“The key response must initially be to expand the earned-income tax credit<br />and then ultimately have a universal basic income ensuring at least subsistence,” said Robert Reich, public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who was labor secretary under President Clinton.<br />“If the private market isn’t creating the jobs people need, then the public sector should engage in direct job creation,” said Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center on Budget<br />and Policy Priorities, who was chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden.<br />“How to make the forces of technology and globalization work for people<br />and not against them is the biggest public policy challenge in America,” Mr. Kessler said.<br />One camp suggests raising corporate taxes while lowering income taxes for workers,<br />but another proposes cutting or eliminating the corporate income tax and raising personal income tax rates instead.<br />“People in the rest of the country have good jobs-producing ideas, too,” said Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at Third Way.<br />He said the technique “has a better track record than people think.” A recent study by the Georgetown Center on Poverty<br />and Inequality examined 40 programs over 40 years, and found they were successful at things like improving workers’ skills and reducing their dependence on public benefits.
