“The Job Guarantee program provides full employment without the structural rigidities normally associated with high levels of employment and capacity utilization. With the JG, there is always a pool of labor available to be hired out of the JG program and into private firms. Currently, this kind of flexibility can only be maintained by keeping people unemployed. In other words, in the current system, flexibility comes at an unacceptably high cost. Firms will be much happier to hire out of the JG program rather than out of a pool of unemployed workers.” — Mathew Forstater
Additional Resources:
Fogarty, Will. “Federally Funded, Locally Organized: An Affordable Job Guarantee Program,” Working Paper N. 108, Binzagr Institute for Sustainable Prosperity (July 2015).
Forstater, Mathew. “Unemployment and Underemployment,” in P. Mason, ed., Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, 2nd ed., vol. 4, pp. 213-220, Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2013.
Forstater, Mathew. “The Job Guarantee and Municipal Confederalism: Exploring the National and Local Levels of Program Operation” in Murray, Michael J. and Mathew Forstater (eds.) Employment Guarantee Schemes: Job Creation and Policy in Developing Countries and Emerging Markets, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2013.
Forstater, Mathew “‘Jobs for All’: A Fitting Tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” in D. Menkart, A. D. Murray, and J. L. View, eds., Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching, Washington, D.C.: Teaching for Change and Poverty & Race Research Action Council, 2004.
Forstater, Mathew, and L. Randall Wray. “Full Employment and Social Justice,” in D. P. Champlin and J. T. Knoedler, eds., The Institutionalist Tradition in Labor Economics, Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2004.
Forstater, Mathew. “Toward a New Instrumental Macroeconomics,” in E. J. Nell and M. Forstater (eds.): Reinventing Functional Finance, Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2003.
Forstater, Mathew. “Functional Finance and Full Employment: Lessons from Lerner for Today,” in E. J. Nell and M. Forstater (eds.): Reinventing Functional Finance, Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2003.
Forstater, Mathew. “‘Jobs for All’: Another Dream of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Forum for Social Economics, Vol. 31, No. 2, Spring, 2002.
Forstater, Mathew. “Full Employment Policies Must Consider Effective Demand and Structural and Technological Change,” in A Post Keynesian Perspective on Twenty-First Century Economic Problems, Paul Davidson (ed.), Edward Elgar, 2002.
Forstater, Mathew. “Life-Sustaining, Life-Enhancing Employment – Public Service as the Center-Piece of a Humanistic Post Keynesian Economic Policy Program, ” Working Paper 15, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, University of Missouri – Kansas City (August 2001).
Forstater, Mathew. “Full Employment Policies Must Consider Effective Demand and Structural and Technological Change – A Prime Point of Pasinetti’s Political Economy, ” Working Paper 14, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, University of Missouri – Kansas City (July 2001).
Forstater, Mathew. “Community Service Job Assurance for the Prospect Corridor Initiative,” Special Report 2001/2, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, University of Missouri – Kansas City (June 2001).
Forstater, Mathew. “Public Service Job Assurance: A Most Fitting Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King,” Special Report 2001/1, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, University of Missouri – Kansas City (January 2001).
Forstater, Mathew. Commitment to Full Employment, (with Sumner M. Rosen and Aaron Warner) White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2000.
Forstater, Mathew. “Full Employment and Economic Flexibility” in Carlson, Ellen and William F. Mitchell (eds.:) The Path to Full Employment and Equity Economic and Labour Relations Review 2000.
Forstater, Mathew. “Public Service Employment Assurance: Job Security and Community Development,” Policy Note 2000/02, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, University of Missouri – Kansas City (September 2000).
Forstater, Mathew. “The Full Employment Approach to Reducing Black Poverty and Unemployment in the United States,” Working Paper No. 7, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, University of Missouri — Kansas City (March 2000).
Forstater, Mathew. “Public Employment and Economic Flexibility,” Policy Brief No. 50, The Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College (February 1999).
Forstater, Mathew. “Institutionalist Approaches to Full Employment Policies,” Journal of Economic Issues, 32 (December 1998): 1135-1139.
Forstater, Mathew. “Toward a New Instrumental Macroeconomics: Abba Lerner and Adolph Lowe on Economic Method, Theory, History and Policy,” Working Paper No. 254, The Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College (October 1998).
Forstater, Mathew. “Flexible Full Employment: Structural Implications of Discretionary Public Sector Employment,” Journal of Economic Issues, 32 (June 1998): 557-564.
Forstater, Mathew. “Toward Full Employment Without Inflation: The Job Opportunity Program,” (with Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and L. Randall Wray), Report, The Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 7-12, 1998.
Forstater, Mathew. “Selective Use of Discretionary Public Employment and Economic Flexibility,” Working Paper No. 218, The Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College (December 1997).
Hicks, John R. “The Keynes Centenary: A Skeptical Follower,” The Economist (18 June, 1983): 17-19.
Kaboub, Fadhel. “Employment Guarantee Programs: A Survey of Theories and Policy Experiences,” Working Paper 498, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: The Levy Economics Institute (May 2007).
Kaboub, Fadhel. “Institutional Adjustment Planning for Full Employment,” Journal of Economic Issues, 41 (June 2007): 495-502.
Mosler, Warren, Soft Currency Economics, West Palm Beach, FL: AVM, 1995.
Murray, Michael J., and Mathew Forstater. “Introduction” in Murray, Michael J. and Mathew Forstater (eds.) (2013) Employment Guarantee Schemes: Job Creation and Policy in Developing Countries and Emerging Markets, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2013.
Murray, Michael J., and Mathew Forstater. “Introduction” in Murray, Michael J. and Mathew Forstater (eds.) (2013) The Job Guarantee: Toward True Full Employment, New York: Palgrave. 2013.
Nell, Edward J. and Mathew Forstater (eds.). Reinventing Functional Finance, Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2003.
United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The Millennium Development Goals Report, United Nations, 2008.
