{"id":6494,"date":"2016-02-28T16:51:01","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T16:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/njfac.org\/?page_id=6494"},"modified":"2019-07-07T16:49:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T16:49:05","slug":"urpe-joins-the-drive-for-decent-workshared-prosperity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/urpe-joins-the-drive-for-decent-workshared-prosperity\/","title":{"rendered":"URPE Joins the Drive for Decent Work\/Shared Prosperity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trudy Goldberg and Helen Ginsburg<\/p>\n

The National Jobs for All Coalition (NJFAC) is delighted that URPE has endorsed our Drive for Decent Work<\/em>\u2014a first step towards Shared Prosperity<\/em>. What is this project, and how can URPE members help to change the economic agenda in this pre-election period?<\/p>\n

National output per person has doubled since 1970, but it\u2019s no news to you that nearly all gains have trickled up to the top. NJFAC\u2019s Drive for Decent Work<\/em> is a major strategy to change that and to move the country toward Shared Prosperity.
\n<\/em>
\nHow Can We Accomplish This Goal? By simultaneously reducing the chronic deficits in decent jobs and public investment. Even when unemployment is in the 4-5% range, tens of millions are unemployed, underemployed or underpaid. Minorities and youth are perpetually hard hit. At the same time there is chronic public underinvestment. We can all point to potential Katrinas, but in addition to decaying bridges and levees, there are crying needs for public investment\u2014in mass transit, affordable housing, schools, child, elder and health care. Each day brings the environmental crisis closer and reminds us of the need for preventive public investment.<\/p>\n

NJFAC\u2019s 4-step strategy is to reduce both deficits\u2014to create decent jobs for all and to increase public investment.<\/p>\n

Step 1: Support bills introduced in Congress and other proposals to meet urgent, unmet human needs. <\/strong>Implementation of these proposals alone would create millions of living wage jobs. Unemployment, underemployment and the public investment deficits would plummet.<\/p>\n

Step 2. Cut military spending to genuine military needs and repeal the Bush tax cuts<\/strong> that have lined the pockets of the rich, increased inequality and robbed the Treasury of trillions. Ending the tax giveaways and wasteful military spending would provide start-up costs for the Drive for Decent Work.<\/p>\n

In the long run, however, NJFAC\u2019s plan for job creation and public investment would pay for itself. The unemployed would become taxpayers and government would spend less on the heavy social and economic costs of unemployment. Workers would be healthier, better educated\u2014hence, more productive and likely to earn more. Our productive capacity would be more full realized. The economic stimulus of direct job creation typically spurs additional, indirect job creation.<\/p>\n

Step 3: Introduce and pass NJFAC\u2019s 21st Century Investment Act<\/strong> to provide high-priority public works and services not currently funded and at the same time create decent jobs for the unemployed. This would establish a National Employment Accounting Office to evaluate progress, assess continuing need for job creation and public investment and assure community involvement and achievement of decent work principles.<\/p>\n

Step 4: Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage <\/strong>by bringing it up to its 1968 level or about $9.27 an hour (2007) to be phased in and linked to 60% of the average wage thereafter.<\/p>\n

The Drive for Decent Work <\/em>is a strategy that can raise public consciousness of new and better possibilities\u2014for a better life for ordinary women and men. Getting this message out is a way of putting pressure on present and future public officials. It tells them that the old excuses won\u2019t work any more. America needs this program,. It can afford the Drive for Decent Work<\/em>. It can\u2019t afford not to have it.<\/p>\n

What Can You Do?<\/strong><\/p>\n