Full Employment: Why We Need It, How to Guarantee It - Hardcover

John H. G. Pierson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 157392072X ISBN 13: 9781573920728

Publisher: Prometheus, 1996

Synopsis

There are many proposals for stimulating economic growth and lowering unemployment, and though they sometimes make full employment a goal, none of them except the plan highlighted in this well-researched book can make it a promise. John Pierson's Economic Performance Insurance (EPI) plan is his life-long campaign to tackle the New Deal's unsolved problems. He explains that the indignity and physical suffering of the jobless themselves do not have to continue, job discrimination can be combated, and our national income will rise as "non-production" declines. The social burden of fighting drugs and crime, closely linked with unemployment, can be substantially lightened, as can the heavy cost of welfare programs of all kinds, along with the extra expense passed on to consumers by business and labour in their efforts to cushion themselves against future recessions. According to Pierson, "We are in a long pause between the historic New Deal discovery that depressions aren't acts of God and the awareness that serious business-cycle and unemployment problems can be eliminated altogether. The knowledge we now have, and the challenges we face, demand that we bring that pause to an end".

About this title

About the Author

John H.G. Pierson (Lennox, MA), a Yale educated economist, is the author of numerous books, including Insuring Full Employment: A United States Policy for Domestic Prosperity and World Development, and Full Employment Without Inflation.

From the Back Cover

There are many proposals for stimulating economic growth and lowering unemployment, and though they sometimes make full employment a goal, none of them except the plan highlighted in this well-researched book can make it a promise. John Pierson's Economic Performance Insurance (EPI) plan is the fruit of his lifelong campaign to tackle the New Deal's unsolved problem - involuntary unemployment. EPI avoids the pitfall of relying too heavily on government as the employer of last resort by guaranteeing a continuously adequate market for the products of private enterprise. The budget costs that may be incurred from insuring such a guarantee would be offset by the budget savings resulting from the drastic reduction in the burdensome social costs of welfare, drugs, and crime, which are directly linked to the problem of unemployment. Pierson cogently argues that EPI, or some similar plan, is not only desirable but necessary in the coming century. Eliminating unemployment is the key to tackling a host of other pressing issues, such as welfare reform, poverty, job discrimination, disarmament, and balancing our aid-and-trade relationship with Third World countries. EPI is not a utopian scheme but an eminently practical solution which, with political leadership and vision, could be enacted almost immediately.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 157392072X
• ISBN 13: 9781573920728
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 111