There is a body of literature that favors universal and unconditional public assurance policies over those that are targeted and means-tested. Two such proposals - the basic income proposal and job guarantees - are discussed here. The paper evaluates the impact of each program on macroeconomic...

The job guarantee (JG) is a public option for jobs. It is a permanent, federally funded, and locally administered program that supplies voluntary employment opportunities on demand for all who are ready and willing to work at a living wage. While it is first and foremost a jobs program, it has...

President Trump’s faux populism may deliver some immediate short-term benefits to the economy, masking the devastating long-term effects from his overall policy strategy. The latter can be termed "welfare state sabotage" and is a wholesale assault on essential public sector institutions and...

This paper examines two key aspects of unemployment-its propagation mechanism and socioeconomic costs. It identifies a key feature of this macroeconomic phenomenon: it behaves like a disease. A detailed assessment of the transmission mechanism and the existing pecuniary and nonpecuniary costs of...

<title>Abstract</title> The paper rejects the conventional view that Keynes had an aggregate demand approach to full employment. Instead, it proposes that he advocated a very specific labor demand targeting approach that would be implemented both in recessions and expansions. Modern policies, which aim to...

The present paper offers a fundamental critique of fiscal policy as it is understood in theory and exercised in practice. Two specific demand-side stabilization methods are examined here: conventional pump priming and the new designation of fiscal policy effectiveness found in the New Consensus...

The job guarantee is a proposal that provides greater macroeconomic stability and secures a fundamental human right. Despite the economic and moral merits of this policy, often the program is rejected because of concerns about its administration. How would the program be implemented? Who will...

In the postwar period, with every subsequent expansion, a smaller and smaller share of the gains in income growth have gone to the bottom 90 percent of families. Worse, in the latest expansion, while the economy has grown and average real income has recovered from its 2008 lows, all of the...

Collecting Nobel Laureate William S. Vickrey’s articles on macroeconomic theory and policy written towards the end of his career, this volume demonstrates his enduring commitment to full employment and price stability, and his rejection of conventional macroeconomic theorizing. William Vickrey...