Joanna:> I'm so tired
> of being told that what the poor need is jobs. They mostly do have jobs,
> two jobs, three jobs.....and they're still poor. What would be even more
> in the public interest is an equitable division of goods and control
> over how money gets spent and on what.
It's common in economics to see most if not all arguments in favor of some program based on the jobs it will create as fallacious. I agree. The problem is that not only will project X (being advocated) produce jobs, but so will project Y (being ignored by the advocate). And project Y might be less expensive (either totally or per job) and more beneficial.
An example: anti-environmentalists advocate destroying old-growth forests because it creates jobs (among other things). This ignores the fact that environmentally-conscious policies might create as many jobs (per buck or totally) while allowing us greater harmony with the planet.
The main "jobs" argument is Keynesian: building pyramids might get the economy moving again during a 1930s-type depression. Even there, schools would be a better public works project.
Joanna is right about jobs here. If you look at official (open) unemployment rates, the jobs situation isn't _horrible_ compared to the Golden Age of the 1960s. Even if the unemployment rate is measured more accurately, the availability of jobs is far from the 1930s situation. However, the _quality_ of the jobs available has dropped precipitously.
It's getting to be like Mexico, where the open unemployment rate is very low (since the vast majority of people have jobs, finding it extremely difficult to survive without them) but the only decent jobs are hogged by a small minority. Economists try to get beyond this by measuring "underemployment" and "hidden unemployment"... -- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.