Under a Jobs Guarantee, What Happens to the Flakes?
Recently the idea of a federal jobs guarantee — the idea that the government should spend money to ensure that everyone is employed — has breached the American political mainstream. Bernie Sanders has proclaimed his support for the idea, and surprisingly more centrist Democrats like Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand have signed on. To those on the left, a job guarantee is emerging as a more savoury alternative to the idea of a basic income. It’s undeniable that offering a guaranteed job to those who want it would be preferable to the current system, where most people are either over- or under-worked. A lot of details, however, remain sketchy, and for me there’s one that’s absolutely crucial: what happens if someone shows up late for their guaranteed job?
One would hope, of course, that there would be a certain degree of forgiveness for occasional tardiness. Even the most utopian socialist will find it hard to imagine a world where the buses always run on time. But what about those people who are consistently, compulsively late? It would seem harsh to strike them from the rolls and declare that they can starve as far as the state is concerned. On the other hand, if the government is still obligated to employ the late person, what’s the motivation for anyone to show up at work on time — or, indeed, at all?
This possibly silly example touches on a major question about a jobs guarantee. There are all types of people who lack employment for reasons other than a lack of opportunity. There are those virtuous ones, who we can imagine a kind government creating an alternate program for, such as those with severe disabilities, sufferers of addiction or mental illness, or parents who want to stay home and raise the kids. There are the ones we wouldn’t be sorry to leave out, like those who make hateful posts on social media or are abrasive or outright abusive to their coworkers. And there are the many who fall in between, unemployed or underemployed because of venal sins — the incorrigible flakes, the hapless incompetents, and the merely lazy.
We all know people like this, and may even love them. Perhaps it would be possible to create a benefits program to select only those who are out of work for respectable reasons. But do we really want to trust the federal government to distinguish people with acute depression from those who just don’t want to work? And does society really have no obligation to the latter?
My argument here is not that a federal jobs guarantee is not worth pursuing. It would help many people, and quite obviously be better than the current system. But such a guarantee would also not be a panacea that would take care of everyone. Promoting a jobs guarantee as an alternative to universal programs like single-payer healthcare or basic income would be a major mistake by progressive policy wonks.
If the left is to push for any kind of policy agenda under a capitalist government, then its principles should not just be that everyone has a right to work but that everyone, by merit only of being a human, has the right to basic sustenance. A plan to achieve those goals could certainly include a federal jobs program, but it must also include a social safety net unrelated to work, including free health care, education, housing and, yes, an income. To do otherwise would be to leave all of our lovable flakes out in the cold.
