Short-term and counter-cyclical jobs make skills-growth under JG impossible.
By Matt Bruenig, 3-22-2018, Matthew Bruenig is an American lawyer, policy analyst, commentator, and founder of the left-leaning think tank People's Policy Project, "Some Notes on Federal Job Guarantee Proposals," People's Policy Project, https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/22/some-notes-on-federal-job-guarantee-proposals/
The last problem I will discuss here is the problem of coming up with suitable jobs. This to me remains the biggest challenge that is really not satisfactorily answered in JG programs. Hugh Sturgess has provided the most eloquent articulation of this problem I’ve seen so far. Sturgess argues that JG job ideas, justifications, and criteria combine to form an “impossible quadrilateral:”
[I]t is not possible for JG jobs to display all of the following qualities: requiring only basic skills (needed for universal eligibility); socially beneficial; indifferent to time (as JG work is countercyclical); and distinct from the rest of the public sector. Any attempt to achieve one criterion requires abandoning another.
He continues:
These can be divided into three overarching tensions: (1) many suggested JG jobs require skills that are not commensurate with the minimum wage; (2) most social needs are ongoing, so should not be addressed through short-term jobs provided in a countercyclical fashion; and (3) it is difficult to keep the JG and the mainline public sector distinct.