Sanders’ plan: Guarantee every American a job
Infrastructure, wage competition targets of plan.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., will unveil a plan for the federal government to guarantee a job paying $15 an hour and health-care benefits to every American worker “who wants or needs one,” embracing the kind of large-scale government works project that Democrats have shied away from in recent decades.
Sanders’s jobs guarantee would fund hundreds of projects throughout the United States aimed at addressing priorities such as infrastructure, heath care, the environment, education and other goals. Under the job guarantee, every American would be entitled to a job under one of these projects or receive job training to be able to do so, according to an early draft of the proposal.
Sanders joins two other rumored 2020 Democratic presidential contenders who have expressed support for the idea of a jobs guarantee. The push reflects a leftward move in the party’s economic policy, away from President Barack Obama’s use of public-private partnerships or government incentives to reshape markets and toward an unambiguous embrace of direct intervention.
Job guarantee advocates say their plan would drive up wages by dramatically increasing competition for workers, ensuring corporations have to offer more generous salaries and benefits if they want to keep their employees from working for the government. Supporters say it would also reduce racial inequality, since black workers face unemployment at about twice the rates of white workers, as well as gender inequality, since many iterations of the plan call for the expansion of federal childcare work. Others, including some Democrats, are not convinced. The idea is also dead on arrival with Republicans in control of Congress, and conservatives have trashed the idea of a jobs guarantee as impractical.
“It completely undercuts a lot of industries and companies,” said Brian Riedl, of the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, a think tank. “There will be pressure to introduce a higher wage or certain benefits that the private sector doesn’t offer.” But in a new political climate, ideas like a jobs guarantee plan is gaining traction among prominent Democrats. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., backed the idea on Twitter earlier this month. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., last week also announced his intention to introduce a separate bill that would create a pilot program for a job guarantee in 15 rural and urban areas.