[W]ASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders is planning to release a proposal for a federal program that would guarantee a job to any American who wanted one.
He’s not the only major national politician who is on board with this liberal initiative.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., endorsed a government jobs guarantee in March, and last month, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., released a bill that would launch a pilot jobs guarantee model.
Supporters of the proposal share a fundamental belief that people are entitled to a job with fair wages.
The concept has been percolating among progressive-leaning economists and thinkers for years, but has only recently been embraced by policymakers.
It’s just the latest arena in which Sanders, who for decades stood out in Congress for his progressive policy proposals, is finding himself in good company with other politicians who are eyeing a 2020 presidential run.
Sanders’ proposal, to be released at a yet-to-be-determined date, envisions a nationwide program at the Department of Labor that would guarantee a job to anyone who wants one.
Jobs would pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour, and full-time employees would receive benefits, according to an early outline.
The jobs would be tailored to sectors where there is a need for labor that would benefit the region or the nation, such as child care, infrastructure and energy efficiency.
According to Sanders’ spokesperson Josh Miller-Lewis, the senator has been working with several economists and experts on the proposal.
There is no cost estimate or funding plan for the proposal, yet.
Miller-Lewis said while there is no deadline for the senator’s formal proposal, it is expected to be a part of his platform going forward.
The idea has gained steam among some Democrats in Washington, and has been garnering national attention. One recent poll found that nearly half of Americans would support a federal jobs guarantee.
Indivar Dutta-Gupta, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the concept has been in the works for many years.
“There’s a lot of agreement among progressives that it is a central role of the federal government to ensure that there be enough jobs for everyone who wants one, and that we remove the barriers that people have to seek and maintain those jobs,” he said.
How best to achieve that objective is the subject of a “vibrant” debate right now, he said.
Dutta-Gupta says the momentum building around the concept of a jobs guarantee plan is in line with a surge of interest in policies like paid family leave, single payer health insurance and minimum wage increases.
“Especially after the 2016 presidential election loss in some ways progressives have felt liberated to think big,” Dutta-Gupta said. “You see growing attention to robust economic security and opportunity ideas that are extraordinarily ambitious.”
The jobs guarantee concept has many detractors, and it is a nonstarter in the current Republican-led Congress.
However, analysts say it is part of a wave of recent proposals showing that Democrats are increasingly willing to embrace ideas that in the past would have been regarded as too lefty.
Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said the political environment has “changed dramatically.”
“Progressive ideas that previously were anathema are now acceptable,” West said.
The shift is noticeable.
Last September, when Sanders introduced his Medicare-for-all bill, a concept he has pitched for decades that would expand the Medicare program to create a single-payer system, the legislation had 16 cosponsors.
“It wasn’t that long ago when nobody would cosponsor his bill,” West said.
West sees the increased interest in progressive politics as related to the rise of President Donald Trump. As the Republican president has pushed political boundaries, Democrats have benefitted because they have been able to adopt ideas previously seen as outside the mainstream, West said.
Professor Capri Cafaro at American University, said that there are a number of variables between the proposals offered so far. Some concepts would focus on offering employment to people who are not college graduates, others focus on people who are unemployed. Sanders preliminary proposal would offer a job to anybody who wants one.
The lawmakers who are predominantly leading the proposals on jobs guarantees now are all names that have been floated as likely presidential hopefuls in 2020, Cafaro said.
Sanders’ 2016 run showed that a progressive candidate can draw significant grassroots support.
As to whether the burgeoning interest in progressive proposals among some Democratic lawmakers indicates a long-term trend for the party, Cafaro said it’s “too early to tell.”
The swell of interest in progressive ideas speaks more to internal Democratic politics than it does to an ideological shift among Americans, she said.
Whether the trend has legs remains to be seen and will likely play out in the 2018 midterms. “It does not seem that there’s a uniform progressive message coming out of the Democratic Party,” Cafaro said.
