On Reconstructing the Foundations of Policy Toward the Unemployed

Abstract

From the very beginning, the labor force concepts employed in the Current Population Survey have been viewed as measures of the supply of labor. [Bancroft, p. 188] Further, the concept of unemployment in the CPS has been seen as measuring the extent of unutilized labor immediately available in the economy. [Stein, p. 1409] The CPS focuses on activity; that is, on what the person was doing during a specific week. Thus, information on the type of work done by the employed and the unemployed and the industry in which they labor has been regularly collected, extensively analyzed, and routinely reported for more than 40 years. Over the years, the distinction between workers as persons and the other factors of production as objects has been blurred more and more by the objectification of those who work. The term resources reflects and promotes this blurring of critical differences. Cost benefitting human capital and physical capital with the same analytical techniques is further evidence of the reduction of workers to objects. Indeed, if workers commonly were perceived more as persons and less as objects, would humanizing work be a central issue in labor relations? Today, workers are seen as factors of production who (which?), when? ever they are idled through unemployment, effect a loss of production and national income. At the same time, however, there are other perceptions of the worker that influence economic policy regarding unemployment. Burns identi? fies three: (1) human being in need, (2) potential contributor to eco? nomic output, and (3) threat to the incomes of others. [Burns, pp. 275 279] In a word, these attitudes can be reduced to needing,