Employment policy and the value of the currency

L. Randall Wray ()

Chapter 11 in Understanding Modern Money Theory, 2025, pp 265-291 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter examines MMT's best-known policy proposal, the Job Guarantee (JG). It is based on Hyman Minsky's employer of last resort, modeled on Roosevelt's New Deal jobs programs. (Minsky 1965) He argued that only the federal government can offer an infinitely elastic supply of jobs at a minimum wage because it cannot run out of money and does not have to make profits. He compared it to an agricultural price support program in which the government stands ready to buy or sell corn to keep the price steady. Thus, the job program would maintain full employment while helping to stabilize wages—the market wage could not fall below the program's wage, and workers would be pulled out of the program whenever private employers needed more workers. This chapter updates his proposal and shows how the JG would act as a strong automatic stabilizer of wages, aggregate demand, and the value of money. (See Minsky 2013 for a collection of his writings on the topic.)

Keywords: Job guarantee; Employer of last resort; Full employment with price stability; Bufferstock of employment; Automatic stabilizer; Value of money; MMT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781800375147
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781800375154.00016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:20168_11

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().