Macroeconomic Policy and a Living Wage: The Employment Act as Redistributive Economics, 1944–1969
by Donald R. Stabile (Author)

About the Author
Donald R. Stabile is Professor of Economics at St. Mary's College of Maryland, USA, where he has taught for nearly 40 years. He is the author or co-author of 12 previous books, including The Political Economy of a Living Wage (2016), and scholarly articles on the history of political economy.

About this book
This book offers a new interpretation of the Employment Act of 1946.  It argues that in addition to Keynesian economics, the idea of a living wage was also part of the background leading up to the Employment Act.  The Act mandated that the president prepare an Economic Report on the state of the economy and how to improve it, and the idea of a living wage was an essential issue in those Economic Reports for over two decades. The author argues that macroeconomic policy in the USA consisted of a dual approach of using a living wage to increase consumption with higher wages, and fiscal policy to create jobs and higher levels of consumption, therefore forming a hybrid system of redistributive economics. An important read for scholars of economic history, this book explores Roosevelt’s role in the debates over the Employment Act in the 1940s, and underlines how Truman’s Fair Deal, Kennedy’s New Frontier and Johnson’s Great Society all had the ultimate goal of a living wage, despite their variations of its definition and name.

Table of contents
1 The Hybrid System of Redistributive Economics 1
    Macroeconomic Policy and a Living Wage 2
    Paul H. Douglas and the Hybrid System of Redistributive Economics 13
    Conclusion 20
    References 23
2 Background of the Employment Act I: A Living Wage 27
    The Political Economy of a Living Wage 28
    Collective Bargaining 33
    Macroeconomic Policy 38
    A Minimum Wage 40
    Social Insurance 42
    The New Deal: Reform and Recovery 44
    Roosevelt and Keynes 48
    Fiscal Policy Expands Under Roosevelt 53
    Conclusion 56
    References 61
3 Background of the Employment Act II: Keynesian Economics 67
    Keynes and the Theory of Employment 68
    Keynes and Wages 71
    Keynes and Fiscal Policy 79
    Slichter and the Adjustment to Instability 85
    Clark Appraises Fiscal Policy 87
    Keynes and World War II 88
    Hansen Accepts Keynes 90
    Samuelson Synthesizes Keynes 92
    Keynesian Economics and Collective Bargaining 94
    Conclusion 96
    References 101
4 Background of the Employment Act III: An Economic Bill of Rights 105
    Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights 107
    Roosevelt Accepts Keynes: The Nation’s Budget 115
    The CIO Proposes a Guaranteed Wage 117
    Keynesians Criticize the Guaranteed Annual Wage 120
    Wallace Promises 60 Million Jobs 123
    Conclusion 126
    References 130
5 The Political Economy of the Employment Act of 1946 135
    The Postwar Economy, 1945–1950 136
    Truman Takes Over 137
    The Legislation of the Employment Act 140
    Truman’s First Economic Report 146
    Hansen Criticizes the Economic Report 147
    Truman’s Second Economic Report 148
    The First JEC Report 150
    Truman Promises a Fair Deal 151
    Truman’s Subsequent Economic Reports 152
    JEC Reports by Democrats 154
    The New Republic Comments on the Economic Reports 154
    The Union Response to the Economic Reports 156
    Congress Raises the Minimum Wage 156
    Truman, the Employment Act and Economic Justice 160
    Conclusion 162
    References 165
6 Kennedy’s New Frontier: Tax Cuts and Wage Policy 169
    The 1950s, Eisenhower and a Conservative Approach to Keynesian Economics 170
    Hansen Looks Backward and Forward 175
    Kennedy and Economics 177
    Kennedy’s First Economic Report 180
    Kennedy’s Second Economic Report: The Case for Tax Cuts 186
    Hansen Supports the Tax Cuts 192
    Progressive Responses to Kennedy’s Economic Policies 194
    Conclusion 198
    References 202
7 The Age of Keynes in the Great Society 209
    The Economy in the 1960s 210
    The Tax Cuts 212
    The Great Society 216
    Signs of Inflation 219
    A Tax Surcharge 222
    The Hybrid System of Redistributive Economics 229
    Econo-mists, Keynesians and the Great Society 232
    Unions and the Great Society 234
    Conclusion 238
    References 242
8 The Decline and Revival of a Living Wage 247
    The Economy of the 1970s 250
    The Decline of Unions 253
    Social Insurance Stays Firm, For Now 261
    The Minimum Wage Falls 264
    The Decline of Keynesian Economics 266
    Econo-mists Return to the Living Wage 269
    The Revival of a Living Wage Movement 271
    Conclusion 276
    References 280
Index 285

Length: 290 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st ed. 2018 edition (October 30, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3030019977
ISBN-13: 978-3030019976