While the U.S. credit downgrade and a volatile stock market continue to dominate headlines, the national conversation is beginning to shift back to the difficult challenge of creating jobs. The New America Foundation is encouraging and advancing that discussion with its Decent Jobs Forum -- an unprecedented collection of analysis and possible answers from 10 leading experts.
A project of New America's Next Social Contract Initiative, the Decent Jobs Forum includes ideas on addressing both the immediate unemployment problem and the long-term decline of middle-skill, middle wage jobs in the United States. As James K. Galbraith said in his Decent Jobs Forum essay, “The jobs question entails two related but separate issues. The first is whether economic growth will continue. The second is whether, even if it does, new jobs will be created sufficient to restore high employment within any reasonable time.”
Contributors to the Decent Jobs Forum as well as New America's Economic Growth Program Director Sherle Schwenninger and Policy Director Micheal Lind, are available for interviews. The reports and findings are available below:
Yes We Can Create Decent Jobs
by Heather Boushey, Senior Economist, Center for America Progress
The Jobs Question
by James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentson Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin
A Most Undemocratic Recovery
by Joel Kotkin, Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures, Chapman University, and Adjunct Fellow, Legatum Institute
Industrial Policy: Bring It On
by Katherine S. Newman, James B. Knapp Dean of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
Import Money - Export Goods
by Robert Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Making Work Better for Everyone
by Paul Osterman, Nanyang Technological University Professor of Human Resources and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management
Low-Wage Jobs and No Wage Growth
by Lane Kenworthy, Professor of Sociology and Political Science, University of Arizona
Needed: A New Social Contract at Work
by Thomas A. Kochan, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management
It Takes a Policy Agenda
by L. Josh Bivens, Economist, Economic Policy Institute,
and Heidi Shierholz, Economist, Economic Policy Institute
The full Decent Jobs Forum archive is available here. To learn more about the Next Social Contract Initiative and New America's Economic Growth Program, please visit http://growth.newamerica.net.
