The temptation of high-paying, low-skill work discourages workers from returning to the private sector.

Neither the CBPP nor Levy report has established how the work under a federal job guarantee would help build the workers’ human capital. In fact, the very existence of the program might strongly disincentivize workers from going out and acquiring the skills that lead to real, value-enhancing job creation in the labor market. By forcing workers mostly at the low end of the skills distribution to work by mandate and earn a fixed wage, a worker would have to derive enough value from education or other human capital acquisition to leapfrog ten million or more other workers.