FJG would crowd-out spending on key safety net programs---only way politicians get over the cost
Anne Kim 18 (Senior Fellow at The Progressive Policy Institute and winner of the 2020 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice), “GUARANTEED JOBS: TOO BIG TO SUCCEED,” 05/04/2018, The Progressive Policy Institute, https://www.progressivepolicy.org/publication/guaranteed-jobs-too-big-to-succeed/
As mentioned above, the large-scale national job program envisioned by its leading proponents would cost $543 billion, or 3 percent of GDP, to employ 10.7 million people. This translates to a per-worker cost of $50,747 a year – or just slightly below the median household income in 2016 of $57,617. By comparison, federal spending on Social Security totaled $922 billion in 2016 while benefiting 61 million people, a relative bargain by comparison.
The $543 billion figure is also situated in the context of relatively low unemployment. At the height of the recession in 2010, the total share of workers unemployed and underemployed (“U.6”) was 17.1 percent, meaning that the cost of a federal jobs program could expect to double in a downturn, to more than $1 trillion a year.
Spending of this magnitude would crowd out spending on a host of other priorities that might be better suited to building human and social capital, such as improving early childhood and K-12 education, expanding health care or making college and occupational training more affordable. Worse yet, funding for a federal jobs program could come at the expense of other safety net programs supporting children, disabled Americans and others who cannot work. As Ernie Tedeschi, an economist who served under President Barack Obama recently told The Washington Post, “It would be extremely expensive, and I wonder if this is the best, most targeted use of the amount of money it would cost.”