Guaranteed Basic Employment (GBE)
We envisage a transformed relationship to the economic realm, a new way of sorting out the puzzle of work/time/money/meaning/status. We formulate this as a New American Dream, not a dream of "making it" but a dream of a “modest, but very secure income, sufficient to satisfy core needs, with expanding off-the-job time, in order to do those things in life that matter most and engage our deepest selves." Concretely, we envision a world in which everyone has the option of new forms of work-life, for instance, one with 20 hours of paid job-system work, 10 hours of paid or unpaid passion-work, and 10 more hours for friends and family,
We believe this seemingly utopian vision is well within our reach, and to that end we call for making Guaranteed Basic Employment the central goal of economic and social policy.
GBE is best thought of as a special kind of legally enforceable Job Guarantee embedded within a matrix of supportive economic policies. Specifically the guarantee we propose is one of a 32 hour job with disposable income sufficient to meet core needs, (or paid training that enables such employment). There are two challenges here. First, ensuring that there is 32 hours of paid employment available for everyone who seeks it (no unemployment), and second, ensuring that 32 hours of paid work (or even less) is sufficient to cover basic needs. The latter challenge may seem the most daunting, but we believe it is attainable with a diverse set of policies, none of which is beyond what can be attained in the next four years. We view this holistically, meaning that the overarching goal is to attain Need Required Income with 32 hours of paid employment, without unique reliance or commitment to any specific policy instrument. Thus seen, the matrix of polices that we believe sufficient include:
- A $15/hr. minimum wage ($15 X 32 hr X 52 weeks = $24,960/year.)
- An increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit to bring this up to $30,000/year.
- Elimination of all taxation on those below this income level by increasing the Standard Deduction for State and Federal taxation to $24,960 of earned income, and applying it to both the personal income tax and to social security taxation.
- Capping household expenditures for health care and childcare at 10% of income (each) through refundable tax credits or other policy approaches.
- Free tuition at public colleges.
- Time-liberty legislation providing a right to reduce one's job hours to 32/hrs. a week if one so chooses.
- Zero-Interest, one-time home mortgage loan for modest or tiny homes.
- Policies to reduce automobile dependency.
Within this matrix of policy, two adults with two children, with 32 hours each of job-work, will have a guaranteed minimal level of disposable income of roughly $60,000 and because of zero-taxation at the bottom and caps on out-of-pocket spending for childcare and medical care, this will enable a consumption level that presently requires roughly $80,000.
This is just an example. With these policies in place, some might opt for two 20 hr/week jobs. This would be quite viable if they found ways to generate increased income through their chosen passion work. But the important thing is that people find a way, whether paid or not, to begin to add passion-work to their lives, and over time, come to expand that realm and shrink work that is only done to earn a living, but does not contribute to fulfillment and flourishing.
Also, to see the fuller power of what is proposed here, a Zero-Interest mortgage on a modest home can be paid off relatively quickly. Let’s say the mortgage is paid off in 10 or 15 years. This will mean a major drop in need required income. If the drop is 20%, then labor time can drop 20%, that is, another full day a week can go for passion-work and for friends and family.
On the job creation side, in order to meet the guarantee of 32 hours of paid employment we also see a matrix of policy tools, including:
- Job-creating macro-economic policy, including if necessary, new ways of controlling inflation to enable, if needed, fiscal and monetary stimulation policies that support tight labor markets.
- Green New Deal jobs promoted by Federal and State policies (the idea is to see Green New Deal jobs not primarily as a path to today’s middle class, but rather as a path to the Simple Living/More Time/Passion-Work option.
- Beauty New Deal Jobs (see a separate posting on this).
- Major expansion of the non-profit sector through tax policy that provides refundable tax credits for contributions to non-profits.
- Job sharing supported by economic incentives, for example, 4 people with 40 hour a week jobs might be offered partial-pay for giving up 8 hours of work, thus allowing 32 hours to be provided to a 5th person who will also work 32 hours.
- Right to time-liberty legislation that gives workers the right to limit their job hours to 32/week, thus motivating businesses to create extra jobs to meet their need for labor.
- As a fall-back, if there are still not enough 32 hour jobs to fulfill the guarantee, then the State and/or Federal government would require overtime pay for any workers putting in more than 32 hours a week, just as we do with the current 40 hr. work week,
GBE is an over-arching framework for organizing policy in many realms in pursuit of a single very concrete central liberating goal. GBE is largely pragmatic about what will work and not work, open to shifting reliance from one set of policies to another. The core objective is to provide everyone the option of an economically secure life of moderate consumption, with limited Job-system work-time. Essentially we are seeking policies that will enable high-quality simple-living for all who embrace it.
As an employment and income guarantee, GBE will largely eliminate poverty for those who are able to work, and it will transform our after-tax income distribution. As an employment guarantee its sharpest impact will be on those otherwise most likely to experience unemployment, including African Americans, Hispanics, blue collar workers, and those without higher education. Thus, GBE is an enormously powerful social justice tool, one that powerfully addresses the cumulative impact of institutional racism. That said, its primary objective is to transform our entire culture, our way of life, right down the middle, altering how we approach work, time, money, status and education -- reaching deeply into how we experience ourselves and others. By placing paid job-system work in a subsidiary position, as we expand passion-work, It will change what we are asking when we inquire, "What do you do?" It will change what we mean by "a good school" and the purpose of education. And it will restore childhood -- unlinking it from the competition for the limited number on social slots that we today define as "success.".
—————
Note: We are pragmatic about this. There may be better ways to do this, or perhaps the numbers need to be tweaked. For Bread and Roses, our role is to place the Alternative American Dream on the National Agenda and to launch a policy-discourse about how to make it possible for all who seek it.