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Some holes that were dug with an agency designed explicitly to give job guarantee in the 1930s: * Triborough Bridge * Griffith observatory in LA * LaGuardia

Some holes that were dug with an agency designed explicitly to give job guarantee in the 1930s: * Triborough Bridge * Griffith observatory in LA * LaGuardia * LAX Is this really worse than those market-driven jobs created to harass people to pay debts, build McMansions where nobody wants them or create social networking sites for dogs?

bryanlarsen 9y ago
Every body you add to such a project today would cost well over $100K per body. Not only are you paying the worker, you need a manager for that worker, a manager for the manager. And then you'd have to pay more because unskilled labour today would slow the project down significantly. The alternative is UBI, which should cost under $20K per body, and would give people an alternative to accepting a BS market-driven job just to put food on the table.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  Even if we accept your figures (personally I find them dubious), the cost of paying UBI to everybody will outweigh the cost of paying for JG for the minority actively seeking work unless more than 1 in 5 are actively seeking.
- notahacker 9y ago
  Difference is that a "basic job" costs up to $100k per head for the number of people who need money enough to be willing to dig a hole all day for it. Let's be generous and assume that's all 4.3% of the working age population registered as unemployed and actively looking for work in the UK, even though some of the might be more disinclined to register as looking for work if they were required to accept work digging holes. So taking your unusually high staff cost ratio of 5x salary, that's $100k per head for 4.3% of the working age population. UBI might only cost $20k plus admin costs per recipient, but as you're paying it to well over 20x as many people it's well over 4x the cost. And you don't get the hole... I'm not convinced Basic Job programmes are a fully scalable welfare replacement, or that agriculture or construction work would be a particularly good focus for a more limited workfare programme, or that advocates of such ideas have necessarily considered the risk of crowding out paid work at proper salaries, but the idea that indiscriminately doling out money to people irrespective of whether they've indicated they might want it is cheaper than welfare state alternatives is palpably false.
- fwip 9y ago
  If you're paying a worker and 2 managers, that's 3 bodies. Not one.
abakker 9y ago
Add some more - anything built by the CCC or WPA. I've enjoyed many things built by this kind of labor, and I've always wondered why we couldn't bring it back or make it permanent. We certainly need more of this kind of work done than we currently have people doing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  The CCC and WPA are very effective means of dealing with short-term mass dislocation of labor where the private economy employing it is likely to return in the near term I substantially similar form.
  - abakker 9y ago
    But, weren't a significant number of people who went through those programs essentially given skills and experience that made them more relevant? Even if those programs didn't give them an education, several years of experience in building things definitely beats nothing. Notably, California still has this kind of program. https://ccc.ca.gov https://ccc.ca.gov
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      Ironically enough Milton Friedman was one of those people.
jdietrich 9y ago
The key part of that sentence is "in the 1930s". Civil engineering has become massively mechanised, so the vast majority of jobs in the industry are highly skilled. A job that would have needed 200 men back in the '30s is now done by three men and a giant machine. Make-work is make-work, however you slice it. We could choose to build bridges and roads like they did in the '30s and create millions of jobs. We could also impose vast tariffs on imported cloth and ban automatic looms, creating millions of jobs in the textile industry. Philosophically, it's no different to paying people to dig holes.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  That is not the key part. The jobs didn't get automated out of existence. They just didn't get done at all: http://uk.businessinsider.com/american-infrastructure-falling-apart-2017-2?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/american-infrastructure-fallin... Severely restricted fiscal spending got converted into tax cuts for the wealthy. Necessary work didn't get done. Robots were made a convenient scapegoat for that process, probably because of their natural immunity to pitchforks. The US is getting leapfrogged by poorer countries like China on infrastructure largely because of this process.
- twobyfour 9y ago
  Actually, they get done by 50 men watching 3 men and a giant machine, because of unions afraid of automation causing unemployment. And I say that as someone who is generally pro-union.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  > Civil engineering has become massively mechanised And yet the Empire State Building was erected in a year. Faster than any comparable modern structure.
  - jdietrich 9y ago
    Don't tell the Chinese... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhLk7L1B_fE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhLk7L1B_fE

bryanlarsen 9y ago

Every body you add to such a project today would cost well over $100K per body. Not only are you paying the worker, you need a manager for that worker, a manager for the manager. And then you'd have to pay more because unskilled labour today would slow the project down significantly. The alternative is UBI, which should cost under $20K per body, and would give people an alternative to accepting a BS market-driven job just to put food on the table.

crdoconnor 9y ago
Even if we accept your figures (personally I find them dubious), the cost of paying UBI to everybody will outweigh the cost of paying for JG for the minority actively seeking work unless more than 1 in 5 are actively seeking.
notahacker 9y ago
Difference is that a "basic job" costs up to $100k per head for the number of people who need money enough to be willing to dig a hole all day for it. Let's be generous and assume that's all 4.3% of the working age population registered as unemployed and actively looking for work in the UK, even though some of the might be more disinclined to register as looking for work if they were required to accept work digging holes. So taking your unusually high staff cost ratio of 5x salary, that's $100k per head for 4.3% of the working age population. UBI might only cost $20k plus admin costs per recipient, but as you're paying it to well over 20x as many people it's well over 4x the cost. And you don't get the hole... I'm not convinced Basic Job programmes are a fully scalable welfare replacement, or that agriculture or construction work would be a particularly good focus for a more limited workfare programme, or that advocates of such ideas have necessarily considered the risk of crowding out paid work at proper salaries, but the idea that indiscriminately doling out money to people irrespective of whether they've indicated they might want it is cheaper than welfare state alternatives is palpably false.
fwip 9y ago
If you're paying a worker and 2 managers, that's 3 bodies. Not one.

abakker 9y ago

Add some more - anything built by the CCC or WPA. I've enjoyed many things built by this kind of labor, and I've always wondered why we couldn't bring it back or make it permanent. We certainly need more of this kind of work done than we currently have people doing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

dragonwriter 9y ago
The CCC and WPA are very effective means of dealing with short-term mass dislocation of labor where the private economy employing it is likely to return in the near term I substantially similar form.
- abakker 9y ago
  But, weren't a significant number of people who went through those programs essentially given skills and experience that made them more relevant? Even if those programs didn't give them an education, several years of experience in building things definitely beats nothing. Notably, California still has this kind of program. https://ccc.ca.gov https://ccc.ca.gov
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    Ironically enough Milton Friedman was one of those people.

jdietrich 9y ago

The key part of that sentence is "in the 1930s". Civil engineering has become massively mechanised, so the vast majority of jobs in the industry are highly skilled. A job that would have needed 200 men back in the '30s is now done by three men and a giant machine. Make-work is make-work, however you slice it. We could choose to build bridges and roads like they did in the '30s and create millions of jobs. We could also impose vast tariffs on imported cloth and ban automatic looms, creating millions of jobs in the textile industry. Philosophically, it's no different to paying people to dig holes.

crdoconnor 9y ago
That is not the key part. The jobs didn't get automated out of existence. They just didn't get done at all: http://uk.businessinsider.com/american-infrastructure-falling-apart-2017-2?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/american-infrastructure-fallin... Severely restricted fiscal spending got converted into tax cuts for the wealthy. Necessary work didn't get done. Robots were made a convenient scapegoat for that process, probably because of their natural immunity to pitchforks. The US is getting leapfrogged by poorer countries like China on infrastructure largely because of this process.
twobyfour 9y ago
Actually, they get done by 50 men watching 3 men and a giant machine, because of unions afraid of automation causing unemployment. And I say that as someone who is generally pro-union.
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
> Civil engineering has become massively mechanised And yet the Empire State Building was erected in a year. Faster than any comparable modern structure.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  Don't tell the Chinese... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhLk7L1B_fE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhLk7L1B_fE