Or, if you prefer, why the Mad Biologist is in the slow leftist group. With the Democratic frontrunners for 2020 getting onboard with a job guarantee, there has been much discussion about both a universal basic income (UBI) and a federal job guarantee program. Leaving aside the whole debate over which is better, I actually don’t like either that much.

I would prefer a massive increase in ‘regular’ non-military and non-internal security spending (i.e., a doubling, at least), combined with a minimum wage hike to $15/hour over five years. While some of that increase would go towards expanding UBI-like things, such as TANF, food stamps, LIHEAP, and the like, much of it would go towards infrastructure, with infrastructure being defined very broadly: education (building, books, teachers, aides, etc.), mass transit, public housing, science, arts, and humanities funding, along with more traditional infrastructure repair (aka ‘fixing all of the broken shit’). I don’t see how a jobs guarantee would deliver many of these goods reliably–and people, including the ones who already have jobs, have to like this crap. I can even see Republicans perverting a jobs guarantee to undercut both higher-paying civil service jobs and unions (remember the ACA? Of course they would do this). To the extent a jobs guarantee provides medium to long-term contracts (as did the CCC in the 1930s), I think it will be fine, but as a temporary, float-in, float-out system over weeks or a few months, it won’t meet many of our infrastructure needs.

A $15/hour wage would redistribute wealth from the wealthy to labor (without whom that wealth isn’t generated) without being inflationary (that’s not a concern now, but, at some point, it will be). And income redistribution is desperately needed. It has the advantage of being simple to understand–and enforce (by the way, how does a jobs guarantee or a UBI prevent wage theft–and that enforcement of fair wages is a… government job).

Finally, I can’t help but think this is yet another case of much of the left doing the ‘Look! Shiny Pebble!’ thing again: months ago, ending monopoly (which is good) was the Kewl Thing, now it’s a jobs guarantee. Maybe plugging something for more than a few months would be good…

If a UBI or jobs guarantee in 2021 were to get traction, I would support it. Not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And as part of a larger program, a jobs guarantee would be helpful. But I would rather focus on growing the economy with lots (and lots) of targeted spending, and redistribute that wealth through a minimum wage (and reduce income inequality through more progessive taxes).
But then again, I’m in the slow lefty class…