JG superior to workfare- left critics wrong

(Max B. Sawicky is an economist and writer in the wilds of Virginia. He has worked at the Government Accountability Office and the Economic Policy Institute. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/05/bernie-gets-socialistic)

From the Left, one baffling criticism comes from my notorious friend Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Institute, who characterizes a job guarantee — and by implication public employment in general — as workfare, or in more arcane terms, “unemployment benefits with an activation requirement.” Workfare, unemployment insurance, and public assistance programs are all designed to encourage beneficiaries to find private-sector work by making participation less appealing than a real job. The presumption that a job guarantee would be like workfare — despite the fact that the current proposals call for decently paid, full-time work with benefits — implies a certain expectation of the political environment in which the guarantee would be implemented. The degree of political clairvoyance implied here is unpersuasive. Perhaps just as important is the social connotation of steady work, as opposed to the stigmatized status of unemployment and especially welfare-identified workfare.In much of the intra-left debate, job guarantee proposals are pitted against the idea of a Universal Basic Income. But this issue hinges on what type of UBI one has in mind. Although UBI advocates tend to be indiscriminate in defining exactly what it would be, the original notion was a replay of the old idea of a “demogrant,” wherein every person fitting a broad category (e.g., citizens over age sixteen) would receive a fixed, unconditional cash transfer.