-necessary blue collar jobs in this country. Or the menial tech jobs that live out there. Our parents’ pressure to push us to college regardless of debt accrued or return-on-investment has been a disaster. Comprehensive education has deteriorated into for-profit mills. Liberal Arts degrees have declined in value because of the jump in education costs (not because of a loss of importance), and in the meantime the tool and die industry has basically disappeared.
Bernie has previously said that pre-k through college should be federally and state funded. It’s been a discordant note in his platform when appealing to the men and women who sweat for a living. Trade schools need to be included in that list (and in my opinion so should education through doctorate provided good grades).
Unemployment is low, tremendously low. It’s true, and a little wrong. Unemployment at 4% doesn’t include people who have given up on working or looking for work, in some cases for generations. It also doesn’t define employment as “good jobs.” A full-time worker flipping burgers is employed, but anyone who has ever worked in food service can tell you, that won’t pay the bills. Even the “over ten years” increase to $15/hour doesn’t do enough; not even if it were nearly immediate for companies making X amount of profit per year, and gradual for smaller business.
And yes, I am aware Bernie still calls for $15/hour and benefits for this 100% employment plan. I agree with an increased minimum wage, but I don’t think $15 is enough, especially considering how glacially slow implementation has been. The minimum wage conversation is complicated all on its own. (“Fast-food workers shouldn’t make $15.” Why not? “A $15 hike means products cost $6+ more.” That assumes that a company only sells one product per employee per hour. “A hike in minimum wage means lots of little stores will go out of business.” Higher general purchasing power means a boost to local economies, which means profits will be higher for valuable small business. Etc.)
My point is going to be something slightly different: There are actually way more job openings than there are people in the United States.
Some of those infrastructure jobs require training, but not everyone can be trained. Some people can’t take the time to go back to school, a lot of those workers will not be conveniently close to available projects, and some people people simply cannot learn to complete complicated tasks. Not only that, but automation is going to overtake a lot of positions that exist now and in the future.
It still doesn’t mean that young folks, people without a high school diploma, or anyone else who wants to work will have nowhere to work. Hell, if we had been a bit more gracious over the years, the careers I am talking about already exist. It’s not even that we don’t value them. It’s that we excuse and rationalize their loss.
Look around you; how often have you thought to yourself “someone should take care of that?” Everyone has, and in the past there was a paid worker who did take care of whatever that was. Old careers have disappeared, even if they once served a huge part in making our lives more livable.
For too long we have written off whole industries and verticals merely because we have been fooled into thinking “there isn’t a need” or “there isn’t enough money.”
That is absolutely incorrect. For about four decades there has been an elaborate plan to deprive our country of the resources it needs to flourish for the sake of ungodly rich families and beyond profitable companies.
By cutting taxes and providing subsidies to people who don’t need them we have gutted our finances. Same as going to war for the last 17 years; quadrupling down on our intelligence services funding; inefficient government services; “lost” federal funds; lax or anemic regulatory enforcement; unpunished tax evasion; rewarded outsourcing; and decade after decade of a lost War on Drugs. We have wasted money in lost causes. We have squandered the greatest middle class on rhetoric and economic theory that has been proven false time and time again. Taxes are the lowest they’ve been in over a century (and the loopholes and deductions keep growing), and the promise of a booming economy by job-creators has not borne out. Instead take home pay has gone down… and corporate profits have soared.
So here is a list of trained and untrained non-infrastructure jobs that are unfilled or under-filled. These can be either through a false lack of funds, or a debt-driven education system: Doctors, nurses, utility workers, cashiers, coders, plumbers, electricians, private industry construction workers, green technology workers, general administrative assistants, teachers, graffiti and litter removers (I don’t know what to call them), firefighters, park rangers, research scientists, industry regulators, farm workers, public defenders, EMTs, and yes my dear fellow progressive, police officers. And in addition to all of that: the trainers to educate them and their associated facilities.
I am sure there are more, but that’s just off the top of my head.
There is so much work out there, and it goes above and beyond infrastructure projects.
It is time that as conservatives, liberals, and independents, we stand up against the lost wages, lost jobs, and decaying country around us. My brothers and sisters, we have been betrayed and undercut at every turn for generations. We have to end it.
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