History has shown full employment does not work. The most famous example being communist countries such as the USSR. They achieved full employment, except that it was mostly useless labor. Sure, you have a job. But your job is to count buckets of nails by hand all day. When you're done with that you go back to the beginning and count them again. You'll get paid a pittance for your trouble. However, I would not call this "valuable work". Or, work that the article supposes would provide someone some meaning.
> So far, a hundred and twelve people have used the Job Guarantee, as the program is known, to find work; at least fifty more are expected to do so before 2024, when the program is scheduled to end. Participants complete an eight-week training course, then receive a job offer; they’re free to decline it without losing their unemployment benefits, but so far everyone who’s been offered a job has chosen to work.
This is insane on principle when scaled up to a society. You can get trained, be offered a job (under the assumption of livable pay), and then can refuse it and stay on the government tit? NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. This will never work. It's the BS machinations of an overeducated academic trying to prove a point. If you accept tax payer funded job training you should be obligated to take the first job, in that field, that pays you the minimum liveable wage. Otherwise it's anarchy.
> Sven Hergovich, the regional director of the Public Employment Service of Lower Austria, essentially agrees with this analysis. He thinks that rising demands for productivity and efficiency mean that, now and in the future, not everyone will be able to find a job without support. “There are not sufficient jobs available for all of the long-term unemployed,” he told me. “In fact, we have only two options. Either we finance long-term unemployment, or we create a job guarantee.”
Some people are useless. This is not any different than any other time in history. There are people who, if it wasn't for menial work, would actually be fundamentally useless by the definition of the term. The internet calls these people NEETS. They are generally burdens on society and IMO we should just let nature run it's course. They will either starve or skill up. Either way, society wins.