Obama Can Be the First President in History to Abolish Unemployment From the Economy

A bold plan to get Americans working again could restore faith in Obama, argues Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Henry Liu.

The first year of the Obama presidency has been a monumental disappointment. By now, the President’s populist rhetoric of “change we can believe in” rings hollow against the hard data of the sad shape of the economy.

The critical bottleneck to recovery is the continuing loss of jobs. Conventional economic wisdom asserts that employment is the lagging indicator. Unemployment cannot be expected to fall until after the economy recovers. But in an economy that suffers from overcapacity due to low wages, as the…

Navigating the Jobs Crisis: It’s Time to Get to Work on Jobs

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. Anna Burger argues for taxing Wall Street to pay for a series of initiatives to combat unemployment.

Our jobs crisis didn’t happen overnight. And it didn’t happen by accident.

We’re paying the price for an economic system that for too long valued wealth over work, ignored the warning signs of crisis, and failed to meet the new challenges of…

Navigating the Jobs Crisis: What Workers Know about Recovery

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. On this Thanksgiving Day, Alice O’Connor reminds us that a job is not just the means to economic security, but to psychological and social security as well.

In 1940 Yale Professor of Economics and Director of Unemployment Studies E. Wight Bakke published a pair of volumes titled The Unemployed Worker and Citizens Without Work, reporting the results of…

Navigating the Jobs Crisis: Direct Job Creation - Lessons from Argentina

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. Pavlina Tcherneva describes how a much poorer country than ours — Argentina — used direct job creation to pull the country out of recession.

What has now become the standard government response to a recession — pump priming — is a gamble, and it is time to abandon it as a tool for economic recovery and job growth. It…

Navigating the Jobs Crisis: Race to the Unemployment Line

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. Barbara Arnwine looks at the ‘ethnic recession’ and how to address training and reemployment challenges for our most vulnerable communities.

As the economy continues its long road to recovery, we must be weary of the policies implemented along the trek. Race looms at the fork in the road and we must determine which way to turn to…

Navigating the Jobs Crisis: Old Mistakes Die Hard

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. James K. Galbraith warns that without a bold change in course, the jobs problem won’t go away.

I’m tempted to say that the United States is plainly unable to cope with the economic crisis in a serious way. The barriers are philosophical, procedural, and constitutional. So long as economic thinking is mired in a world that disappeared with…

Navigating the Jobs Crisis: 3 Strategies for Real Economic Recovery

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. James Carr argues for targeting hardest-hit communities with job training and access.

As this month’s unemployment numbers confirm, the nation’s economy continues to suffer despite recent positive and relatively impressive productivity numbers. Unemployment now exceeds 10 percent for the general population. Unemployment for African Americans and Latinos exceeds 15.5 percent and 13 percent respectively. For Native Americans living on reservations,…

Navigating the Job Crisis: Macro-economics and 10.2% Unemployment

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. Bo Cutter argues for reprograming the existing stimulus money to put a million people to work.

I don’t particularly like the word, but I’m willing to call it a crisis. What I’d like to do is sort out terms; discuss the Obama economic strategy; and offer some thoughts about how to proceed. I start from the premise that…

Navigating the Jobs Crisis: Clean Energy and Good Jobs Go Hand in Hand

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins argues for clean energy investments that will create 1.7 million jobs for the people who need them the most.

It’s difficult for most Americans to accept data indicating an end to the recession for a simple reason — they don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Despite a quarter of growth, the unemployment…

Navigating the Jobs Crisis: FDR Would Not Accept a ‘Jobless Recovery’

In the wake of the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, the Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. David Woolner urges President Obama and Congress to adopt the fearlessness of FDR in directly creating jobs.

The recent news that the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009 while at the same time the national unemployment rate hit a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October,…