Dear Sponsors, Colleagues, Friends,
We are excited to share this good news with you and to urge you to be sure to attend the New, New Deal Public Meeting on Friday, October 27th at the New School–along with your members, colleagues, students, friends…. It is essential to attend and to show the Public Advocate that this issue and her legislative initiative are of vital interest to the people of this City. This link has the details. Our goal for this project was no less than to help to build a movement in support of what FDR considered the “most fundamental” economic right—to useful, living-wage work. We are enormously encouraged by your support and by Public Advocate Letitia James’ leadership on behalf of Jobs for All New Yorkers.
The means of achieving the goal of Jobs for All at both the federal and NYC levels is an updated* model of New Deal Job Creation programs with their dual legacy of employing millions of unemployed Americans and vastly upgrading the nation’s and this City’s physical, environmental, and cultural resources—the latter so wonderfully illustrated by Living New Deal’s recently published Map and Guide to New Deal Public Works and Ar t: New York City which was an impetus to this project and to advancing the Jobs for All goal. We certainly don’t have to tell you how much our infrastructure, human services, and environment need such an infusion today. And, even in this time of relatively low official unemployment, there were, in a recent month, 428 thousand workers in New York City unemployed, working part-time but wanting full-time jobs, or who wanted a job but were not looking for one actively enough to be counted as officially unemployed (more than double the official count), with 2.7 people wanting a job for every available vacancy. We Can Guarantee Jobs and Build Great Things Again!
We look forward to seeing you on Friday, the 27th and urge you to help us fill the auditorium by continuing to spread the word. In addition to Public Advocate Letitia James, we will hear from Rep. Marcy Kaptur, sponsor of HR 2206, The 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps Act, and Co-sponsor of Rep. John Conyers, Jr.’s HR 1000, The 21st Century Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act. Gray Brechin, founder of Living New Deal, will take us on his exciting “tour” of New Deal New York City. We will learn from and ask questions of a Panel of outstanding economists, all leaders in the conceptualization of current approaches to full employment: Professors Darrick Hamilton, Philip Harvey, Stephanie Kelton, and Randall Wray. NJFAC Board member Philip Harvey was a principal adviser to Rep. Conyers’ staff in drafting H.R. 1000 and is now working with the office of the Public Advocate on the NYC Jobs for All legislation.
Of particular importance to ongoing advocacy and movement-building is the Modern Money Network’s idea of hosting a Strategy Session at Columbia Law School,the day after the Public Meeting. The momentum of this Public Meeting for a New, New Deal will not end with the last speaker. Thanks to this Strategy Session, it will be carried forward the next day and the days to come.
We appreciate your support and particularly that of the Public Program Sponsors: the Columbia University Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare, and Equity and New School for Social Research. And our thanks go especially to our Honorary Chair, Professor Franklin D. Roosevelt, III.
Warm regards,
Trudy Goldberg
Chair, NJFAC; Co-Chair, Columbia University Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare, and Equity
* By “updated,’ we mean that jobs are for all who need and want them–inclusive of race, gender, sexual orientation, and that these jobs pay a living wage.