Since the 2016 presidential election, politicians have become enamored with policies intended to help the American worker. President Donald Trump issued a 2020 “Pledge to America’s Workers” in which he heralded past executive actions, such as those creating the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board and the National Council for the American Worker. President Biden has since embraced similar rhetoric and policies, such as his “worker centric” trade policy and an infrastructure law with “Buy America” rules that “create […] jobs for American workers.” And almost everywhere you go in Washington these days, you find a politician, bureaucrat, or wonk lamenting the supposed plight of today’s American worker and promising to fix it.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ensuring a Sound Macroeconomic Foundation
Facilitating Personal Improvement
Enabling Mobility and Independence
Improving Living Standards
Conclusion
The most common “pro-worker” policies today—heavy on government intervention in labor, trade, or other markets—suffer from critical flaws.
Recent trends in manufacturing, remote work, independent work, globalization, and other areas argue for new policies for a New American Worker. Instead of promoting a certain kind of job, promising cradle-to-grave protection from disruption, or presuming that the employment and lifestyle trends of today will last beyond tomorrow, policymakers should seek to maximize Americans’ autonomy, mobility, and living standards. This book identifies what Cato Institute scholars believe to be the most important market-oriented policies to achieve these objectives, on issues like education, labor regulation, licensing, housing, healthcare, childcare, criminal justice, and consumer necessities.
Each chapter identifies the problems facing American workers and suggests pro-market ways for federal, state, and local officials to better address these challenges.
Combined, these policies will give individuals the freedom and resources they need to be the American worker they want to be—not the one many policymakers think they should be—and to be happier and more prosperous in the process.
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