Job Guarantee Act of 2014 (Debating)
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  Job Guarantee Act of 2014 (Debating)
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Author Topic: Job Guarantee Act of 2014 (Debating)  (Read 2239 times)
Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #25 on: September 15, 2014, 03:04:21 PM »

What would these jobs be? From the sound of it, this bill aims to centralize employment and set a target number for unemployment. Ok. If we implement this, what kind of jobs would we give these people? Or are we merely paying them until they find private jobs? And if we do hire them, what incentive will they have to leave these federal jobs, since I'm sure people will want to pay them well. Are they temporary jobs or permanent?

And how exactly will be made money off this? The marginal utility of a worker diminishes the more workers that are hired. Once you hire too many people, you lose money. There is no way this program will make the government money - the real question is how much will this cost, and is it worth it given all the social programs Atlasia already has in place.
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DemPGH
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« Reply #26 on: September 15, 2014, 03:52:46 PM »

I don't think we're "finding" work as much as we're creating it. It's in 4A and also in the defense of the bill at the bottom of the first post. It's why a department is being created.

Anyway, the private sector only creates enough work that will still allow it to make a gigantic profit. It's why you go to Wal-Mart or Giant Eagle, see 28 check-out lines, and 3 are manned.

I doubt this will pass - I'm only responding positively to the philosophy behind it.
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Fmr President & Senator Polnut
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« Reply #27 on: September 15, 2014, 04:34:51 PM »

This is going to make money now?
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Adam Griffin
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« Reply #28 on: September 15, 2014, 05:11:43 PM »

Well, someone should at least attempt to assess the costs of such legislation, rather than all of you just paddling around in circles asking, "how much will it cost?".

The last unemployment report put the rate at 8.9%. The target is 3%. We'll assume that to get to a (BLS-style?) rate of unemployment, half of the measured percentage-point difference (being working-age, willing and able-bodied people) would need to be hired. If we roughly assume a country with 315,000,000 people, then such a program would need to hire approximately 9,000,000 people (5.9% / 2 = 2.95; 2.95 * 3,150,000).

So a minimum wage job at $10.50/hour - excluding any sort of benefits or additional costs - would come to around $3.9 billion per week, or $203 billion per year.
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #29 on: September 15, 2014, 05:23:25 PM »

Well, someone should at least attempt to assess the costs of such legislation, rather than all of you just paddling around in circles asking, "how much will it cost?".

The last unemployment report put the rate at 8.9%. The target is 3%. We'll assume that to get to a (BLS-style?) rate of unemployment, half of the measured percentage-point difference (being working-age, willing and able-bodied people) would need to be hired. If we roughly assume a country with 315,000,000 people, then such a program would need to hire approximately 9,000,000 people (5.9% / 2 = 2.95; 2.95 * 3,150,000).

So a minimum wage job at $10.50/hour - excluding any sort of benefits or additional costs - would come to around $3.9 billion per week, or $203 billion per year.

*Impressed whistle*

I do support the main thrust of the bill, that being getting unemployed people into employment. This is a hell of a huge chunk of money, though.
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Fmr President & Senator Polnut
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« Reply #30 on: September 15, 2014, 05:35:59 PM »

Thank you Mr Griffin
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DemPGH
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« Reply #31 on: September 15, 2014, 05:37:12 PM »

Fabulous work, Adam.

203 billion to shave 5-6% off the unemployment is pretty awful steep. Sigh.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #32 on: September 15, 2014, 06:45:15 PM »

Where is $10.50 set as the wage for these jobs in the bill? I am having trouble finding it and the minimum wage is $12.50+ according to statute.
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Adam Griffin
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« Reply #33 on: September 15, 2014, 07:42:52 PM »

Where is $10.50 set as the wage for these jobs in the bill? I am having trouble finding it and the minimum wage is $12.50+ according to statute.

Semantics, I suppose. The Right Wages for the Right Regions Act appears to have reduced the minimum wage to $10.50, and allowed regions to reduce theirs as well - though the $12.00 default remains in place unless changed by a region. The RWRR Act didn't explicitly specify that the federal minimum wage was reduced to $10.50, but implied it based on the reference that it pertained to "the minimum wage established by the Living Wage Act". I would assume that the federal minimum wage wouldn't be treated the same as any changes for the regions (as in, the Senate would need to pass an additional measure to lower the wage to $10.50 after the passage of RWRR), because otherwise, there wasn't much point to allowing regions to lower their wage to $10.50 if the federal minimum were to remain at $12.00.
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Fmr President & Senator Polnut
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« Reply #34 on: September 15, 2014, 08:16:59 PM »

Even if it was half the amount, it would be too much and would put massive pressure not just in pure dollar terms, but on existing support programs.

The intention is good but the prescription is bad and frankly would risk increasing unemployment, in both the long and short term contexts.

I'm happy to work with Senators to better harness existing resources, especially targeting the long-term unemployed and other vulnerable people.

I find it interesting that the fact we have one of the most generous safety-nets in the western world is being brushed aside here.
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #35 on: September 15, 2014, 08:59:46 PM »

Just asking, but what is the national policy with regards to college education? I think long term unemployed might benefit from being educated toward new jobs and I've been working on an idea to bring to the national level a bill I introduced in the Northeast that promised NE students a college education. I'm thinking long term unemployed could benefit from a free education and job training and it could potentially be cheaper.
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DemPGH
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« Reply #36 on: September 16, 2014, 10:09:41 AM »

I really think it would be worthwhile to think about setting up a program that teaches the fundamentals of entrepreneurialism to get the unemployed working or doing something. That would be a useful, interesting little project. And there are RL examples I know of with reference to this, so it would work.

What polnut says about the social safety net is absolutely right and is one thing that often gets lost in these debates. As it stands the original proposal is just too costly. 
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Cranberry
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« Reply #37 on: September 16, 2014, 12:44:44 PM »

Since you all agreed that the program as such is far too costly, which I agree with of course, maybe we should start asking which parts of the bill are affordable while creating or helping to create a certain amount of time. Alas, I hope what I produce in the following is not complete crap:

- Clause 2 establishes a fund, tasks the Regional Governments with hiring unemployed, and provide serviced
- Clause 3 outlines the nature and the administration of the fund
- Clause 4 establishes a great deal of bureaucracy, excessively deals with how these are structured, but gives no details how these administrations create or help to create jobs for the unemployed

Given that, I would propose striking clause 4 entirely, as in my opinion it just unnecessarily complicates the whole bill to the extremes while not really producing any results out of this. I know Senator TNF loves precise details on how many thirds of an agency are chosen by the way a jury is chosen, but in my opinion the clause not really gives anything to the bill, I am sorry.
Clause Two and Three are sensible, however I would as of now propose the following: Keep clause 2 and 3 more or less the same, but restricted to just outlining the JGF; while we strike clause 4 and add instead a section outlining more or less precise details on how we actually create or help create jobs, including the propositions already named herein, including educations, government jobs, trainings and so on and so forth.
Hence, I would like to propose the following amendment:

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #38 on: September 16, 2014, 06:16:43 PM »

Where is $10.50 set as the wage for these jobs in the bill? I am having trouble finding it and the minimum wage is $12.50+ according to statute.

Semantics, I suppose. The Right Wages for the Right Regions Act appears to have reduced the minimum wage to $10.50, and allowed regions to reduce theirs as well - though the $12.00 default remains in place unless changed by a region. The RWRR Act didn't explicitly specify that the federal minimum wage was reduced to $10.50, but implied it based on the reference that it pertained to "the minimum wage established by the Living Wage Act". I would assume that the federal minimum wage wouldn't be treated the same as any changes for the regions (as in, the Senate would need to pass an additional measure to lower the wage to $10.50 after the passage of RWRR), because otherwise, there wasn't much point to allowing regions to lower their wage to $10.50 if the federal minimum were to remain at $12.00.

I am pretty sure RWRR was amended/repealed and the current is 12.50 indexed to inflation as of 2013. So it is slightly higher than that.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #39 on: September 16, 2014, 06:17:30 PM »

Griffin's analysis suggests that the costs of this program are likely to run well over a trillion once capital costs, fringe rates, other administrative costs, and crowding out of employment and other economic activity in the private sector are accounted for.

If the goal is to minimize the number of willing, able workers who can't find employment, a more effective, economically efficient, and lower cost approach would be to reduce or eliminate the minimum wage and other regulations that discourage employment. (You could pair this with an increase in the basic income to prevent any families from falling into poverty or near poverty, and it would still be cheaper than this bill.)

Oh Dear, Nix and I agree on something. IMPOSSIBLE!!!! Wink
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TNF
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« Reply #40 on: September 17, 2014, 11:00:14 AM »

Amendment is reluctantly friendly.
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Cranberry
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« Reply #41 on: September 17, 2014, 01:54:40 PM »


Thank you, Senator.
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Lumine
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« Reply #42 on: September 17, 2014, 10:29:59 PM »

With the amendment being declared friendly, Senators have 24 hours to object.
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Lumine
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« Reply #43 on: September 18, 2014, 10:53:43 PM »

24 hours have passed and the amendment has been adopted.
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Lumine
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« Reply #44 on: September 20, 2014, 04:20:58 PM »

What's next here?
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Fmr President & Senator Polnut
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« Reply #45 on: September 21, 2014, 04:11:16 AM »
« Edited: September 21, 2014, 04:25:55 AM by Senator Polnut »

Respectfully to both the Sponsor and to Senator Cranberry - I think we need to change tack on this completely.

Focus more on specific outcomes and specific groups of key need.

I'm happy to work on some words. However, Senator Cynic has a Bill that I think will be a more realistic way of approaching the issues.

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Cranberry
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« Reply #46 on: September 21, 2014, 05:03:49 AM »

I have seen Senator Cynic's bill; and I guess we could include it in this bill, making it a kind of omnibus bill for job creation and solving the unemployment problem? Currently, the bill just includes the establishment of a fund; and from here on we could start working collecting individual measures and including them into the bill. I thought this would be a sensible approach to it?
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #47 on: September 21, 2014, 01:14:09 PM »

The bill I wrote that's currently in the queue was written in anticipation of this bill failing. I didn't think it was going to pass when I wrote it, but I wanted to try and get something accomplished on it because I agreed with Senator TNF's main aim of dropping unemployment to levels as low as possible. If my bill could be somehow combined with this one, I wouldn't oppose it.
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Cranberry
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« Reply #48 on: September 22, 2014, 08:22:29 AM »

I guess we could use this bill as good as any, for the purpose of collecting as many ideas to combat unemployment as possible. Your bill surely is a great idea, and since you said you were not opposed, we could use this as the first of those ideas. Provided, if the bill fails, or appears to fail, in the end, we can still split it up and pass the programs that would gave a chance to pass?
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #49 on: September 25, 2014, 05:59:39 PM »

Is this bill dead then?
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