Economic Justice: The Income and Jobs Action Act

Source: Crime and Social Justice, No. 24, STATE TERRORISM IN SOUTH AFRICA (1985), pp. 243-
245
Published by: Social Justice/Global Options
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Economic Justice:
The Income and Jobs Action Act

The Editors

In the context of the increasingly rightward shift of Congress and the

courts in the field of law enforcement and criminal justice, it is
refreshing to observe the development of the Income and Jobs Action
Act of 1985 (H.R. 1398). This important legislation, introduced inMarch
1985 by Representative Charles Hayes (D-Ill.), enunciates two basic
principles: the right to earn a living and the right to an adequate stan?
dard of living for those unable towork for pay.
The Income and Jobs Action Act is a policy mandate to the Presi?
dent, his Council of Economic Advisers, and other agencies set up by
federal statute.Without authorizing any new funds or agencies, it streng?
thens and extends the Employment Act of 1946 and the Full
Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978. In addition to man?
dating the creation of job opportunities for all able and willing to earn a
living through paid work, and providing adequate income for all adults
unable to work for pay, the Act calls for locally based planning in the
context of a national planning strategy.
The authors of the bill argue that unemployment can be effectively
tackled not through make-work projects but through planning for eco?
nomic conversion from the military budget and from declining civilian
sectors of the economy to sectors of the economy where needed goods
and services can be produced. This argument effectively counters the
right-wing jingoistic insistence that American workers are losing their
jobs as a result of illegal immigrants entering theU.S. or unfair competi?
tion from foreign workers. Given the Reagan administration's unwilling?
ness to acknowledge the huge toll taken by our bloated military budget, it
is important that this bill specifically links the creation of jobs with a
reduction inmilitary spending.
While the bill was only reintroduced this year, its origins lie with
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Employment Act of 1946. Even the weakened
version of this postwar legislation, which was ultimately passed, estab?
lished the basic responsibility of the federal government to prevent
another mass depression.

CRIME AND SOCIAL JUSTICE No. 24 243

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244 EDITORS

While passage of this bill seems very unlikely given the current mood
of Congress, 30 lawmakers are now co-sponsors, including Democratic
representatives Augustus Hawkins (Calif), John Conyers, Jr. (Mich.),
Ronald Dellums (Calif), Ted Weiss (N.Y.), Cardiss Collins (111.),Charles
Rangel (N.Y.), Louis Stokes (Ohio), Gus Savage (III), and Kenneth Gray
(111.).The bill's first national hearing was held in Chicago on September
4, 1985, and its sponsors are trying to arrange hearings throughout the
country to garner support and to initiate the kind of local-based planning
which they think is essential to reducing unemployment.
Speaking for the bill in Congress, Representative Hayes presented
evidence in opposition to the Reagan administration's claims of
economic recovery and increased jobs. Hayes points out that when Rea?
gan claimed with great fanfare in February 1985 that 6 million more
people were working than when he came into office:
He failed to point out that this growth was less than half of the
13million growth during the Carter administration?and there?
fore represented a slowdown from previous growth rates....By the
end of 1982, the unemployment rate became double digit,
peaking at 10.5%. And for 1983 as a whole, the official unem?
ployment rate was 9.6%.
Hayes demonstrates that the recent uneven economic upturn has
meant "prosperity for some and misery for many more." In January
1985, the number of people officially reported as unemployed reached
8.5 million (seasonally adjusted). The actual figure, without seasonal
adjustment, was a little over 9.1 million. To this amount he adds about 5
million part-time workers actively seeking more hours of work but not
finding it, and another 5 million or so who want jobs but, for one reason
or another, have not been actively seeking them ("discouraged workers").
Adding these three figures together,Hayes joins Representative Augustus
Hawkins in concluding that there are around 18.5 or 19.1 million jobless
people in theU.S. today.
Even these alarming statistics may well be understated. The Center
forUrban Studies of Youngstown University, Ohio, recently did its own
door-to-door survey of employment. The government-reported rate of
unemployment is 15.2%. The university, using the government's own
definitions but exercising more care in its survey methods, arrived at a
figure of 29.3% unemployment. In minority communities, the unemploy?
ment rates are even higher, with a 40% official rate for black teenagers
(Congressional Record, 1985).
The relationship between unemployment and crime has long been of
interest to criminologists and others. Georg Rusche pioneered studies
analyzing the relationship between labor market conditions and rates of
imprisonment, and many studies have found a relationship between
unemployment and certain kinds of crime, such as homicide, as well as
between unemployment and suicide, depression, and child abuse (Rus

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Economic Justice 245

che, 1980; Brenner, 1976). The authors of the Income and Jobs Action
Act recognize the far-reaching effects of unemployment, not only on the
individuals without jobs, but also on the community:

[Unemployment statistics] do not include the local government,

landlords and shopkeepers adversely impacted by declining tax
bases, rent payments, and consumer purchases. Nor do they
even suggest the enormous impact of joblessness and job inse?
curity on workers' morale, productivity, physical and mental
health, alcoholism, drug addiction, violence in the family, sui?
cide, low income crime, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and
other forms of institutionalized or spontaneous discrimination
(Congressional Record, 1985).
In 1974, Hawkins and others in Congress attempted to strengthen the
Employment Act of 1946 by introducing the Equal Opportunity and Full
Employment Act. After long and bitter opposition from big business and
the Right, a weak version of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill was finally
enacted in 1978. It required the President to present a plan every year
aimed at an interim target of bringing officially measured unemployment
down to 4% within 5 years. Then-President Carter proposed such a plan,
complying with the letter of this law, but in factmoved to expand unem?
ployment to counteract inflation. Reagan has not even bothered to set a
target.
The limited impact of both the 1946 and 1978 employment legisla?
tion suggests that even if enacted, enforcement of the Hayes bill would
face an uphill battle. But by calling for grassroots organizing around eco?
nomic issues, stressing the necessity of reducing themilitary budget, and
demonstrating the need for national planning to redirect economic
growth, this bill provides a vehicle for educating the American public
about the devastating realities of Reagan's economic policies.
For more information about the Income and Jobs Action Act, please
write: Congressman Charles Hayes, 1028 Longworth Building, Washing?
ton,DC 20515.

REFERENCES

Brenner, Harvey
1976, Estimating theSocial Costs ofNational Economic Policy (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office).
Congressional Record
1985, "Toward a New Experiment in Economic Justice." Vol. 131, No. 26
(March 6).
Rusche, Georg
1980, "Labor Market and Penal Sanction: Thoughts on the Sociology of
Criminal Justice." Punishment and Penal Discipline (Berkeley, Calif.: Crime
and Social JusticeAssociates).

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