CBPP Didn’t Propose Job Guarantee Program

A May 28 Washington Post article, which it later updated, incorrectly stated that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has proposed a $543 billion job guarantee program.

One part of the Center — its Full Employment Project, which Senior Fellow Jared Bernstein directs — commissions papers from outside analysts and researchers with a broad range of opinions; these papers do not represent the Center’s views, as a note that appears at the top of each paper indicates. The authors span the ideological spectrum from Kevin Hassett, the former American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar who now chairs President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, to economists on the left. One of these papers, posted in March, is the piece calling for the job guarantee program, which the Post initially incorrectly described as a Center proposal.

Since the Post article also observed that the job guarantee paper lacks proposals to pay for most of its cost, I’d note that the Center believes that in normal economic times, policymakers should pay for new program or tax initiatives.