A Serious Jobs Program

I am taken aback, to say the least, that I have yet to see a “serious” jobs program offered for our widely proclaimed “jobs crisis.”  We hear mainly Keynesian rhetoric and the wrong policy proposals: Keynesians warn we must increase aggregate demand so that there are more jobs to make the products in greater demand. Also we must continue unemployment insurance to bolster aggregate demand, and, by the way, the unemployed spend every penny, so we get a larger multiplier. On the other side, we get good advice: Economic growth creates jobs; so we must craft a pro-growth fiscal policy which in the long run will create jobs. This position is correct but it offers long-term rather than short term solutions.