"Full" Employment Growthmanship and the Expansion of Labor Supply

Abstract

During World War II, fears of postwar depres sion led to proposals for guaranteeing every adult American the "right to a useful and remunerative job." Under the Employment Act of 1946, the job guarantee was displaced by triple-layered guarantees to insure corporate growth: assured expansion of market demand, assured returns on capital, and guaranteed supply of inputs including trained or educated labor. While these growthmanship policies suc cessfully averted mass depression, restrictive definitions of "full" employment obscured the growing supply of labor able and willing to work for pay but outside the officially defined labor force. The expansion of labor supply has branded millions of people "surplus" and has, in effect, contributed to many of the social ills whose symptoms are labeled the urban crisis.