Robert J. Shapiro--How to Create New Jobs in a Troubled Economy
http://ndn.org/blog/2009/12/how-create-new-jobs-troubled-economy
So, the country has a serious problem with jobs, one which requires serious responses. A little more stimulus can play a role here, especially targeted to state governments whose labor forces are being squeezed between their falling revenues and balanced budget requirements. The cure for the private sector will have to involve stronger and more permanent measures that can directly reduce the cost to businesses of creating new jobs. Here's a start: Exempt from payroll taxes the first $3,000 to $5,000 of wages paid in each of the first two years to new hires by firms that expand their work forces. Since it would be a permanent measure that would reduce social security revenues, we should pay for it and use the new revenues to make the social security trust fund whole. We can do that by enacting a small "Tobin tax" on financial market transactions, equal to, say, one-quarter of one percent of the value of trades, and pressing other major countries to do so as well. James Tobin, the Nobel laureate who first proposed such a tax for currency trades, noted it could help reduce destabilizing currency speculation. Given the recent crisis, slowing down speculation seems like the right medicine for stocks and bonds today. And at such a low rate, it shouldn't affect long-term investment, especially if other financial-center countries go along. And if we don't take strong measures, we will almost certainly find ourselves grappling with serious problems with job creation for many years.
http://ndn.org/blog/2009/12/how-create-new-jobs-troubled-economy
So, the country has a serious problem with jobs, one which requires serious responses. A little more stimulus can play a role here, especially targeted to state governments whose labor forces are being squeezed between their falling revenues and balanced budget requirements. The cure for the private sector will have to involve stronger and more permanent measures that can directly reduce the cost to businesses of creating new jobs. Here's a start: Exempt from payroll taxes the first $3,000 to $5,000 of wages paid in each of the first two years to new hires by firms that expand their work forces. Since it would be a permanent measure that would reduce social security revenues, we should pay for it and use the new revenues to make the social security trust fund whole. We can do that by enacting a small "Tobin tax" on financial market transactions, equal to, say, one-quarter of one percent of the value of trades, and pressing other major countries to do so as well. James Tobin, the Nobel laureate who first proposed such a tax for currency trades, noted it could help reduce destabilizing currency speculation. Given the recent crisis, slowing down speculation seems like the right medicine for stocks and bonds today. And at such a low rate, it shouldn't affect long-term investment, especially if other financial-center countries go along. And if we don't take strong measures, we will almost certainly find ourselves grappling with serious problems with job creation for many years.