Introduction to the Special Issue on Jobs and the Future of the US Economy

Abstract

This special issue of the Review presents selected and revised papers from the October 2010 Conference on Jobs and the Future of the US Economy held at Howard University. It includes several bold “outside the box” proposals for addressing the endemic conditions of unemployment and racism in the U.S. economy. These include augmented and targeted Keynesiani deficit finance, functional finance, a federal jobs guarantee, industrial policy, realignment of the federal budget, and financing jobs programs with a Tobin tax. Additional papers examine the historical and political experience with the struggle against unemployment. The goal of this special issue of the Review is to help broaden and intensify the national debate over today’s jobs crisis.