Bill Clinton on America's Jobs Crisis
Stephen Gandel:
How would Bill Clinton solve America's jobs crisis?: [Clinton] started out by saying we are in a difficult situation. The key lesson from the Great Depression was that you can't stop stimulus spending too soon. It takes a while and it's expensive for government to create jobs. And in the 1930s and 1940s the US went into a lot of debt. The difference, though, Clinton says, is back then America was able to finance its own debt. When the US sold bonds to build bridges, those bonds were bought by other Americans, who had the savings and felt they had the duty to buy Uncle Sam's paper. That's not what happens when America sells bonds now. Instead they are bought by foreign governments... and continues to fuel the global imbalances.... So Clinton says stimulus spending is not the option it once was. So what should we do instead? Clinton has a four point plan.
First of all, he said we should emphasize exports more....
Two, we have to restructure unemployment insurance so that it prevents job loss... put a portion of the unemployment insurance premiums that workers pay into a trust that companies can draw on to avoid layoffs. Third, Clinton thinks we need to sign onto global climate trade treaties.... Lastly, the former President said we need to reform our immigration policies. If we have a structural unemployment problem in the US, meaning that we have a mismatch between skills and jobs, then allowing skilled workers to come in from other countries might get companies to hire. Those people get jobs. They spend money. And that creates other jobs. Some of them may start their own companies, in the US, rather than where they currently live...
