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The Social Security policy debate is intensifying. Social Security, the nation’s largest government program, provides cash benefits to retirees, people with disabilities, and spouses, dependents, and survivors. Those payments account for much of beneficiaries’ incomes, especially for low-income people. Yet, many older adults and people with disabilities struggle financially. Moreover, Social Security faces a long-term financing gap that could within a decade jeopardize its ability to pay full benefits. These challenges have prompted calls from many Democratic policymakers to expand Social Security benefits, especially for lower-income people, and to shore up the program’s finances.

The court’s decision therefore (a) alters the rights of parties in Pennsylvania accused of engaging in anticompetitive behavior to defend against those claims in federal court, (b) creates new causes of action under the Consumer Protection Law, and (c) creates new remedies for antitrust violations that defendants would not face in federal court. These decisions are inherently legislative in nature. See, e.g., State v. Philip Morris, Inc., Nos. 96122017 and CL211487, 1997 WL 540913, at *6 (Md. Cir. Ct. May 21, 1997) (“Altering common law rights, creating new causes of action, and providing new remedies for wrongs is generally a legislative function, not a judicial function.”). If these decisions are legislative in nature, then they are outside the purview of the courts and the executive.

Moreover, when the General Assembly prescribes specific statutory duties and remedies, those provisions must be strictly followed, 1 Pa.C.S. § 1504, and the courts cannot “expand coverage to subsume other remedies.” See Nat’l R. R. Passenger Corp. v. Nat’l Ass’n of R.R. Passengers, 414 U.S. 453, 458 (1974) (“A frequently stated principle of statutory construction is that when legislation expressly provides a particular remedy or remedies, courts should not expand the coverage of the statute to subsume other remedies.”). If the Consumer Protection Law is designed to protect buyers in consumer transactions and sets forth specific remedies, the courts are unable to expand the statute to subsume antitrust remedies.

It is important to recognize that this bill does not expand Social Security. It corrects the failure to ensure that benefits keep pace with inflation. The next step is to expand Social Security's modest, but vital benefits.

We determined that the landowner could upgrade his equipment so long as the new equipment was "merely an improvement over the previous method and did not constitute a change in the nature and purpose of the original use." Id. at 866-67. Our holding recognized that landowners are not confined to exercising their nonconforming use rights with outdated or inefficient equipment if it is possible to make improvements that are consistent with the original use [**15] of their land.

We also considered whether increasing the size of the gravel pit violated the city's ordinance. We acknowledged that "[i]f the [property owner] [were] to be limited to the area of land actually excavated at the time of the adoption of the ordinance, the restriction, in effect, [would] prohibit[] any further use of the land as a gravel pit." Id. at 865. Accordingly, we concluded [*339] that "by the very nature of that business [the landowner] had to expand the area of its operation or be deprived of all value." Hawkinson, 231 N.W.2d at 282 (discussing Hawkins).

But an ill-considered pledge to expand Social Security can lead to no good. Either Social Security is expanded, at great cost to the federal budget and a loss to other competing priorities such as health and education. Or the pledge is tossed aside once the election is past and Americans become even more cynical about the political process, pushing voters toward increasingly radical candidates in the future. Neither speaks well of how we undertake public policy the United States today.

Moreover, as the City argues, "[a]n expansion, by its very definition, is to increase in size or to enlarge or to spread out." The word "expansion" is defined as "the act or process of expanding," and the word "expand" means "to increase in extent, size, volume, scope, etc." Expansion Definition, DICTIONARY.COM, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/expansion (last visited May 29, 2014); Expand Definition, DICTIONARY.COM, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/expand (last visited May 29, 2014). Viewed in context, we conclude that the Final EIS, and the other materials published by the DES during the EIS review process, adequately disclosed that the proposed project to expand WGSL by an additional 92.5 acres encompassed landfill operations on the entire 200-acre Property.

Not expand Social Security’s purpose. Social Security’s popularity, combined with its hidden costs, make the program ripe for further expansion, far beyond Social Security’s original purpose. Not only do many policymakers want to increase Social Security benefits in retirement, some want to treat Social Security as a personal piggy bank instead of a social insurance program. Already, Members of Congress have introduced bills that would allow workers to access their future benefits for non-retirement-related purchases, including paying off student loan debt and financing paid parental leave.18 Workers do need more flexibility and freedom to spend and save their money on what is best for them—but that should come from reducing Social Security’s costs instead of increasing its scope and allowing politicians in Washington to dictate when people can use their money and what they can spend it on, based on evolving “socially desirable” purposes of the time.

Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) and their progressive allies joined together to promote the idea of expanding Social Security as a way to help retirees who are struggling to make ends meet.

While the concept of more benefits is always appealing to voters, there is little consensus on the meaning of the phrase “Expand Social Security.” In 2016, then-candidate Hillary Clinton believed it meant helping spouses and widows. Sanders’ proposal would provide significant support for future retirees, but would give current retirees virtually nothing. Larson, on the other hand, has proposed helping current retirees, somewhat at the expense of future retirees. (Republicans, meanwhile, have their own ideas for using Social Security to cover maternity leave or to pay student loans.)

The defendant relies upon §7-249 as authority for the supplemental assessment. The statute provides that "[b]enefits to buildings or structures constructed or expanded after the initial assessment may be assessed as if the new or expanded buildings or structures had existed at the time of the initial assessment."4 The parties dispute whether the conversion of the property constitutes a construction or expansion of buildings or structures granting authority to the defendant to levy a supplemental assessment. The plaintiff argues that because the conversion did not constitute an expansion, that is, an increase in the volume or physical area of a building the defendant had no authority under §7-249 for the supplemental assessment.5 [FOOTNOTE 5 BEGINS] The plaintiff relies upon the definition of the word "expand" found in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed. 2002) of "to open up; to increase the extent, number, volume, or scope of." [FOOTNOTE 5 ENDS] In the view of the plaintiff it is significant that the conversion did not increase the physical footprint or interior square footage of the property in any way including by a vertical [*5] enlargement. Absent such an increase, asserts the plaintiff, there can be no construction or expansion of any building or structure. The defendant assert that the construction of the 285 new residential units constitute new structures within the plain meaning of §7-249. The court agrees with the defendant.

JG proposals tend to focus on job creation by the public sector—national governments, lower levels of government (provincial, state, and local), and nongovernmental public service employers (not-for-profits). While some proponents do include employment in the for-profit sector (including, for example, public sector subsidies to private employers), most do not. This is both to avoid creating competitive advantages to firms with subsidized labour and also to focus the program on public service. For this reason, the PSE terminology is preferred by some proponents for highlighting public job creation to provide public services (Wray et al. 2018).

The term “employer of last resort” recalls the role of the central bank as a lender of last resort, and operates on a similar principle. The government, through the JG, acts as a “market maker” in labour - it sets a price at which it will buy any quantity of labour for any period of time. The result is that a stock of unemployed workers is replaced by a “buffer stock of employed labour” (Mitchell, 1998: 549; italics mine) that responds to the health of the broader labour market in a countercyclical way. It stabilises the price of the “buffer stock” - it restrains wages growth during expansions (by disemploying workers from the JG) and prevents wage declines during slumps (by hiring workers) (Mitchell and Mosler, 2002). The JG creates a reserve army of labour, but one actively deployed in productive activities.

The idea that the government should stand ready to provide work to all who seek paid employment but cannot otherwise find a job has been advanced by a number of authors in recent years. The term ‘employer of last resort’ (hereafter ELR) has been used by authors such as Wray (1998a,b), drawing on the analogy with the central bank willing to provide reserves to the banking system, as a label for such an idea. Others have used the term job guarantee (hereafter JG) for a rather similar idea (e.g. Mitchell 2001).1 The proposals under the heading of ELR and JG are similar and this paper discusses both sets of proposals. However, the term ELR is generally used in this paper as this gives more of the flavor of the proposals than the term JG does : for example in terms of the jobs which would be available under the proposals.

The term ‘employer of last resort’ encompasses the following ideas:

So where does the Job Guarantee fit into this environment? Instead of mandating a buffer stock of unemployment to stabilise prices (as in current policy), governments can both more effectively anchor prices and maintain full employment with an open-ended, fixed wage buffer stock of employed workers. I use the term Job Guarantee whereas my regular co-authors, Americans Randy Wray and Warren Mosler use the term ‘employer of last resort’ in the same context.

Discussion around the idea of a job guarantee has picked up of late (CBPP, The Nation, Sanders Institute I, II). As with any idea that attracts a sizable number of adherents, the term “job guarantee” means lots of different things to a lot of different people, which makes it a difficult thing to talk about in a comprehensive way. But with that limitation recognized, I thought it might be worthwhile to share some notes about the recent burst.

To reiterate my earlier answer: To me, the formal “right to an education” is almost meaningless in the abstract. Maybe it is satisfied by a library card? The important thing is that the government operates a system of public schools, staffed by public employees, which are open to all children, located throughout the country, funded through certain (not always adequate) defined sources, covering a certain curriculum, with certain definite resources, etc. None of this stuff is inherent in the abstract existence of a “right to education.” In the same way, I don’t think that the notion of a job guarantee tells us anything about what concrete programs we’d like the government to undertake. At one extreme, if we literally mean that anyone who performs any work of any kind should receive a living wage, that’s just a universal basic income. At the other extreme, if we mean that anyone willing and able to perform the specific tasks the government happens to be hiring for should get a living wage, that’s the situation that already exists. I don’t think the term “job guarantee” tells us anything at all about where on that continuum we are actually trying to get to.

A JG program is one in which government promises to make a job available to any qualifying individual who is ready and willing to work. Qualifications required of participants could include age range, gender, family status, family income, educational attainment, residency, and so on. The most general program would provide a universal JG in which government promises to provide a job to anyone legally entitled to work.

There are different versions of the JG. Harvey would provide a public sector job to anyone unable to find work, with the pay approximating a ‘market wage,’ whereby more highly skilled workers would receive higher pay.17 In Hyman Minsky’s proposal, developed further at The Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, University of Missouri-Kansas City, and independently at The Centre of Full Employment and Equity, University of Newcastle, Australia, the federal government provides funding for a job creation program that would offer a uniform hourly wage with a uniform package of benefits.18 The program could provide for part-time and seasonal work, as well as for other flexible working conditions as desired by the workers. The package of benefits could include health care, childcare, payment of social security taxes and usual vacations and sick leave. Congress or Parliament would set the wage, and the legislature would have to approve a rate increase – much as the minimum wage is currently legislated in the US.

(2) JOB GUARANTEE PROGRAM.—The term “job guarantee program” means a program that meets the requirements of subsection (c).

(3) RURAL AREA.—The term “rural area” means an area that is located outside of a metropolitan statistical area.

A jobs guarantee wouldn't be paid at the national minimum wage, but slightly below it. This is to encourage labour to move from the public sector to the private sector once the economy picks up and (low-paying) vacancies are created in the latter.

The job guarantee is meant to be a self-regulating mechanism to deal with temporary unemployment. If paid at the NMW (let alone the living wage), this would encourage some workers to prefer the security of a public sector role. For the same reason, the jobs are likely to be unattractive, to avoid workers discounting their wage expectations for pro-social roles.

‘Job Guarantee’ (JG) has become the favoured term applied to a variety of approaches that seek to ensure what can be described as true full employment. While often used as a synonym for ‘Employer of Last Resort’ (ELR), these terms evoke quite different framing. Employer of Last Resort implies that there is an entity that stands by to provide jobs to those who otherwise have failed to secure them. The term Job Guarantee implies a right to a job, although it does not indicate how that right will be secured. However, if we are to include the right to a job as similar to other recognized rights (right to life, right to free speech, right to vote, right to marriage), this would seem to imply that it is government that is to provide the guarantee. Many proponents of the JG do emphasize the human rights angle, interpreting the UN Charter on Human Rights as explicitly guaranteeing the right to access to a job (See Harvey 1989, 1993, 1999; Burgess and Mitchell 1998).

Unfortunately, each term carries a negative connotation: ‘last resort’ can be seen as derogatory—the potential workers cannot find anything better; ‘guarantee’ implies that potential workers must be employed no matter what. Together, these associations fuel suspicion that work done is of low quality and otherwise without merit. There have been some efforts to rebrand the proposal as Public Service Employment (PSE) to emphasize the positive potential of such jobs (Wray 1999).

The term Job Guarantee to describe public employment creation initiatives goes back a long way and was not ‘invented’ by me nor a blog commentator on Warren’s WWW site.

The resurrection and inclusion of the term in the MMT literature does indeed relate to my work.