Trudy Goldberg, Chair
National Jobs for All Network
Dear Friends,
I’m happy to write to you with some good news—in these challenging times!
We’ve just completed several years of Strategic Planning to determine—How Best to Use a Generous Bequest from NJFAN co-founder Helen Lachs Ginsburg to further our advocacy of living-wage work for all. And now—We have some answers and some action!
We have just signed an agreement with the dynamic Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at the New School to establish a Job Guarantee Project—an unparalleled opportunity directed by a dynamic leader to develop an action plan advocating a living-wage Job Guarantee–the fundamental guarantee of an Economic Bill of Rights.
And we are beginning a National Search for a dynamic leader to head the Job Guarantee Project. We ask you to spread the word of the Job Guarantee Project and especially this Search for its Leader.
The Founding Director of the Institute that is hosting the Job Guarantee Project is Darrick Hamilton, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy—a leading proponent of the Job Guarantee and a member of NJFAN’s Board of Directors.
Along with the Job Guarantee Project we will continue under NJFAN auspices our Connecticut Human Rights Project, led by Professor Stephen Monroe Tomczak. Since its inception in 2021, this Project has been building “people power” and bringing visibility to the NJFAN Full Employment policy plan through a program of mutually reinforcing components: outreach with local groups, labor unions, and coalitions; raising critical consciousness; and legislative advocacy.
Recent NJFAN national coalition networking and advocacy activities, led by NJFAN Vice Chair, Charles Bell, have included actively participating in the national Full Employment for All coalition and building awareness about federal job guarantee bills pending in Congress. We participated in a well-attended panel, “Getting Jobs to Forgotten Places and People” at the 2024 Just Economy Conference sponsored by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition in April.
Articles and book reviews in our Jobs for All Newsletter continue to be reprinted in other publications. For example, our entire August issue was linked to the website of the Columbia University Seminars. In addition to sending the NJFAN Newsletter to all members for whom we have internet addresses, we post them on our website.*
We will also continue Frank Stricker’s pithy monthly comments on the First Friday Employment reports of the Department of Labor. These are circulated on social media and printed on the website of Dollars and Sense dollarsandsense.org
Our NJFAN website* features NJFAN’s Full Count— a monthly measure of real joblessness that shows that unemployment is more than twice the official count of the Department of Labor. Our full Count includes–in addition to the Labor Department’s unemployment numbers–involuntary part-time unemployment and some of the jobless who don’t meet the Labor’s Department definition of actively searching for work. We also provide a measure of the working poor (employed full-time but earning less than the meager poverty standard for a family of four). The NJFAN Newsletter runs the Full Count and Frank Stricker’s comments for the month in which the Newsletter is published. Copies of our Newsletter are sent to all members for whom we have email addresses and are available on our website.*
NJFAN was the chief consultant for the only full employment or Job Guarantee legislation introduced in Congress since the 1970s and has proposed job guarantee legislation at state and local levels, including one advocated by our Connecticut Human Rights project. We intend to continue this legislative action apart from the Job Guarantee Project of the Institute for Race, Power, and Political Economy.
Since our founding in 1994, NJFAN has been closely associated with the Columbia University Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare and Equity. As we wrote then, the Columbia Seminar has “over the years, provided us with a forum for presenting research and testing ideas.” The Seminar continues to serve that purpose—and now, with hybrid technology we are able to combine in-person meetings at Columbia University’s Faculty House with virtual attendance and participation across the country. If you would like to receive invitations to these meetings, please let me know.**
In writing to you with enthusiasm and high hopes we do not underestimate the challenges that our nation faces. At the same time, we recognize that the failure to establish basic economic guarantees of living-wage work and other essential rights is an important source of our problems. That means our work on behalf of essential economic rights is more important than ever. And we are pledged to continue—with renewed commitment and increased resources—the good and essential struggle for economic justice.
Over the years, your generous contributions have sustained us. As we embark on a more ambitious program under full-time professional leadership, we need your support more than ever. You can make a donation to NJFAN by donating online through the NJFAN PayPal page or sending a check to: National Jobs for All Network, P.O. Box 96, Lynbrook, NY 11563
Warm regards,
Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, Chair
*The NJFAN website—www.njfac.org
** trudygoldberg [at] njfac.org
Trudy Goldberg is Professor Emerita of Social Work and Social Policy at Adelphi University and Chair of NJFAN. She is the author of numerous popular and scholarly works on comparative welfare states focusing on the poverty of women, the New Deal, and the struggle for economic justice.