Friday, April 28th at Noon ET
ReImagine Appalachia was joined by speakers from Ohio River Valley Institute, Keystone Research Center and the Center for Economic and Policy Research to discuss what Full Employment for All could mean for Appalachia.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s time to remember that the dream also included a large-scale federal program to train and place all unemployed workers. Although the official statistics indicate that we are in a period of historically low unemployment, there are still millions of people who are willing to work but are not able to find a job. Appalachia in particular faces persistent gaps in employment.
In this session, we discussed job and other persistent economic trends that make Full Employment an especially promising concept for our region. With subsidized employment, the government covers some or all the wages of new hires. Scholars find that this is one of the most effective policies for putting people back to work. Increasing the employment rate of the most disadvantaged workers has been shown not only to benefit the workers and their families but also to have broad community-wide benefits.
As Dr. King wrote regarding the need for full employment, “We need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted.” We are a stronger nation when more people are working.
Presentations: