Given my life experience as a blind person who tried finding work for years with no success, I’m predisposed to supporting a job guarantee. Still Pavlina Tcherneva’s The Case for a Job Guarantee was a great read.
Tcherneva does an incredible job of concisely presenting the case for a job guarantee and describes how it could work. I appreciate all the resources that are provided. That’s important in a book that is sadly controversial when covering an obvious solution to many of our problems.
As a person with a disability, I thank Tcherneva for regularly mentioning the problems finding work people with disabilities face. It was refreshing to read a book where people like me were included. Sadly, I almost never have that experience.
I want to cover a few of the benefits of a job guarantee:
- The federal government could establish a living wage. Companies would either participate or lose employees to the program.
- A job guarantee could be used to establish guaranteed health care, retirement benefits, and paid leave. Things many workers don’t have today.
- Millions would be lifted out of poverty by the paying of a living wage and the provision of meaningful benefits.
- When the economy struggles, anyone would still be able to find work.
- Communities would benefit greatly from the work being done by program participants.
For even more of the benefits of a job guarantee and additional context for those I have mentioned, read Pavlina Tcherneva’s The Case for a Job Guarantee. For a little book, it is full of extremely important information.