Job guarantee must aim for maximum employment.

The second proposal is that poverty be eliminated by combining a guarantee of decent employment for everyone who wants a job with an income guarantee for those persons who are unable or not expected to earn their own livelihood. The first prong of this strategy would use direct job creation by government to guarantee the availability of an adequate supply of jobs. The second prong would use conventional transfer programs to provide a range of income security benefits. For purely descriptive purposes, I shall refer to this as the "Jobs and Income" (JI) strategy in this article. 26

Like the BI strategy described above, the idea of using a combination of work and income guarantees to combat poverty has a long history. 27 It was expressed quite clearly over two centuries ago in the French Constitution of 1793, which declared that "[p]ublic aid is a sacred debt. Society owes subsistence to the unfortunate, either by procuring them work, or by assuring the means of existence to those who are unable to work." 28 In the United States the idea [*164] achieved its most authoritative endorsement during the New Deal era, when social welfare planners within the Roosevelt administration proposed that the federal government combine direct job creation with other social insurance benefits to guarantee the economic security of all Americans. 29 An early but impressively complete expression of this proposal can be found in the report of the cabinet-level Committee on Economic Security, whose recommendations in early 1935 led to the enactment of the New Deal's most significant social welfare legislation. 30 The Committee explained the job guarantee component of its overall social welfare strategy in the following terms:

Since most people must live by work, the first objective in a program of economic security must be maximum employment. As the major contribution of the Federal Government in providing a safeguard against unemployment we suggest employment assurance--the stimulation of private employment and the provision of public employment for those able-bodied workers whom industry cannot employ at a given time. Public-work programs are most necessary in periods of severe depression, but may be needed in normal times, as well, to help meet the problems of stranded communities and over-manned or declining industries. 31