Federal Jobs Programs

Report Outline
Unemployment Dilemma
History of Jobs Programs
Current Debate in Congress

Unemployment Dilemma

Growimg Pressure on Congress to Respond

The Debate over whether the federal government should create jobs to ease unemployment during economic downturns dominated the stormy lame-duck session of Congress. Motivated by unemployment statistics that had reached double digits for the first time since the Great Depression, congressional Democrats and many Republicans supported a variety of jobs bills introduced during the four-week special session. They even went so far as to attempt to attach a jobs bill to the continuing resolution needed to keep the government running. President Reagan's threat to veto such a resolution, which would have led to a partial shutdown of the government, caused jobs-bill advocates to back down at least until the 98th Congress convenes in January. But even the president supported passage of a 5-cent increase in the federal gasoline tax, which was touted for its job-creating potential.

In keeping with his conservative philosophy, Reagan has long been opposed to federal job-creation programs. In a Dec. 16 interview with Washington Post reporters Lou Cannon and David Hoffman, Reagan said: “All of our past experience shows that make-work jobs programs in the past, whatever they did in creating eventually some employment, usually it was so late that recovery had already taken place or was well under way…. Also, the taking of those funds from the economy to be used by government in that way resulted in uncounted unemployment in other sectors of the economy…. You simply shifted the jobs from one group to another.”

For the first 22 months of the Reagan administration, Congress generally went along with the president's opposition to “make-work” programs. But Republican losses in the mid-term congressional elections last November, which many political analysts attributed at least in part to opposition to Reagan's economic policies, seemed to light a fire under the legislators.