Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, Professor Emerita of Social Work at Adelphi University, evaluates the relative merits of income guarantees and job guarantees in a recent article for the national US labor journal New Labor Forum (published by the Murphy Institute and the City University of New York).
The paper ends inconclusively (and with a Philippe van Parijs quote):
There are important drawbacks to both approaches. The UBI is expensive, inefficient and, in the United States, counter-culture. By contrast, the JG suffers from public denial of the magnitude of unemployment, its dependence on government expansion, and the enmity of powerful interest groups. Yet the serious problems that both strategies address impel us to continue to discuss, debate, advocate, agitate, modify, and perhaps find alternatives. As Van Parijs writes, “. . . seismic events do occur, and it is important to prepare intellectually for when a political opportunity suddenly arises.”
Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, “Employment or Income Guarantees: Which Would Do the Better Job?” New Labor Forum 2016, Vol 25(3): 92-100
Download: https://njfac.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/NLFJobsIncomGuar.pdf
Photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Brian Dys Sahagun
