H. Res. 145, Resolution Recognizing the Duty of the Federal Government to Create a Federal Job Guarantee
Summary
H. Res. 145, a resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Federal job guarantee, submitted in the House of Representatives on February 22, 2021 by Ms. Pressley and referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. Its preamble cites the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the civil rights movement and the Economic Bill of Rights. The resolved clauses state the sense of the House that the duty exists and list goals, including a legally enforceable right to employment and a Bill of Workers' Rights. They describe a program run with State, county and local governments and a Community Job Bank.
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Cite this document
“H. Res. 145, Resolution Recognizing the Duty of the Federal Government to Create a Federal Job Guarantee.”
Original at www.govinfo.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/bills-bills-117hres145ih-bills-117hres145ih/
, SHA-256 21aefb15bb79ca17269de985e29bd6a8c0dd660135673e6ceb445ca8195493c3.Full text
IV
117TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. RES. 145
Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Federal job
guarantee.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY 22, 2021
Ms. PRESSLEY submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on Education and Labor
RESOLUTION
Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create
a Federal job guarantee.
Whereas Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights recognizes that ‘‘everyone has the right to work,
to free choice of employment, to just and favorable condi-
tions of work and to protection against unemployment’’;
Whereas a job guarantee was a central demand and unfin-
ished legacy of the civil rights movement, such that—
(1) at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom, Martin Luther King, Jr., joined A. Philip Ran-
dolph and Bayard Rustin in demanding a job guarantee;
(2) in the subsequent decade, Coretta Scott King led
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a grassroots movement to enact a job guarantee;
(3) these leaders all built on and advanced the work
of earlier pioneers like Sadie T.M. Alexander, the Na-
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tion’s first Black economist, who advocated a job guar-
antee to address racial discrimination against Black
workers, while improving labor market conditions for all
workers in the 1940s; and
(4) throughout the past 100 years, activists and in-
tellectuals like Ella Baker and the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party have all seen a Federal job guarantee
as a key element of racial justice;
Whereas the right to a ‘‘useful and remunerative’’ job was
the first and most fundamental right in President Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt’s proposed Economic Bill of Rights and
is a core plank of the Green New Deal movement and the
People’s Justice Guarantee;
Whereas a job guarantee is essential to any effort to close the
racial and gender income and wealth gap;
Whereas the United States has, on multiple occasions, includ-
ing from 1945 to 1946, 1977 to 1978, and more recently,
introduced legislation in an attempt to establish a full
employment economy;
Whereas the commitment to full employment has been em-
braced by Congress and is part of the statutory mandate
of the Federal Reserve System;
Whereas the United States has experienced decades of in-
creasing inequality, racial economic exclusion and in-
equity, stagnant wages, declining union membership, and
deteriorating workplace protections and conditions;
Whereas the United States has experienced decades of chron-
ic underinvestment in its communities, workforce, infra-
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structure, public services, agricultural and industrial
heartland, and natural environment;
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Whereas the United States has, for decades, perpetuated a
punitive, racist, ineffective criminal legal system that has
systematically excluded millions of individuals from the
workforce, failed to effectively promote reentry for pre-
viously incarcerated individuals, and forced incarcerated
individuals to work in oppressive and exploitative condi-
tions for effectively no pay;
Whereas the United States is experiencing a long-term eco-
nomic crisis in which many workers are overworked, un-
derpaid, and experience job and economic insecurity, with
at least 100 million Americans living in or near poverty,
and 28 percent of full-time workers earning less than $15
an hour according to the National Equity Atlas;
Whereas the United States is facing a weak economy and
sluggishly facing a grossly unequal recovery in the after-
math of the global financial crisis that has benefited few
at the expense of many;
Whereas the United States presently fails to recognize, sup-
port, or adequately remunerate the household and care
work of millions of women, parents, and familial care-
givers;
Whereas economic prosperity in the United States has been
highly unequal since its founding, largely falling on racial
lines, with Black and indigenous Americans consistently
earning less, owning less, and experiencing greater rates
of economic precarity and poverty than White Americans;
Whereas the United States has not increased the minimum
wage for years, and maintains subminimum wage
carveouts for incarcerated people, people with disabilities,
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and tipped workers;
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Whereas the United States presently exploits millions of un-
documented workers, by forcing them to work in sub-
standard conditions and below prevailing wages;
Whereas the United States is presently experiencing a
generational crisis, as millions of younger and older work-
ers face structural barriers to meaningful participation in
the workforce;
Whereas the United States is underinvesting in creative, cul-
tural, scientific, and knowledge industries, including high-
er education, libraries, public art, and journalism;
Whereas the United States is facing four overlapping and
compounding crises, namely the COVID–19 pandemic,
climate change, systemic racism, and extreme economic
inequality, that together require a large-scale mobilization
on the scale of World War II to address;
Whereas the United States is experiencing a sustained eco-
nomic depression, in which low-wage workers, and Black,
Latinx, Native American, and other communities of color,
as well as women and people with disabilities, have suf-
fered disproportionate employment and income losses and
face mounting debts;
Whereas the United States is facing growing demand for care
work and social services as the baby boomer generation
retires from the workforce, and the senior population is
expected to nearly double between 2018 and 2060;
Whereas the United States is facing new workforce challenges
relating to privacy, worker autonomy, data gathering and
surveillance, and automation, as a result of new tech-
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nologies and the rapidly changing nature of industry, and
these challenges have been accelerated by the COVID–19
pandemic;
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Whereas the United States currently suffers from high levels
of underemployment, persistent joblessness among
marginalized populations, and the growth of primarily
low-quality jobs, resulting in—
(1) the loss of millions of hours of potential output,
as well as deterioration of skills and productive capacity;
(2) lower community living standards, increased lev-
els of working poverty and homelessness, and higher
rates of individual and family suffering, including phys-
ical and mental health problems;
(3) higher rates of workplace discrimination, harass-
ment, and a ‘‘last hired, first fired’’ approach that dis-
proportionately affects vulnerable populations, including
Black workers, women, LGTBQIA workers, workers with
disabilities, formerly incarcerated workers, and young
and elderly workers;
(4) an effective minimum wage of zero for those who
cannot obtain employment; and
(5) an increasing fraction of the workforce forced to
undertake multiple jobs, or engage in dangerous work
with insufficient labor protections;
Whereas reliance on private investment alone has never his-
torically succeeded in establishing a true full employment
economy, in which every individual wishing to undertake
paid work can do so;
Whereas reliance on education, skill development, job train-
ing, and other ‘‘indirect’’ policies alone have never his-
torically succeeded in establishing a true full employment
economy, in which every individual wishing to undertake
paid work can do so;
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Whereas untargeted, demand-increasing stimulus alone has
never historically succeeded in establishing a true full em-
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ployment economy, in which every individual wishing to
undertake paid work can do so;
Whereas the Federal Government has the unique legal and fi-
nancial capacity, relative to the local and State govern-
ments and the private sector, to credibly commit to fund-
ing the programs and institutions necessary to establish
a true full employment economy, in which every indi-
vidual wishing to undertake paid work can do so;
Whereas the Federal Reserve, on its own, has never histori-
cally succeeded in establishing a true full employment
economy, in which every individual wishing to undertake
paid work can do so, and by its own admission, lacks the
necessary tools and capacity to do so;
Whereas Congress and the Department of the Treasury have
a demonstrated track record of successfully funding and
administering direct job creation programs, including the
Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conserva-
tion Corps during the New Deal, which created over six
million jobs in less than a year;
Whereas Congress and the Treasury have a demonstrated
track record of mass-scale mobilization of the economy,
including during World War II, when the United States
maintained an average unemployment rate of under 2
percent, and successfully doubled real output of the en-
tire economy in under 6 years in the face of an unprece-
dented existential threat; and
Whereas President Biden has taken Executive action on the
creation of a Civilian Climate Corps Initiative, in need of
dedicated, permanent funding on a nondiscretionary
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basis, to mobilize the next generation of conservation and
resilience workers and maximize the creation of accessible
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training opportunities and good jobs: Now, therefore, be
it
1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
2 resentatives that—
3 (1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to
4 create a Federal job guarantee—
5 (A) to finally eliminate the moral and eco-
6 nomic scourge of involuntary unemployment;
7 (B) to establish a true full employment so-
8 ciety, in which anyone who wants to undertake
9 paid work in the service of the community and
10 the environment has ample opportunities to do
11 so;
12 (C) to collectively achieve the greatest pos-
13 sible level of socially and ecologically sustain-
14 able prosperity, and share the fruits of that
15 prosperity equitably among all people;
16 (D) to empower the working class by offer-
17 ing every worker, regardless of his or her back-
18 ground, capacity, or status, the opportunity to
19 earn a fair, living wage, and to organize with
20 fellow workers to advocate for common inter-
21 ests;
22 (E) to ensure every person in America has
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23 genuine and meaningful opportunities for edu-
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1 cation, training, career advancement, and choice
2 with respect to workforce participation;
3 (F) to update and expand our under-
4 standing of socially necessary or useful work to
5 include historically underrecognized and uncom-
6 pensated labor, including domestic and social
7 care, ecological preservation, and cultural, sci-
8 entific, and creative work;
9 (G) to promote justice and equity by stop-
10 ping current, preventing future, and repairing
11 historic oppression and discrimination of indige-
12 nous peoples, communities of color, migrant
13 communities, deindustrialized communities, de-
14 populated rural communities, the poor, low-in-
15 come workers, women, the elderly, the
16 unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth
17 (referred to in this resolution as ‘‘frontline and
18 vulnerable communities’’);
19 (H) to complete the unfinished legacy of
20 the civil rights movement and the New Deal,
21 and meet the contemporary challenges posed by
22 the climate crisis identified in the Green New
23 Deal resolution; and
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24 (I) to meet the broader social and eco-
25 nomic challenges of the 21st century through
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1 appropriate public investment, socially coordi-
2 nated planning, and industrial cooperation;
3 (2) the goals described in subparagraphs (A)
4 through (I) of paragraph (1) (the ‘‘job guarantee
5 goals’’) should be accomplished through an imme-
6 diate national mobilization—
7 (A) to establish and honor a legally en-
8 forceable right to fair, dignified, and decently
9 remunerated employment for all eligible individ-
10 uals living in the United States (hereafter the
11 ‘‘right to employment’’);
12 (B) to establish and honor a Bill of Work-
13 ers’ Rights, as a complement to the right to
14 employment, that addresses issues related to
15 worker exploitation, discrimination, harassment,
16 compensation, privacy, autonomy, choice of em-
17 ployment, working conditions, the right to orga-
18 nize and collectively bargain, suitable accommo-
19 dation for people with disabilities, protection
20 and expansion of existing safety net programs,
21 and other related concerns (hereafter the
22 ‘‘Workers’ Bill of Rights’’);
23 (C) to establish, implement, and admin-
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24 ister a comprehensive and diverse range of so-
25 cially necessary and useful public projects, re-
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1 flective of community and regional needs, in-
2 cluding direct public job creation programs, and
3 to support related education, training,
4 credentialing, and career development pro-
5 grams, to ensure workers enjoy meaningful
6 choice and appropriate opportunities for growth
7 and advancement in their chosen area of em-
8 ployment (hereafter the ‘‘enabling programs’’);
9 (D) to design and implement the right to
10 employment, Workers’ Bill of Rights, and ena-
11 bling programs through transparent and inclu-
12 sive consultation, collaboration, and partnership
13 with frontline and vulnerable communities,
14 labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society
15 groups, State and local governments, academia,
16 and businesses;
17 (E) to take ecological and equitable con-
18 cerns into consideration when designing and im-
19 plementing the right to employment, Workers’
20 Bill of Rights, and enabling programs, as well
21 as any other related infrastructural and admin-
22 istrative institutions and procedures;
23 (F) to take any and all necessary steps to
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24 ensure, wherever possible, that all people ben-
25 efit from the collective prosperity resulting from
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1 the establishment of the right to employment,
2 Workers’ Bill of Rights, and enabling programs;
3 and
4 (G) to adequately and appropriately fund
5 these efforts on a permanent, nondiscretionary
6 basis, using Congress power of the purse,
7 through a combination of Federal support to
8 local and State governments, and various direct
9 Federal grant and investment programs;
10 (3) the national mobilization towards a Federal
11 job guarantee would include projects that—
12 (A) strengthen communities, retool our
13 economy, achieve inclusive prosperity, and leave
14 no one behind;
15 (B) address national priorities as well as
16 those put forward by local governments and
17 community organizations, with the participation
18 of communities impacted by structural racism,
19 oppression, and disinvestment in the selection
20 of projects;
21 (C) create net new jobs, without displacing
22 existing public sector workers; and
23 (D) prioritize racial equity and environ-
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24 mental sustainability, including but not limited
25 to ensuring a just transition for workers and
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1 frontline communities currently involved in
2 unsustainable industries;
3 (4) job guarantee workers would be employed in
4 a range of ways, including but not limited to—
5 (A) ensuring the delivery of high-quality,
6 professional care to children, seniors, and oth-
7 ers in need of long-term support in family
8 based, informal, and formal settings;
9 (B) augmenting the staffing of public edu-
10 cation and early childhood learning, including
11 Head Start and preschool;
12 (C) strengthening public afterschool pro-
13 grams, libraries, and recreational programs to
14 provide lifelong learning and enrichment for
15 people of all ages;
16 (D) implementing community infrastruc-
17 ture and improvement projects that revitalize
18 neighborhoods, including vacant and abandoned
19 property cleanup, street and sidewalk repair, re-
20 modeling and modernization of schools and
21 other public community-serving facilities, and
22 maintenance and renovation of parks, play-
23 grounds, and public spaces;
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24 (E) expanding emergency preparedness,
25 and relief and recovery from natural and com-
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1 munity disasters, including public health, nat-
2 ural disasters, and environmental emergencies;
3 (F) producing works of public art and doc-
4 umentation of United States history akin to the
5 Works Project Administration’s Federal Art
6 Project;
7 (G) implementing environmental conserva-
8 tion, remediation, and sustainability initiatives,
9 increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and
10 our housing stock to address climate change,
11 and building climate resistance through pro-
12 grams such as the Civilian Climate Corps;
13 (H) rehabilitating and retrofitting our ex-
14 isting affordable housing stock to ensure safe,
15 affordable, quality, energy-efficient homes, and
16 supporting the development of new affordable
17 housing and social housing to address the Na-
18 tion’s housing crisis;
19 (I) producing creative, scientific, artistic,
20 or cultural works, which would then be made
21 open and available for public use; and
22 (J) supporting other projects that address
23 public needs and can be implemented quickly;
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24 (5) job guarantee jobs would pay no less than
25 $15 per hour, adjusted on a regular basis to ensure
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1 a rising standard of living, and would not replace
2 any existing safety net programs or benefits, includ-
3 ing unemployment insurance;
4 (6) job guarantee jobs would also offer benefits,
5 including—
6 (A) health insurance consistent with that
7 provided to existing Federal Government em-
8 ployees;
9 (B) paid sick days and family leave;
10 (C) retirement benefits; and
11 (D) paid vacation;
12 (7) job guarantee workers would—
13 (A) be able to join public sector unions and
14 bargain collectively for better working condi-
15 tions and compensation;
16 (B) be protected against discrimination
17 and harassment by Federal labor laws;
18 (C) have their data protected and their pri-
19 vacy respected; and
20 (D) be empowered to develop lasting skills
21 through on-the-job training, as well as paid ap-
22 prenticeships, credentialing, and other career-
23 building opportunities;
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24 (8) job guarantee work would—
25 (A) be made available—
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1 (i) on a full-time and part-time basis
2 for adult residents age 18 and over, de-
3 pending on worker needs, including those
4 with involvement in the criminal legal sys-
5 tem;
6 (ii) on a part-time basis for young
7 people ages 16 and 17;
8 (iii) for short- or long-term periods,
9 depending on worker needs; and
10 (iv) to all people on a nondiscrim-
11 inatory basis, including people with disabil-
12 ities;
13 (B) include outreach and recruitment, con-
14 ducted in multiple languages;
15 (C) provide workers and aspiring workers
16 with support services, such as childcare and
17 transportation assistance, and specific accom-
18 modations, as needed to access jobs and fulfill
19 job responsibilities; and
20 (D) meaningfully expand our social safety
21 net and would not replace any existing safety
22 net programs or benefits, including unemploy-
23 ment insurance; and
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24 (9) the job guarantee program would be admin-
25 istered by the Department of Labor and overseen by
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1 the Secretary of Labor in coordination with the Sec-
2 retary of the Treasury, who would be responsible for
3 dispersing funding, and in particular—
4 (A) the Secretary of Labor would direct
5 Treasury funds to local employment offices to
6 manage job guarantee projects and match job
7 seekers to projects, as well as cover any related
8 capital and administrative costs, with funds tar-
9 geted during the initial 3-year startup period to
10 areas of greatest employment need; and
11 (B) State, county, and local governments,
12 as well as territories and Tribal Nations, would
13 help administer the program, engaging resi-
14 dents in community assessments and
15 participatory processes to identify job guarantee
16 projects to go into a Community Job Bank.
Æ
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