Today, voters in Arizona will decide whether a $.01 sales tax increase (in a state with 9.6% unemployment and wages 6% below the national average) will stave off otherwise draconian cuts in state support for higher education, K-12 schools, healthcare, and welfare.
The last two weeks offered unprecedented drama in the UK, as the general election resulted in the resignation of Gordon Brown as the head of the Labour Party on May 11, and the establishment of a coalition government lead by new Prime Minister David Cameron (Conservative) and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat). The domestic agenda? Reducing the UK's £163B deficit and addressing the highest rates of joblessness in over 15 years.
And then there's Greece, flanked (in print) by the words "austerity" and "job loss" in roughly equal measure.
Jobs Issues are Central
The jobs issue is at the heart of some of the most difficult challenges cash-strapped governments face the world over (but in particular, where the tango between the finance and housing industries wrought the greatest havoc). Some of these connections are obvious: people who lose their jobs have less money to spend, reducing the government revenue they would otherwise pay in the form of income and sales tax and increasing their need for government services - unemployment insurance, training grants, food stamps, health insurance, transport, even public libraries.
There are also less obvious "costs" linked to unemployment ranging from an increase in public school enrollment as more parents have difficulty paying for private school, to widespread declines in risk-taking on the part of entrepreneurs, consumers, lenders, and even job seekers ill-matched with their current positions but fearful of leaving them. Never mind the longterm and potentially massive social costs.
Community Perspectives on Jobs
This past March, my colleagues and I at Corporation for a Skilled Workforce captured the experiences of workforce professionals at the National Association of Workforce Boards Annual Forum - they are the community faces of workforce policy in communities across the U.S. And they are very concerned about jobs.
Policy Levers for Job Creation
We also interviewed policy professionals and thought leaders representing a wide range of perspectives about the policy prescriptions they were advocating - from Dean Baker's (CEPR) ideas on job sharing to Jagadeesh Gokhale (Cato) on loosening credit and promoting self-employment to Heidi Schierholz's (EPI) case for a second stimulus. Most focused on federal-level interventions. (The entire set of 14 videos is in this playlist.)
Communities, too, are advancing solutions:
Investing in innovation and growing sustainable industries through collaborative ventures;
Economic gardening, regional resilience efforts, and other locally-focused development strategies;
Promoting upskilling among workers and those looking for work;
Reinventing placement services and supports;
Experimenting with new (and revisiting old) approaches to training and placement; and
Using technology to make information more accessible and transparent, and to connect job seekers with resources, information and assistance outside of government - leveraging community resources and social networks.
Over the next six weeks, we will be looking specifically at government policies, programs, and approaches that seek to accelerate job creation and promote prosperity, in a sustainable way.
