Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

People Must Live by Work: Direct Job Creation in America, from Fdr to Reagan

People Must Live by Work: Direct Job Creation in America, from Fdr to Reagan In People Must Live by Work, Steven Attewell traces the rise and fall of direct job creation by the government as federal economic and social policy. Attewell seeks to explain why public jobs programs triumphed over public works as the main strategy to address unemployment in the New Deal era but, despite those programs’ success, failed to become a major feature of the Employment Act of 1946, the War on Poverty, or the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978, and are no longer seriously considered. The first three chapters focus on the New Deal and end with an evaluation of the record of direct job creation. Attewell challenges the conventional wisdom by using alternative data to argue that jobs programs substantially cut unemployment and effectively ended the Great Depression before World War II. Attewell notes that most New Deal policies were either “mainstreamed or permanently dumped,” but direct job creation became a “perennial controversy,” reappearing in policy debates but never again embraced (p. 13). Three other periods when direct job creation was seriously considered are covered in chapters that provide distinct arguments about why the policy failed in each episode. Attewell argues that in the Employment Act of 1946 Keynesian economic planning prevailed over direct job creation early in legislative drafting by Senate liberals, challenging scholarly accounts that it was gutted by House of Representatives conservatives. Echoing other scholars, he argues that direct job creation was a minor part of the War on Poverty because the Department of Labor was not a strong advocate and gave too much credence to the culture of poverty explanation for unemployment over structural factors, while administrative advocates of jobs programs failed to build ties with civil rights and labor leaders. He adds that many administrative actors eventually endorsed direct job creation but did so too late because the 1966 elections closed the path in Congress. The ambitious Humphrey-Hawkins proposal initially endorsed the right to a job. But Attewell argues that direct job creation was dropped because liberals first split over jobs policy versus guaranteed minimum incomes to address poverty in fights over President Jimmy Carter's Program for Better Jobs and Income, and, more importantly, Keynesian economists split on whether to prioritize unemployment or inflation in the economic crisis of the mid-1970s. The constant in Attewell's account is that direct job creation has been consistently sabotaged by divisions among liberals, a familiar theme among policy scholars. Attewell stresses that ideas are as important as coalitions and institutions in policy outcomes, and his account centers on the role of economists and policy experts. While he documents consistently high public support for direct job creation, he argues that the success of proposals depended on decisions made “behind closed doors among small groups of policymakers” (p. 14). Attewell does not provide a satisfying explanation for the existence of such a disconnect between the two, and he gives little attention to the role of business and other opposed groups. However, he makes a strong case that direct job creation should be brought back into policy debates. He estimates that the 2009 government stimulus package spent six times what direct job creation would have for the same number of jobs. © The Author 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of American History Oxford University Press

People Must Live by Work: Direct Job Creation in America, from Fdr to Reagan

Roof,, Tracy
The Journal of American History , Volume 107 (1) – Jun 1, 2020
Download PDF
2 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/oxford-university-press/people-must-live-by-work-direct-job-creation-in-america-from-fdr-to-7GBlnMH3y8

References (0)

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
ISSN
0021-8723
eISSN
1945-2314
DOI
10.1093/jahist/jaaa110
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In People Must Live by Work, Steven Attewell traces the rise and fall of direct job creation by the government as federal economic and social policy. Attewell seeks to explain why public jobs programs triumphed over public works as the main strategy to address unemployment in the New Deal era but, despite those programs’ success, failed to become a major feature of the Employment Act of 1946, the War on Poverty, or the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978, and are no longer seriously considered. The first three chapters focus on the New Deal and end with an evaluation of the record of direct job creation. Attewell challenges the conventional wisdom by using alternative data to argue that jobs programs substantially cut unemployment and effectively ended the Great Depression before World War II. Attewell notes that most New Deal policies were either “mainstreamed or permanently dumped,” but direct job creation became a “perennial controversy,” reappearing in policy debates but never again embraced (p. 13). Three other periods when direct job creation was seriously considered are covered in chapters that provide distinct arguments about why the policy failed in each episode. Attewell argues that in the Employment Act of 1946 Keynesian economic planning prevailed over direct job creation early in legislative drafting by Senate liberals, challenging scholarly accounts that it was gutted by House of Representatives conservatives. Echoing other scholars, he argues that direct job creation was a minor part of the War on Poverty because the Department of Labor was not a strong advocate and gave too much credence to the culture of poverty explanation for unemployment over structural factors, while administrative advocates of jobs programs failed to build ties with civil rights and labor leaders. He adds that many administrative actors eventually endorsed direct job creation but did so too late because the 1966 elections closed the path in Congress. The ambitious Humphrey-Hawkins proposal initially endorsed the right to a job. But Attewell argues that direct job creation was dropped because liberals first split over jobs policy versus guaranteed minimum incomes to address poverty in fights over President Jimmy Carter's Program for Better Jobs and Income, and, more importantly, Keynesian economists split on whether to prioritize unemployment or inflation in the economic crisis of the mid-1970s. The constant in Attewell's account is that direct job creation has been consistently sabotaged by divisions among liberals, a familiar theme among policy scholars. Attewell stresses that ideas are as important as coalitions and institutions in policy outcomes, and his account centers on the role of economists and policy experts. While he documents consistently high public support for direct job creation, he argues that the success of proposals depended on decisions made “behind closed doors among small groups of policymakers” (p. 14). Attewell does not provide a satisfying explanation for the existence of such a disconnect between the two, and he gives little attention to the role of business and other opposed groups. However, he makes a strong case that direct job creation should be brought back into policy debates. He estimates that the 2009 government stimulus package spent six times what direct job creation would have for the same number of jobs. © The Author 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)

Journal

The Journal of American History – Oxford University Press

Published: Jun 1, 2020

There are no references for this article.