It is time to report John McCain’s answer to the question on the minds of many voters this year:  “What would you do to reverse the decline in jobs and wages?’ 

The urgency around this question increased with the August job numbers reported on Friday:  Another 84,000 jobs were lost, totally over 600,000 so far this year.  Unemployment is up to 6.1 percent.  Even that number understates the size of the problem.  If the number of part-time workers who can’t find full time jobs, the number of discouraged workers who want to work but have given up looking for a job, and the number marginally attached to the labor force are added to the official unemployment number, more than 10 percent of labor force can’t find a job that meets their minimal needs.
           

            So it is not surprising that this question is registering loud and clear with all candidates running for office this year.  John McCain mentioned it specifically in his acceptance speech, using examples from several workers and families struggling with unemployment, multiple jobs, and rising health costs.

            His answer starts with his tax policy, aimed at fostering job growth through business growth, particularly growth of small business.  He would continue the tax cuts enacted during the Bush Administration and cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.  He would also enact and make permanent a 10 percent tax credit for investment in research and development.  So his major strategy is to stimulate job growth through entrepreneurship, innovation, and business growth.

            In his acceptance speech Senator McCain also noted the need to modernize the nation’s unemployment insurance system and to simplify and expand training programs.  He noted that unemployment insurance was designed for a 1950’s economy, largely to deal with temporary layoffs of male breadwinners who had a reasonable chance of being recalled to their old jobs when the economy improved.  While Senator McCain has provided the details of how he would reform the unemployment insurance system, he has suggested the need to help workers move to new jobs with more training assistance and perhaps to provide some form of wage insurance—subsidies that make up the difference in the wages of the job lost and the job found. 

            John McCain’s policy papers also speak to one other pressing labor market issue:  the need for greater flexibility and choice for workers to balance their work and family responsibilities. He notes he supported passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993 and further supports a bill that would allow businesses and workers to substitute time off (“comp time”) in lieu of overtime pay after 40 hours of work. 

He further calls for creation of a bi-partisan  National Commission on Workplace Flexibility and Choice to advise him  on “how modernizing our nation’s labor laws and training programs can help workers better balance the demands of their job with family life and to enable workers to more easily transition between jobs.”  The Commission would be asked to explore ways of modernizing labor laws to promote flexible scheduling, tele-work, homework and benefit portability.

            So the good news is that both parties and candidates have jobs and labor market policy issues on their agendas.  The Democrats have a broader and more ambitious set of specific policy actions (see my August 27^th blog); the Republicans take a more indirect approach of using tax policy to stimulate business growth and look to training, labor market adjustment, and flexibility in balancing work and family lives to help workers better navigate the changing world of work.

            The differences in substance, focus, and approach provide voters with a clear choice.  Which one sounds right to you?