What Is a Job Guarantee?

In this episode of American Socrates, we explore the bold idea of a federally-backed Job Guarantee—the promise of dignified, meaningful work for anyone who wants it. We trace the roots of the proposal, from the New Deal to modern economic debates, and ask: could a Job Guarantee end involuntary unemployment once and for all? Along the way, we unpack how it differs from welfare or “make-work,” and what it could mean for working-class communities. At the heart of it lies a deeper question: should access to a decent job be treated as a basic human right?

Transcript

Let's start with a familiar story. Imagine a guy named Mark. He's in his 40s, he's a father of three, a former warehouse worker, but the company that he worked for is just downsized, due primarily to automation. He's not lazy, he's not unskilled, but month after month of job searching, he keeps hearing the same things from employers. We're not hiring. You're overqualified. Why don't you check back later? Meanwhile, politicians lecture him about the dignity of work and how his lifelines are going to be cut off if he doesn't find a job soon. Cable news blames him for not trying hard enough. The economy needs people like Marcus to stay unemployed, to keep wages down, for everybody else. It actually needs a reserve of unemployed people. Now ask yourself, what kind of society forces people to beg for the right to survive while keeping them unemployed on purpose? What if instead of being tossed aside, Marcus had a real option? What if anyone who wanted a job could get one? Guaranteed. I mean, that is how we suppose capitalism works anyway, that there are just endless, high-paid jobs out there, an infinite number of them, and that no matter how many people there are, there's always good jobs waiting for them. They're just too lazy to take them. So we don't want to do make work, not handouts, but jobs with real pay, doing something communities actually need. That's what today's episode is going to consider, because there's an idea out there, a federal job guarantee that would transform everything. It's bold, it's practical. And it would change how we think about freedom, dignity, and the economy itself. You've probably never heard a mainstream politician from either party talk about it, because it threatens the system they're trying to protect. But a job guarantee doesn't just fix unemployment. It gives working people leverage. It forces the economy to serve human needs, not people serving the interests of their economic masters. Welcome back to American Socrates. I'm your host, Charles M. Rupert. Today, we're going to ask what is a job guarantee really? And why isn't it part of the national conversation? And what kind of world becomes possible if we finally make work aright? All right, let's get into it. If I was going to try to define a job guarantee, I'd say it's a public commitment that anyone who wants to work can get a job at a living wage with Ben,its, doing work that's socially useful. It's like a public option for employment, and it's permanent, not just a stimulus program that lasts only as long as the crisis does. You won't have to qualify. You don't have to compete with anyone else. You just show up, say you want a job, and you'll start tomorrow. And we're not talking about digging holes just to refill them just so you can keep busy here. These are real jobs doing things that matter, like building and repairing housing and public infrastructure or providing elder care or child care or disability support or maintaining parks and community spaces, supporting local food systems, contributing to the arts, maybe, Public education, and climate resilience projects. Many, many more. These jobs would be created locally. They'd be based on community needs, but they'd be funded federally, so that every town, whether it's rural or urban, can participate without having to raise funds entirely out of their own meager savings. Let's clear up a few potential misconceptions right away. A jobs guarantee is not welfare. You're working and you're getting paid for your time. Neither is it forced labor. The participation here would be voluntary. You still have every right to pursue private sector work or to not work at all if you don't want to. And And it's not inflationary make-work. The goal isn't to invent pointless tasks, just to employ people, but to match unemployed people with real unmet needs their society has. And of those, any of those are not going to be problems for this idea. Whether you realize it or not, the government already guarantees unemployment through the Federal Reserve's policy choices. We just don't call it that. But the Fed works to make sure that some people are always unemployed. They raise interest rates to cool down hiring and lower wages, and they do it on purpose. Why? To control inflation and to keep investors happy. You see, in our system, millions of unemployed workers are a feature, not a bug. The reason for this are many, but perhaps chief among them is is flexibility. When demand shifts and new people are required in a new industry, having a pool of unemployed people will ensure that there is no lag in meeting that demand. Another reason is that it keeps wages down, Since, you know, at any moment, someone is willing to underbid for the same amount of work, causing a general lowering of the wages. There are other reasons, too, but a job guarantee flips all that upside down. Instead of letting the economy use you like a spare part, it creates a stable and dignified floor for all workers. If the private sector can't, or won't, hire you, the public sector can then step in, not to save you, but to recognize your value. It doesn't just create jobs. It creates freedom and opportunity, freedom from bosses who know you have nowhere else to go and can use that to exploit you or to lower your wages. Freedom from wage theft, union busting, poverty traps, and freedom from the fear that your life can be thrown away when the market decides that you're no longer useful. So now that we've laid out what a job guarantee is or is supposed to be, the next question would naturally be, why isn't this already part of our economy? Why is it that every time jobs disappear, we get more blame, but never a guarantee? Well, the answer certainly isn't because we can't afford it. It's not because there's no work to do, either. And it's not because we don't know how to do this. It's because unemployment serves a purpose, at least for the people at the top. In a capitalist economy, employers make their profits by keeping labor costs low, and that means they have to keep wages down. They want to cut benefits. They want to stretch the number of hours that you're working. Unions get in the way of that. So unions get busted. But employers face the question of how to do all of that without labor finally just revolting and quitting. And the solution is pretty simple. It's fear. There's always going to be a pool of people who are desperate enough for work, ready to take your job and take it for less. That's going to keep your head down. You're not going to ask for a raise. You're not going to organize. You'll accept whatever you're given, because you know, deep down, you are replaceable. That's what economists call the reserve Army of Labor. It's a polite way of saying you're unemployed by systemic design. And let me be clear here. I'm not saying that there is some evil cabal of business owners out there twisting their mustaches and laughing maniacally, all aging to work together to keep you unemployed. I'm saying there are policy choices that the governments and the Fed make that incentivize businesses to either hire or to fire employees, depending on what they want to direct the economy towards. Even the Federal Reserve admits this in public. When wages start to rise, they raise interest rates to slow things down on purpose. Why? Because higher wages might overheat the economy. But who is it that's overheating? Well, it's certainly not the CEOs and not the landlords and not the hedge funds, but it's you. You're making too much money. You're able to demand too many services, too many goods. And that threatens the profit margins of the owning class. When workers gain power, the system kind of has to hit the brakes under capitalism. Unemployment becomes the mechanism, then, for disciplining labor, for pulling the reins back on people. It's a whip when it's used to keep workers in line. So it's not hard to imagine what happens here if there was a public job guarantee. There'd be no desperate race to the bottom, no more working for poverty wages just to keep your health insurance. No more bosses saying, well, hey, if you don't like it, there's the door, because there would actually be somewhere else to go. You could actually walk out and your boss would know that. And they're going to have to compromise then. You, when the rest of the staff, might just leave. And the boss would find that they had to shut down. That terrifies the people who rely on cheap disposable labor. It threatens the whole structure of corporate power. The job guarantee isn't just an economic policy then. It's class war in reverse. It says, you just don't get to hold people's lives hostage to your profit margins anymore. So what would this look like? What would a job guarantee actually do for the economy, for communities and for democracy itself? The first thing a job guarantee would provide is a stable, living wage job for everybody. No more scrambling, no more gigging or temp jobs that barely pay the rent, but a real job with benefits, a union-friendly environment, and the dignity that comes with consistent work. And it would do so without reliance on a minimum wage, which might never get raised again. Employers would have to meet or exceed the public job option if they wanted to find themselves any employees. The second thing a job guarantee would provide is strong communities and public services. These jobs aren't just busy work, right? They f fill real gaps left in local communities that they suffer from, like fixing roads and bridges that we drive on, or caring for our elders and kids, or maintaining part parks and community spaces you play at, expanding clean energy projects for your power and water, and supporting schools, libraries, the arts, things that you might enjoy, that your kids might enjoy. Communities could become healthier and more resilient to economic shocks because the work there actually helps the people who live there. A third thing a job guarantee would provide is a major power shift for workers. With a public job guarantee, you're no longer at the mercy of your bosses, who could exploit your desperation. When Wages are going to rise across the board, not just in the public sector, but in the private sector as well, because employers are going to have to compete with a guaranteed option. Unions are also gaining strength across the board. Workers could gain leverage, and so exploitation would be reduced. A fourth thing that a job guarantee would provide is economic stability and reduced poverty. Unemployment becomes a choice, then, not a trap. You decide if you want to work or if you can afford not to work, but it's you and not the system that's going to be determining your level of income. You really will have the ability to set your own wages. During downturns, job losses are cushioned by these public jobs. People keep earning, and so they keep spending, which will stabilize the economy for everyone much more quickly. Finally, a fifth thing that a job guarantee would provide is a tool against inflation. Surprisingly, a job guarantee can help control inflation by setting a wage floor. It anchors the labor market, and it discourages wage price spirals, and provides policymakers a clearer handle on the economy, meaning that employers also get some stability and some benefit from this because they know what their competitors can and can't actually do. Let's take a look at the New Deal as a real-world example of this. FDR's program of the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, and the Civil Conservation Corps, the CCC, put millions to work, building parks and schools and roads during the Great Depression. They provided dignity, income, and improved the country's infrastructure. The job guarantee idea is a modern and more permanent version of that legacy that would be more permanent and more staple. And so, in short, a job guarantee isn't charity. It's not a handout. It's a recognition that everyone deserves to contribute and live with dignity in their society. It's an investment in our people and our communities, not just the profits of the owning class. So, given that we live in a democracy, the obvious next question would be, why hasn't this happened? Why hasn't a job guarantee become policy? And what political and economic forces are keeping this powerful idea off the table? The short answer, as you can probably guess, is because the private sector doesn't want it. As I've already said, a jobs guarantee takes away one of their most powerful tools, and that is, keeping workers desperate and powerless, which makes wage negotiations very easy for them. When jobs are scarce, employers hold the cards. They can offer low wages, low benefits, you know, poor working conditions, and people will still accept the jobs. They'll accept them because the alternative is unemployment, and either a government handout or absolutely nothing at all. Considering how many of us are just two paychecks away from bankruptcy, unemployment is a serious threat. It's like negotiating for your wages with a gun to your temple. A guaranteed public option would remove the gun. And that's why businesses lobby hard against any serious job guarantee proposal. But it's not just business lobbyists. Many politicians who take corporate money see a job guarantee as a threat to the system that funds their campaigns. And virtually all members of Congress are the owning class. In December 2024, 31% of the House and 26% of the Senate were, or had been, owners, founders, or executives of businesses or companies. Over half of Congress are millionaires. Politicians from both parties paint a jobs guarantee as some kind of socialism or make-work program, just to scare voters away from something that could actually benefit most of them. but cost them as representatives. Meanwhile, you know, the media narratives reinforce the idea that unemployment is an individual's failure, not a structural problem, not something that was built into the system. This shifts blame onto workers and away from economic policies. That said, the best argument against the jobs guarantee is that it would reduce the flexibility of the labor force. That's true. That will happen. If your business has a hot new product and needs to expand rapidly in order to meet growing demand, that could be frustrated by the fact that everyone who wants to work is already employed. You would have to lure people away then from current jobs, probably with promises of higher-than-average salaries. And given the fact that doing this would also require additional capital investment with assured lower returns, you would likely struggle to find the support you're going to need to do such hiring. But there are solutions to that problem as well, including public loans for businesses, consumer-supported investments, and other things like that. But even with these, we'd likely still see some products unable to keep up with demands or keep up with it quite as quickly. That said, I'm not sure that slower production and a slightly higher cost for particular commodities is going to prohibit a system that would secure dignity and justice for all of us. But the billionaires seem to think of that it should. But just to be safe, let's look at a few real-world examples of job guarantee programs to see what's possible and what lessons we can learn from them. Though a full federal job guarantee is rare, there are important examples that we can learn from. The first I've already mentioned, and that's the New Deal's Works Progress Administration and the Civil Conservation Corps from the 1930s. During the Great Depression, the WPA and the CCC put millions of people to work building roads, parks, schools, and other infrastructure items. These programs provided stable employment. They boosted local economies and created lasting public assets that are still being used today. They proved that government can create jobs at scale, with dignity and purpose, and rather than tank the economy, it would build it up and help destabilize it. Another example would be Argentina's Jefes et Jefas program running from 2002 until 2009. Coming in response to a severe economic crisis in 2001, Argentina launched a program of guaranteed work for unemployed heads of households. Jobs focused on community and environmental projects like street cleaning and reforestation. Several studies have found that it reduced poverty, it improved community services, and it increased political participation, especially for women. Though it faced political challenges and funding cuts, it remained one of the clearest examples of a model modern job guarantee in action. There are smaller examples, too. Some U.S. cities and whole states have experimented with public job programs focused on green energy or community service. Examples would include Chicago's Conservation Corps and various transitional job programs for youth and marginalized groups. These smaller-scale efforts show promise, but they lack stable, guaranteed funding that a federal currency-issuing government could provide it. Generally, the consensus of economists who study this idea holds that a job guarantee would work best when locally tailored, but federally supported. And that's because the needs to be identified are best done at the local level. Communities know what they need best. That said, raising funds at that level is difficult, whereas it's easy at the federal level. Also, the work must be meaningful and connected to the community's needs to maintain that dignity and engagement. Simply digging holes and then refilling them will not work. Long-term political commitment is crucial. These programs are vulnerable to cuts and shifts and priorities, making such a system a constitutional amendment would take it out of the hands of Congress and elected officials, whether they are rich or whether they're not. And finally, transparency and worker participation and decision making strongly improve outcomes. This should not be considered undesirable work or an employer of last resort. These should be good jobs that anyone would be happy and proud to be doing. The bottom line here is that these examples prove a job guarantee isn't just a theory. It could be practical and effective. They also show that with political will, we can build an economy where everyone who wants to find work can find it. and contribute to society in a meaningful way. A job guarantee isn't just a nice idea, then. It's economically possible, mostly thanks to modern monetary theory or MMT, which teaches us that a government that issues its own currency, you know, like the United States, can create money as needed to fund public programs. It doesn't have to go find the money first by raising taxes or by borrowing it somewhere. That means the government can pay people to work and real jobs that meet real needs, without worrying about running out of money or, in some cases, without even worrying about raising taxes. Of course, MMT warns us to watch for inflation very carefully. But a well-designed job guarantee helps control inflation by setting a wage floor and stabilizing the labor market. In other words, MMT isn't just a theory. It's a toolkit that lets us fund a job guarantee sustainably without begging billionaires or without having to cut other programs. So I guess in the end, we ought to conclude that a job guarantee isn't just about jobs. It's about dignity and freedom and fairness. It means no one gets left behind in our society because of forces that are entirely beyond their control. It means every person has value and a place to contribute. It means an economy that serves people and not the other way around. It's a bold idea. It's practical, and most of all, it's possible. The only question that really remains is, are we ready to demand a system that treats work as a right, not as a privilege? Because when we do, everything's going to change. Thanks for tuning in to American Socrates. If today's episode of philosophy got you thinking in new ways, make sure to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. New, full episodes drop every Wednesday. If you enjoyed the show, leave a review. It helps others find us, and it means a lot. And if you know someone who could use a little more practical wisdom in their life, share this episode with them. Want more? Visit AmericanSocrates.buzzsprout.com for show notes, resources, and exclusive content. 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